people whom she thought perfect failed to please their father? It would be thought to be the stepmother’s fault even before the stepmother appeared on the scene. Evelyn returned to her hotel after seeing her husband off, with a countenance not less grave than his, and a strong consciousness that the new troubles were about to begin. She had shaken off her old ones. As for that familiar distress of not having any money, it had disappeared like last year’s snow. It is a curious sensation to be exhorted to be extravagant when you have never had money to spend during your whole life, and there are few ladies who would not like to try that kind of revolution. Evelyn felt it exhilarating enough for a short time, though she had no extravagance in her; but she soon grew tired of the attempt to ruin her husband which gave him so much pleasure. She bought a few things both in Wardour Street and in the shop in Regent Street to which he had alluded, finding with a little trouble things that were not flimsy and diaphanous. But very soon she got tired, and by the third day it was strongly impressed upon her that to be alone, even with unlimited capacity of buying, is a melancholy thing. She had said to herself when she came to London that to recall herself to the recollection of old friends was the last thing she would desire to do. There was too much sorrow in her past: she did not want to remind herself of the time when she, too, used to come to London for the season, to do as everybody did, and go where everybody went. That was so long ago, and everything was so changed. But it is strange how the firmest resolution can be overset in a moment by the most accidental touch. She was sitting by herself one bright morning, languid, in the bare conventional sitting-room of the hotel, which was by no means less lonely because it was the best sitting-room, and cost a great deal of money in the height of the season. She had received a letter from her husband, in which she had been trying hard to read between the lines what were his ideas about his children, whether they had pleased him. The letter was a little stiff, she thought, guarded in its expression. “Archie is quite a man in appearance, and Marion a nice well-grown girl. They have had every justice done them so far as their health is concerned,” Mr. Rowland wrote; but he did not enter into any further details. Was he pleased? had the spell of nature asserted itself? did he fear her criticism, and had he determined that no one should object to them? Evelyn was much concerned by these questions, which she could not answer to her own satisfaction. The thing she most feared was the very natural possibility that he might resent her interference, and allow no opinion to be expressed on the subject, whatever might be his own. And it vexed her that he said nothing more, closed his heart, or at least his lips, and gave no clue to what he was thinking. It was the first time this had