"Poor Jim!" she said to herself; "poor fellow! going to grief, is he? in debt and dropping his money, like a young fool as he is. And that nice girl, too, so fresh and jolly and countrified and innocent! Lord help us! What are you at, Kitty, you idiot why should those things give you a twinge? Steady, now; it's not often your heart buck-jumps like that. They'll go all right, those though, if Jim can only be put square. And that he shall be! What's the use of my hoarding in my old stocking; it'll never be any good to me; and so I may as well have the pleasure of helping somebody else. Scadgers, that was the name; I'll get that put right at once. Scadgers! I wonder where he lives. However, that'll be easily found out. Poor Jim! what a good husband he'll make that rosy-faced girl!" What was it that made Kate Mellon's head drop on her hands, and the tears ooze through the fingers covering her eyes? Not the thought of Mr. Prescott's marrying some one else surely, for had she not resolutely snubbed his proposals? Certain it is that she remained with her head bowed for full ten minutes, and that when she looked up, her face was tear-dabbled and her eyes red and swollen. She took no heed of her appearance, however, but walked into the house, and pulling out her gaudy blotting-book, she scrawled a long letter, which, when finished, she addressed to "E. Churchill, Esq., _Statesman_ Office, E.C." CHAPTER XXVIII. TIGHTENING THE CURB. The garden-party at Uplands had a serious effect on the household in Great Adullam Street. Of course the actual disturbance, the state of warfare engendered by what Frank Churchill imagined he had seen take place between his wife and Captain Lyster in the shrubbery, did not last long. When Barbara swept up to her bedroom from the hired brougham, Frank retreated into his little snuggery and lit his old meerschaum-pipe, and sat gazing vacantly through the smoke-wreaths, and pondering on the occurrences of the day. He could scarcely realise to himself what had passed; he could scarcely imagine that the woman to whom, twelve months since, he had sworn fealty, whose lightest whisper caused his pulse to throb, and who, on her part, had changed the whole style and current of her life for the sake of fulfilling her determination to be his and his alone, could have so far repented of that great crisis in her career as to listen to the compliments of another man, to receive, with evident satisfaction, his unqualified admiration, and to fly off in a rage, with fire in her eyes and bitter words on her lips, when her husband remonstrated with her on her conduct. Here were they, that "twain one flesh," that mysterious two-in-oner sitting under the same roof indeed, but in separate rooms; each thinking hard thoughts of the other, each with anger rife against the other, and with harsh words applied to each other yet ringing in their ears. Great Heavens! thought Frank, was this what he had fondly