after all touch either her pupil or herself. Just then the servant, going away after he had placed the lamp, uttered a cry of alarm, and seemed to fall back against the wall, letting go the handle of the door. Miss Hofland started up, feeling that if anything dreadful came in here, into this warm and pleasant place, all the comfort would not make up for such an interruption. She rose so hurriedly that her chair turned over, coming down with a muffled sound on the carpet, and turned her startled face towards the door. Mrs. Asquith had just come in, looking very pale and excited, leaning upon the arm of--no, she was not leaning, she was guiding him with her hand through his arm--a tall, slim man with a strange grey coat, too large for him, and wrapping over his shadowy thinness, a long face, with large projecting eyes, grizzled hair hanging wildly, a ragged beard, and drooping, melancholy moustache hiding the outlines of the tremulous mouth. He had a bewildered, dazed look, and turned his head slowly from side to side, as if he scarcely saw, and did not know where he was. And before a word could be said, almost before the attention of the girls had been roused, or Miss Hofland’s cry of alarm got vent, the housekeeper rushed into the room. She swept into it like a whirlwind, and placed herself at the other side of that strange figure. “Sir, sir!” she cried, “you must go back, you must go back--you must not be seen here!” “John!” cried Mrs. Asquith, “don’t give way to her; this is your house, and here is your child.” He turned his face from one side to the other, shrinking a little from the housekeeper, yet making a step back as if in obedience--appealing to Mary, yet drawing his arm away from hers in a self-contradictory movement, opening his mouth but only with a gasp, saying nothing. Mrs. Mills put her hand upon his sleeve. “Come back, sir,” she said; “come back, oh! come back to your own comfortable room, where things are fit and proper for you. My mistress would break her heart if she thought you were here. Oh, sir, come back! You know what my mistress would say, and that it’s all for your good. What does she think of night and day but for your good?”