way, that comes from the party--everybody likes that.” He helped to lift the basket into the phaeton almost with reverence. The feast of last night became beautiful to him in this light. How many had he seen, much more delicate and costly, of which the fragments went to the dogs, nobody dreaming of the “poor folk!” Mr. Selby put Liddy upon her horse while the young stranger was helping with the basket, and this he felt to be a sacrifice on his part, in consonance with the kind and homely charity that breathed about the place. Then Philip Selby promised to walk over to join his wife in the afternoon, and the party went off, Mrs. Selby in advance, talking cheerily to her horse, bidding him to get on, and not bother her with a whip. Liddy and the young man set out soberly together. They did not say much for the first mile or two. Now that they were alone together they were a little abashed by each other. He thought her the prettiest girl he had ever seen--which was by no means the case, for Liddy, though very pretty, was not a wonder of loveliness; and she thought him, with more reason, the finest gentleman that had ever came across her path. She asked herself how it was that he was so different from Raaf Selby? but could not make any reply. He was like nobody she had ever seen. “This is what a gentleman is, a real gentleman, the kind that goes to Court and sees the Queen; the kind that is in Parliament and rules the country; the kind that everybody tries to be like, and that Raaf Selby would fain be taken for--he!” Liddy said to herself; and she was abashed, and did not talk much to her companion. Indeed it was not till they were near the White House that she ventured to ask a question which had been long on her lips. “Are you a member of Parliament, Mr. Brotherton?” “Oh, no,” he said, laughing; “it is my father you are thinking of. I have never attained that dignity. I ought to have told you more about myself before I asked admittance; but Mrs. Selby was so kind. I am a briefless barrister, if you know what that is.” “A lawyer with nothing to do,” said Liddy; “one reads about them in books.” Young Brotherton laughed. “It is as good a definition as another,” he said; “but sometimes it means only some one who has pretended to study for a profession which is all a pretence together, and never comes to anything. That is my case: and I have been wandering over all the world.” “In Italy?” asked Lydia, with eager eyes. “Oh, yes. You are fond of Italy? I daresay we shall find we have sympathies on that point. My mother is a great devotee; she would live there all the year round if we would let her. I wonder which is your favourite spot.” “Oh!” cried Lydia, with all her heart in her voice, “I have no favourite spot; I only know it by name. Italy is where everything happens--all the stories are there: and besides,” she added, “I have a private reason too.”