influential families to hear you sing some evening, which might prove useful to you. Of course I cannot expect you to part with your daughter, as she will so soon have to quit you (I mentioned her to my friend Lady Babbycome, but she was provided with a governess), and wish you to understand my invitation extends to her also. “I am, dear Madam, ever your very sincere friend, “Sarah Matilda Lombard. “P.S.--Would your son like to go to Norfolk Island for fourteen years? I think I know a way of sending him free of expense. The climate is said to produce a very beneficial effect on the British constitution; and with a salary of sixty pounds a year, and an introduction to the best society the Island affords, a young man in your son’s circumstances would scarcely be justified in refusing the post of junior secretary to the governor.” “Is the woman mad?” exclaimed Lewis impetuously, as he finished reading the foregoing letter, “or what right has she to insult us in this manner?” “Insult us, my dear,” replied Mrs. Arundel quickly, disregarding a deprecatory look from Rose. “Lady Lombard has answered my note informing her that I wished for musical pupils with equal kindness and promptitude. Mad, indeed! she is considered a very superior woman by many people, I can assure you, and her generosity and good nature know no bounds.” “Perish such generosity!” was Lewis’s angry rejoinder. “Is it not bitterness enough to have one’s energies cramped, one’s free-will fettered by the curse of poverty, but you must advertise our wretchedness to the world, and put it in the power of a woman, whose pride of purse and narrowness of mind stand forth in every line of that hateful letter, to buy a right to insult us with her patronage? You might at least have waited till you knew you had no other alternative left. What right have you to degrade _me_, by letting yourself down to sue for the charity of _any one?_” “Dearest Lewis,” murmured Rose, imploringly, “remember it is mamma you are speaking to.” “Rose, I do remember it; but it is the thought that it _is_ my mother, my honoured father’s widow, who, by her own imprudence, to use the mildest term, has brought this insult upon us, that maddens me.” “But, Lewis,” interposed Mrs. Arundel, equally surprised and alarmed at this unexpected outburst, “I cannot understand what all this fuss is about; I see no insult; on the contrary, Lady Lombard writes as kindly----” An exclamation of ungovernable anger burst from Lewis, and he appeared on the point of losing all self-control, when Rose, catching his eye, glanced for a moment towards her father’s portrait. Well did she read the generous though fiery nature of him with whom she had to deal: no sooner did Lewis perceive the direction of her gaze, than, by a strong effort, he checked all further expression of his feelings, and turning towards the window, stood apparently looking out for some minutes. At length he said abruptly--