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’ she so far forgot herself as-to put it into DARK (CHAPTER III.â€"(Cont‘d) "f she can. forgive herself, she may ve well extend her forgiveness to you,” I answer, gathering up my billowy train in my hand as I stand beside him, look- ing very tall and slim and dignified out- wardly, but within feeling several de- grees smaller than I have ever felt in my life before. “For my part, I do not see how she can ever forgive herself." . “She need not blame herself," he says, coking down at_me from his superior eight with a smile which displeases me y reason of its undisguiscd amusement. “I do not suppose she blames herself very much,” I return deliberately, With the careless insolence with which I think to recover my own conceit. “It would be different, you know, if you wereâ€"" “Anything but a poor landscape pain- ter,” he interrupts, at _no loss to com- prehend my insolent pause. "She would never have dared to do it if she had thought him her equal. She‘ would never have, ventured to do it if she had dreamed of {his thrusting himself into the same society which she frequents.” His dark eyes have blazed up quite suddenly. I had not thought they'could change like that. 'Probably not; though I think she was more to blame'for that very reason,” I answer, with a slight, alomst impercep- tible movement of the shoulders. “I think so. I would rather take a. liberty with an equal than with an in- ferior myself,” he says quite quietly but with an indescribable inflection of oice which enrages me. I I “It was at liberty,” I ai'équiesoe, with cheeks which have deepened into crim- son again. "You are right when you call it at liberty. It.was a most uii- pardonable liberty." “I did not say so. I merely said that I should not presume on difference of rank to play a trick upon another per- sonâ€"that was what I said." “I played no trick upon you!” I ex- claim indignantly. "You!" he repeats, his face changing suddenly back from angry storin to amusement. “I never accused you! We are talking of another person.” “Oh, yes, of another person!” I agree, moving away with the insolently disdain- tul air which had infuriated him. ‘Of a person who ought to regret bitterly that your power to insult her.” ' He _is holding the‘bunch of violets still in his hand. As I turn away, he lets thcmfall, and sets his heel upon them. firinding them into the floor. I pity Mrs 'olleston’s' Brussels carpet more than I pity theyiolets, which have done me too ~mucli mischief to expect ,sympathy from me in their ignominous end. , “Ohhherc you are, Allie! We’ve been searching for you everywhere. Mamma is gOing home.” Olive comes up to me breathless, Gus, at some distance behind her, looking black as thunder. "I am ready," I-answer, without glance at my late companion. "Have you quarreled with your hand- some cavalier, Allie?” "Quarreled with him, Olive?" ,_“You looked as if you were quarreling like anything just now.” "I wonder Mrs. Rolleston cares to ask such people to her house, Olive. I don’t think that man has the smallest pre- tensions to be called a gentleman.” Olive laughs, looking at me. "Ah, I see you have uarreled!” she says shaking her head. lie, I’m afraid you are, 0mg to fall in love with Mr. Ger- ard axter.” For two days, even to myself, I ignore the eXistence of .Mr. Gerard Baxter. I Yer mention. his name to either Mrs. customer Mary Anne, nor do they: mention his name to me. fancy he is in the houseâ€"I fancy I hear his knock at the door sometimes; but I never look outâ€"I never listen for the sound of his vmce, I ractice a great deal, having romised Iadame Cronhelm to sing at er'concert, and Olive has lent .me ‘Pro- bation,” so that I do not find time hang heavily on my hands. I spend the morn- ings at Madame Cronhelm’s, and very often lunch with the Deanes. only coming back to Carleton Street at about four o’clock in the afternoon. It is cold. dis- agreeable weather, With an east Wind w ich reddens one’s nose and eyelids and makes my a 1 fire and hammock-chair very pleasant in the evenings, which would be getting shorter every day now, if I did not pull down the binds early, and .shut out the dull March tWilight. which is so cheerless and so long. One afternoon~the third since the Rol- lestones‘ .danceâ€"I hear a knock at the door, which I feel sure is Olive’s knock: and, having _my hat and jacket on.