that Martha should consider herself as engaged to him, and that the flirtations with "the other fellows" should be at once discontinued. Martha consented, and acted up both to the spirit and the letter of the agreement; but flirtation with Martha Hall had become such a habit with the officers quartered at Canterbury that it could not be given up all of a sudden; no matter how little the maiden might respond, the gallant youths still frequented the shop, and still paid their court in their usual clumsy but unmistakably marked manner. Alexis Derinzy, worried at this, and also feeling it uncommonly hard that he should not be able to boast of having secured the heart and the proximate chance of the hand of the most sought-after girl in Canterbury, mentioned his engagement, in the strictest confidence, to three or four of his brother officers, who, under the same seal, mentioned it to three or four more. Thus it happened that in a few days the story came to the ears of the adjutant of the depôt, who was a great friend of the Derinzy family, and at whose instigation it was that Alexis had been placed in the army. Captain Branscombe was still a young man, but he had had ripe experience of life, and he knew that it would be as truly useless, under the circumstances, to reason with the love-stricken cornet, as to make application anywhere but to the highest domestic authorities. To these, therefore, he represented the state of affairs--the result of his representation being that Mr. Paul Derinzy, the elder brother of the cornet, came down to Canterbury by the coach the next day, and straightway sought an interview with the Dean. Then Robert Hall was summoned to the diaconal presence, out of which he came swearing strange oaths, and looking very flushed and fierce. Later in the afternoon he was waited upon at his own house in the precincts by Mr. Paul Derinzy, who had a very stormy ten minutes with Martha, and then made his way to the barracks. Mr. Paul Derinzy remained in Canterbury for two days, during every hour of which, save those which he passed in bed, he was actively employed. The results of the mission did credit to his diplomatic talents. Alexis Derinzy sent in an application for sick leave, which being promptly granted, he quitted Canterbury without seeing Martha Hall, though he tried hard to do so; and did not rejoin until the regiment, safely arrived from India, was quartered at Hounslow. When Mr. Paul Derinzy was staying in Canterbury, it had been noticed by the neighbours that he had called once or twice on Stothard the stonemason, who has already been described as having been madly in love with Martha Hall; and Stothard had returned the visit at Paul's hotel. In the course of a few weeks after the "London gentleman's" departure, Stothard announced that he had inherited a legacy of a couple of hundred pounds from an old aunt. No one had ever heard any previous mention of this relative, nor did Stothard enter