dream on any further. To his thinking she was still engaged to the lord, and it would be better for her that she should marry the lord. The lord no doubt was a fool, and filled the most foolish place in the world,--that of a silly faineant earl. But he would do no harm to his daughter, and the girl would learn to like the kind of life which would be hers. At present she was very, very ill, but still there was hope for recovery. By the treasury of the theatre she had been treated munificently. Her engagement had been almost up to the day fixed for her marriage, and the money which would have become due to her under it had been paid in full. She had sent back the latter payments, but they had been returned to her with the affectionate respects of the managers. Since she had put her foot upon these boards she had found herself to be popular with all around her. That, she had told herself, had been due to the lord who was to become her husband. But Rachel had become, and was likely to become, the means of earning money for them, and they were grateful. To tell the truth, Lord Castlewell had had nothing to do with it. But gradually there came upon them the conviction that her voice was gone, and then the payment of the money ceased. She, and the doctor, and her father, had discussed it together, and they had agreed to settle that it must be so. "Yes," said the girl, smiling, "it is bitter. All my hopes! And such hopes! It is as though I were dead, and yet were left alive. If it had been small-pox, or anything in that way, I could have borne it. But this thing, this terrible misfortune!" Then she laughed, and then burst out sobbing with loud tears, and hid her face. "You will be married, and still be happy," said the doctor. "Married! Rubbish! So much you know about it. Am I ever to get strong in my limbs again, so as to be able to cross the water and go back to my own country?" Here the doctor assured her that she would be able to go back to her own country, if it were needed. "Father," she said, as soon as the doctor had left her, "let there be an end to all this about Lord Castlewell. I will not marry him." "But, my dear!" "I will not marry him. There are two reasons why I should not. I do not love him, and he does not love me. There are two other reasons. I do not want to marry him, and he does not want to marry me." "But he says he does." "That is his goodness. He is very good. I do not know why a man should be so good who has had so bad a bringing up. Think of me,--how good I ought to be, as compared with him. I haven't done anything naughty in all my life worse than tear my frock, or scold poor Frank; and yet I find it harder to give him up, merely because of the grandeur, than he does to marry me, the poor singing girl, who can never sing again. No! My good looks are gone, such as they were. I can feel it, even with my fingers. You had better take me back to the States at once."