“Oh, for the silvery ring of my own Broadwood!” exclaimed Maude, as she rose from a struggle with a German rendering of “Polly, put the kettle on,” in seven flats, and ten pages of double arpeggios. “I wonder _who_ makes the pianos for houses that are let furnished? I’m sure they must all be made by the same man; and I suppose it’s a theory of his own that makes him always use damp wood, and put so much flannel into his trebles.--I wish papa would come and take us home, Julia.” Miss Hillary expressed this wish at least twenty times in a day; and Julia echoed it, as if out of pure sympathy. But Miss Desmond was not a very sympathetic person, and she was really anxious to get back to the neighbourhood of London and Francis Tredethlyn. Nearly a fortnight had passed since the Cornishman had been to Brighton, and Julia was terribly conscious that the link which united him to her was very fragile, and might be broken by any unlucky hazard--unless, indeed, his constancy were sustained by a chivalrous sense of honour. She had as yet had no opportunity of discovering his sentiments on this subject, and she had a vague idea that a small farmer’s son, who had taken the Queen’s shilling, would be unlikely to entertain the same splendid notions of truth and loyalty that glowed in the breasts of his superiors. “I know that he’s a very good fellow,” Julia thought; “and I don’t suppose he would steal anything, or tell a deliberate falsehood; but I dare say he would think it no sin to throw me over at the last moment if----” There was a point at which Miss Desmond’s reveries always stopped short. She did not care to think about that which Francis Tredethlyn might like to do, even if he were free to do as he liked. Mr. Hillary came home very late upon the evening of an especially disagreeable day. He came down to Brighton by the mail train, and arrived at the hired mansion just as the two girls were gathering together the gold beads and Berlin wools, preparatory to going to bed. But though the merchant had been so much longer away than usual, he seemed in no particular hurry to embrace his daughter; for instead of coming up to the drawing-room, he walked straight to a dreary little study at the back of the house, which had been set apart for his use. Maude had heard the sonorous knock at the big street door, and flew out of the drawing-room to greet the traveller. “At last, dear papa!” she cried. “We have been as dull and dreary as a pair of Marianas in a moated grange. Oh, you darling papa! I am so glad you have come! Please take us home to Twickenham: we’ve had _such_ weather; we’re as helpless and miserable as those poor working people who go about singing so dreadfully flat when there’s a hard frost. ‘We are two lonely single girls, and we’ve got no work to do!’” sang Miss Hillary, with the established nasal drawl, as she skipped down the stairs.