when one was trained to it, to take it as the natural condition of affairs; but here, as in all other cases, it was the attempt to discriminate what was good and what was bad--what was mere frivolity and what had some human use in it, which was the difficult matter. The puzzle brought a look of wonder to Edgar’s brown eyes. “Are you going to Lady Thistledown’s to-night?” Harry Thornleigh would say to him; “it is a horrible bore.” “Why should you go then?” Edgar would answer. “My dear fellow, everybody will be there.” “And everybody will be bored,” said Edgar; “and if everybody survives it, will do the same to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow. Why don’t you do something that interests you, all you fellows?” “That would be a still more confounded bore,” said Harry. And what could the new man do but shrug his shoulders and give up the discussion? He himself was the only one perhaps among them who was not in the least bored. There was something even in Lady Thistledown’s party that occupied Edgar. Sometimes he was interested, sometimes amused, and sometimes very much saddened by what he saw. And then personal risks surrounded him, which he did not in the least understand or realise. “Lady Augusta is to be there, I suppose, and your sisters, so that I don’t think I shall be bored,” he had said to Harry Thornleigh in reference to this very party; and Harry said nothing, but opened his eyes very wide at this plain speaking. “Which of them is it, I wonder?” he mused to himself as he went off. “Gussy, I hope;” for Gussy was her brother’s favourite, and he felt it would be very pleasant, as Lady Augusta did, to have the pleasantest and brightest and most sweet-tempered of the girls settled so near as Arden. But in point of fact Edgar had no intention of settling any one at Arden. He was still quite faithful to his sister’s sway. If Clare were to marry and go away, then indeed he would no doubt feel the loneliness uncomfortable; but at present it would have seemed something like high treason to Edgar to dethrone his sister. Such an idea had never entered into his mind. But he was fond of Lady Augusta, who was like a mother to him, and he was fond of her daughter--indeed, of all her daughters--whom he regarded with the freshest and most cordial sentiment. He was always ready to get their carriage, to do anything for them. He was not afraid, as so many men were, to _affichér_ himself; and, therefore, as society does not understand brotherly affection on the part of a young man towards young women, everybody decided that one of the Thornleigh girls was to be his lawful owner. There was some difficulty in the common mind as to which was the fortunate individual; but Gussy was so distinctly indicated by the family for the post that naturally no one else had a chance against her. And this conclusion was really the most natural that could be drawn. Edgar, though he was so friendly and so frank, was yet in some