Oh, Lancelot, Lancelot, you are very cruel! Excuse these egotistic outpourings. My heart is very full.

Your miserable and ashamed

NORA.

Pembridge Square, April 6th.

MY DEAR AGNES,

Accept my very warmest congratulations on your engagement to Mr. Dalrymple, and my best wishes for that joint edition of Plato, which I fully expect will set the whole world of learning on fire. You cannot, dear, imagine how refreshing it is to hear of happy people; to reflect that after all there is sometimes such a thing as happiness in the world. I have not written before because I have not had the heart; I have been very miserable. After that unhappy evening at the Cunliffes', things got worse and worse. I was continually meeting Mr. Broke, and each time we met only served to confirm to me the discovery I had made too late. There may be better men (personally I don't think there are), but Stephen Broke is the one man in the world for me. Is love blindness or increased vision, I wonder?

As for Mr. Broke, I think he has altogether ceased to regret the answer I gave him that night in the conservatory. I cannot help believing that he was sorry-yes, really sorry-at first, and that his very pronounced delight in the society of Sybil Juniper was not quite genuine. It is genuine enough now. He is always with her, is always to be found where she goes.

Is constancy confined to the dull people, to the Dobbins of this great Vanity Fair, I wonder? But who am I to talk of constancy?

As chance would have it, I saw a great deal of Reginald Talbot during his stay in London. The Fates, who are vulgar enough to enjoy a practical joke, decreed that I, of whose presence he had formerly seemed supremely unconscious, should suddenly become to him an object of some interest.

He is not in our set, but I saw him continually in Cavendish Square (Mrs. Cunliffe suddenly acquired a sort of grande passion for me!), and when the Cunliffes went to Torquay last month they invited me to accompany them. Reginald Talbot, who is some connection and a great favourite, was also one of the party.

Oh, Agnes, we have often and often talked about the irony of Fate, but never before had I realised it to its full extent. Here was I walking with, talking with, passing my whole days in the society of a person, to catch a glimpse of whose unresponsive face I would once have walked from China to Peru. And now that he was here, continually beside me-now that his face was by no means

unresponsive—I could have seen him depart for ever without a pang; nay, I could have hailed his departure with delight, if it had been followed by the arrival of another person, on whom, at one time, I was wont, forsooth, to look down; whom I was fond of reproaching with a want of superfineness. And yet, even viewed dispassionately, Mr. Talbot is undoubtedly a pleasant and worthy person. He is cultivated, generous, kindly, intelligent; nevertheless, I was always conscious of a certain want in him.

Perhaps it is that his atmosphere is too rarefied for me, but do you know that he struck me at times as crude, colourless, a little cramped and academic? He is altogether too much in one's own notation, as you would phrase it. A woman likes to be deferred to, to have her ideas treated respectfully; but on the other hand she likes to be taken possession of, regulated, magnificently and tenderly scorned, even, at times. We have been slaves so long that we rather enjoy, metaphorically speaking, the application of a little brute force on the part of our lords and masters.

Don't faint, Agnes! and pray have a little mercy on Mr. Dalrymple. When there is a dispute about the Plato commentaries, whose version will be adopted? Do you not perceive that I am growing very sportive quite "gamesome," as Orlando puts it?—

"But if I laugh at any mortal thing,

"Tis that I may not weep. . . .

Ha, ha! I wax Byronic! Take my merriment for what it is worth, and let me proceed.

In spite, then, of the kindness of the Cunliffes and the very real pleasure I had in the society of Mr. Talbot, I was very miserable down at Torquay. I used to read 'Félise' almost every night, and cry over it about as often, especially over one verse:

"Let this be said between us here:

One love grows green when one turns grey;

This year knows nothing of last year;
To-morrow has no more to say

To yesterday."

Is it not a terrible poem ? and yet I think it is the story of many women's lives.

The day after I got home, a sad and surprising event happened. I received a letter from Mr. Talbot asking me to be his wife. I cannot tell you how it distressed and disturbed me. Perhaps my first feeling was one of profound irritation at the sorry trick the Fates had been playing me. Last year, if it were only last year! I thought and re-read the letter, which was indeed a model of fine feeling and delicate taste. Was I to send away love for the second

time?—the love of a good and upright man? Who knows how one's feelings may change?

