women of deep feeling sooner or later must learn, to smile when the heart feels all but breaking, to force interest in the trivialities around one, when one's own life, or what may be dearer than life, seems hanging in the balance. At this stage of her history, such seeming she would probably have stigmatised as mere hypocrisy, not taking into account that unselfishness and worthy self-respect, as often as pride, furnish the motive for the wearing of that most tragic "des masques tragiques--celui qui avait un sourire." So, though her beauty and gentleness prepossessed many in her favour-- many even of those whose prejudices as well as curiosity had been aroused by the fact that the wife of the new master of Halswood was not exactly of their world, belonging, indeed, to one of "those dreadful manufacturing places, where the sun never shines for the smoke, and all the people drop their h's, you know"--Eugenia Chancellor did not make much way among her new acquaintances. The women allowed she was "pretty" and unassuming, but stupid or shy, they were not sure which. The men hooted at "pretty"--"lovely" or "beautiful" was nearer the mark--and hesitated about the "shy or stupid" suggestion, coming, however, in almost every case to allow that she was difficult to get on with--either "Chancellor bullied her at home," or she had married him without caring for him; that she was not happy was evident. At which proof of masculine discrimination, the wives and mothers held up their hands in scornful incredulity. It was "just like Fred, or Arthur, or `your papa,' to make a romantic mystery about her, because she is pretty. There is nothing plainer to see than that she is silent and stiff because she feels rather out of her element as yet. It is all strange to her, of course, having been brought up as she has been, and really she is to be felt for." But the "feeling for her," giving itself vent in one or two instances in the direction of a disposition to patronise, was not responded to; and after a while the temporary sensation on the subject of Mrs Chancellor died away, especially when it oozed out that Lady Hereward had not yet called at Halswood. Little cared Eugenia, as she ran upstairs to consult her lugubrious friend Mrs Grier on the subject of the prettiest and pleasantest rooms to be forthwith--fifteen days beforehand--prepared for her expected guests.