He had been away from his native country for four years; during that time he had visited lands seldom trodden by European feet, and done one or two deeds that had already made his name known, and yet they had not troubled him with a single question respecting what he had seen or done; they had talked about their own affairs and quarrels with as entire an interest as if they were the only concerns of moment in the whole world. Nothing could have fallen in more completely with Sebastion's peculiar humour than this.

40

CHAPTER II.

"The chief thing is the government of the tongue as relating to discourse on the affairs of others and to the giving of characters. It were very much to be wished that this did not take up so great a part of conversation."

BISHOP BUTler.

RUTH was not very far wrong when she said that Caroline would forget all about her mother's troubles as soon as she was out of the house.

The house-door, shutting out, as it closed after Ruth, a view of the littered hall and the refractory children, looked very like a friendly barrier between herself and care. Caroline could hardly be blamed for turning her thoughts, with something of a self-congratulatory feeling, to her own prospects for the evening.

That she was seated in a handsome carriage, well-dressed herself, and actually on her road to the pleasures of an evening-party, were facts in themselves well worth realising and tasting thoroughly; it would have been a pity not to have drawn all the good out of them that they were capable of affording; and Caroline had time given her for silent enjoyment; no entertainment pleasanter than her own thoughts was likely to be offered by the companions now seated opposite to her.

Major Earle had noticed her entrance, apparently, for, as she stepped into the carriage, he had put out his hand and drawn the skirt of his daughter's white dress closer round her, as if to prevent its being spoiled by the touch of his niece's foot. He then pulled up the carriage-window with a jerk and subsided into his own corner of the carriage. Caroline would as soon have thought of attempting to draw a bone from the mouth of a petulant and snappish dog as of addressing

her uncle when he had given such decided intimation that he intended to be silent.

Her cousin, Alice Earle, leant back in the other corner of the carriage, and, though her looks were very far from suggesting the comparison called up by her father's, there was nothing in the expression of her face that encouraged Caroline to begin a conversation.

She had turned it to the window, though she was not looking out, and the lights from the street lamps, as they passed along, came and went upon it. Some people—but not such people as Caroline-would have found enough there to have occupied their thoughts during the drive. The delicate oval face, showing paler for its black wrapping, had the same sort of look upon it that a landscape has on a still moonlight night; deeply shadowed, but calm, and giving promise of having some quite different look when it had sunlight instead of moonlight to give back to the gazer.

Caroline knew this aspect of her cousin's face well, and it repelled her in the same way that some people are constrained to turn from the window on still summer nights and talk and laugh at their ease, with their faces towards the furnished room and the lighted candles.

The drive lasted long enough to give Caroline time to exhaust her pleasant thoughts, and begin to be fidgetty and fluttered because no one noticed her; she was one of those unlucky people who are made equally nervous by notice or neglect; but, at last, the carriage stopped before a large house a little way out of the town, where the brilliantlylighted windows and crowded carriage-drive gave tokens of a large evening party.

Major Earle jumped out of the carriage and walked into the house without waiting for the ladies; Alice followed him slowly, as if she were walking in her sleep; Caroline entered last, and as soon as she came under the full