Women generally do get to love their husbands more or less after a time, provided only the absence of certain positive evil qualities. This, as you know, is a doctrine I have always hated as unworthy of people with minds and souls, but now I found myself seriously considering it.

I had lost all faith in myself, my feelings, and even my "soul." Mr. Talbot will never know the narrow escape he had of being accepted. Finally I put the letter in my pocket and deferred answering it. I was going to a musical party that evening and would give myself time to consider it. The musical party decided me.

Stephen Broke was there, and, for the first time since that night, he came up and shook hands with me. I saw at a glance that Richard was himself again; he was politely cordial, though if anything a shade quieter than usual, but perhaps that was from an instinctive impulse not to indecently flaunt his newly-found freedom in my face. And it is only two months ago since But we move very rapidly in London.

But however that may be, I knew from the moment I touched his hand and looked into his face, that Reginald Talbot's fate was decided. If, after what has happened, I did not shrink from making any positive assertion about myself, I should say that Stephen Broke is not only the one man that I can, but also the one man that I have ever loved. One cannot love a shadow, you must acknowledge. I did not speak to Mr. Broke again that night—he was on the stairs with Sybil Juniper the whole time-but when I reached home I sat down and wrote off my letter unhesitatingly. I am sorry if I have given pain to any one so good and noble as Mr. Talbot; but the pain cannot, I think, be of long duration. He will see that he has made a mistake, that I was never worthy of him.

Oh, Agnes, do you smile at my pitiable plight? I confess myself that I cannot help smiling a little sometimes, though the situation is tragic enough.

In plain English, I have played the fool, and I am suffering for it. Between my two stools I have fallen most wofully to the ground. I dare say I shall get up again one day, and that even all trace of the bruises will have vanished, but that sort of reflection does not console one very much at the time.

Meanwhile I am left stranded. Every one is talking of the approaching engagement of Mr. Broke to Sybil Juniper; and Mr. Talbot has started for Rome.

You have had my full and free confession, and doubtless hold your own opinions, have come to your own conclusions on the subject.

But I should not like you to think that I am broken-hearted; by no means; I am only disgusted, sorry, and just a little sick of everything.

My best regards and best wishes to Mr. Dalrymple.
Your humbled and saddened

NORA.

P.S.-Oh, how my heart does ache in spite of the philosophic views! Heartache is worse than toothache even, and you know what Shakespeare says about that.-N. W.

Lady Anne Barnard at the Cape.

WHILE the present and future of our South African possessions are being so much discussed, a glance at the past of one small but important portion of them, taken by such a shrewd observer as Lady Anne Barnard, may have some interest.

When Lord Macartney went out as first English Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, in 1797, he took with him Mr. Barnard as Colonial Secretary, and Lady Anne accompanied them. "I was supposed to be a sort of binding cement," she says, "such, I presume, as the castles of antiquity were formerly made with: light, strong, and powerful towards associating together the scattered atoms of society." The task assigned her was no light one, but she was admirably fitted to accomplish it. From her Fifeshire birthplace she had brought a love of exercise and adventure, with those buoyant spirits for which the "light Lindsays " were proverbial; and she had acquired tact, grace, and knowledge of human nature in the best social circles of Edinburgh and London: add boundless kindness of heart and ready wit to these qualifications, and what more could be desired in a Vice-Queen?

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The Earl of Macartney's life had been one long lesson in diplomacy, from the time when, at twenty-seven, on his return from making the Grand Tour," he was sent as Envoy Extraordinary to the Empress of Russia. The offices of Chief Secretary for Ireland, "Governor of Toome Castle" (a sinecure worth a thousand a year), Governor of the Island of Granada, and Governor of Madras, were held by him in swift succession. He was made Ambassador Extraordinary to Pekin, the first time England attempted to open diplomatic relations with China; and soon after his return from a confidential mission to Italy, he received his appointment to the Cape of Good Hope. Lady Anne might well find a man of such literally world-wide experience "one of the best companions she ever met," especially as he was warmly attached to her husband. The gentlemen who had accompanied Lord Macartney on his other embassies saw his manner to Mr. Barnard with wonder. They had thought the Earl cold, political, and invulnerable. But, says Lady Anne, "they had never tried to gain his heart, though they had served him faithfully." Mr. Barnard, like his wife, had too affectionate and genial a disposition to maintain cold official relations towards any one,