And meanwhile, how many times has he been within the portals of the Anglo-Américain? With all his arithmetic he cannot make it more than twice. This neglect of his betrothed, however, is not of quite so monstrous a cast as at the first blush it may appear. It is she herself who, true to her life-long principle of shielding him from all disagreeable experiences, has forbidden him her door. He can aid her neither to bandage her father's swollen foot in the severe gout-fit under which he is groaning, nor to allay Sybilla's mysterious sufferings, which always display a marked increase in acuteness whenever any other member of the family shows a disposition to set up claims as an invalid. Cecilia, indeed, is ready enough to give her help in nursing her father, but she has on former occasions shown such an unhappy aptitude for tumbling over his swathed and extended leg, and upsetting his physic all over him, that she is received with such objurgations as his cloth will permit, so often as she shows her short nose within his sick-room. Only twice in a whole week. Can Amelia have wished to be taken quite so literally when she had bidden him stay away? There is only one answer possible to this question, and he shows his consciousness of it by at once raising himself out of the chair in which he is sunk, and turning his steps hastily towards her. It is morning. The east wind is clean gone, and the streets are full of the scent of the innumerable lilies of the valley, of which everybody's hands are full. He stops a minute and buys a great sheaf for a miraculously small sum, from one of the unnumbered sellers. It shall make his peace for him, if indeed it needs making, which it has never done yet. He almost smiles at the absurdity of the suggestion. He finds Cecilia alone in the sitting-room, Cecilia sitting by the window reading the _Queen_. Upon her large pink face there is a puzzled expression, which is perhaps to be accounted for by the fact that the portion of the journal which she is perusing is that entitled "Etiquette," and under it are the answers to last week's questions, upon nice points of social law, which, if you do not happen to have read the questions, have undoubtedly an enigmatical air, as in the following instances: "Your husband takes the Baronet's daughter, and you follow with the Prince."--"We do not understand your question--babies never dine out," etc. Upon Jim's entrance Cecilia lays down her paper, and at once offers to go in search of her sister, with whom she shortly returns. He had been quite right. There is no peace to make. Amelia greets him with her usual patient and perfectly unrancorous smile, but his second glance at her tells him that she is looking old and fagged. It is only in very early youth that vigils and worries and self-denials do not write their names upon the skin. "How--how pale you are!" he says. If he had given utterance to the word that hovered on his lips, he would have cried, "how yellow!"