‘a_nd havmg promised not to keep her waiting if she called for me. I run down stairs to meet her in the hall. But, instead of Olive in her blue and cardinal dress, I come rather Violently against a young man in a drab-colored overcoat, who stands back to let me pass, pulling off his hat as he endeavors to place himself as flatly as ficssible against the wall. I recognize im in a moment, as I have no doubt he recognizes me. But I brush w Government ‘ Municipal and Corporation Bonds Correspondence Invited. ‘fiiNini. SEGUHITIES BURPUHATIUN, Limited. Hon. c. .i. Doberty, K.C., M.P., President. Rodolphe Forget, M.P., Vice-President. Geo. H. Gooderlinm, M.P.P., Vice-Preoidont. HEADEO rricz : 179 sr.JAME§’5TRsET MONTREAL. A SEVERE TRIAL; OR, THE MEMORY OF A BOY WITH “I am not much of a. hand at figures." Mr. Baxter says, without any pause of surprise, or anger, or embarrassment. “I never put them into my pictures if I can help it, and, when I do, I leave them as much as possible to the imagination. But I dare say I might suggest some characters, and then you could find out the dress they must wearâ€"or invent it.” for him on the ottoman beside her, and not observing .that he and I, whom she had seen dancing together, had taken no notice of each other. “That will be de- lightful; won’t it, Allie?“ "Very," I say shortly, and turn to Crauford Rolleston, who however is lis- tening to Mr. Baxter, and not to me. “We must take a lesson from the not- able I-Iannah Woolly,” he says, laughing. as he sinks into the place Katie has made for him. “Don’t you remember what she says in her book, printed in 1681, and quoted by Charles Lambâ€"‘Let all ingenious women have regard, when they work. any image, to work it aright. First let it be drawn wel‘: and then ob- sorvefihe directions which are given by knowmg men. I do assure you I neVer worked any story, or single person, with out informing myself both of the visage and. habit, as followeth. If you work Jupiter, he must have long curled black hair, a purple garment trimmed with gold, and siting upon in golden throne. With yellow clouds about him.’ ” "How did she ‘iuform herself’ of that?" Katie laughs. “That‘s what always puzzled me,” Ger- ard Baxter says gravely. "It is that which makes it all so delici- ous. Why don’t you go to the poets for charactersâ€""Maud Muller’ for instanceâ€" EYES. by him brusquely, without looking up. Before I have passed him, I regret ha.- ing so far forgotten myself, whatever his offense; but when I glance up, he is looking-straight before him, ignoring me as utterly as if I were the plaster figure of a boy with a basket on his head which stands before the window With the paint- ed blind of the landing. The whole inci- dcnt does not occupy half a minute-qt ls over almost before I am conscious that it has happened. But it leaves'an uncom- fortable impression on my mind, which I cannot shake off. I walk along the sunny , gloomy .old brown~brick street, looking out for Olive, whom I hope to meetlbe~ fore I reach the corner; but all the time I am wondering whether Mr; Gerard Bax- ter “out” me, or whether I might be sup‘ posed to have administered that process to him. I have acted with unpardonablc rudeness, no doubt; but, if I had bower to him, would he have dared to pretend not to see? Long after I meet. Olive Deane the question annoys meâ€"it fol- lows me into Madame Cronhelm'flhouse, into the great crowded class room. For the first time my music-lesson bores me: Hort von Konig’s illustrations of the weird melodious music of “Faust,” as compared with the silver-sweet cadences of Rossini, do not interest me; and Ma- dame Cronhelm accuses me rather sharp- ly once or twice of singing out of-tune. It is not till I find myself in the great untidy drawing-room at Dexter_Square, looking at Poppy‘s latest wedding pre- sent, that the uncon‘ifortable feeling-_of having acted untruly to myself begins to wear away, I exorcise it chiefly by a resolution not to treat Mr. Baxter. should I ever meet him again, as if I were in- deed thc “village maiden” With 'whose fancy for a.landscape-painter Olive is always taunting me. This evening, while .I am at dinner, Mrs. Wauchope comes in to ask me hm I liked a pudding she made for me, be- cause it used to be a favorite of mine Woodhay, when I was a ‘road of the “ ‘Maud Muller all the summer day Raked the meadow sweet with him’?” So they chatter and laugh, while I turn over the sketches on my lap in sulky si- lence. Suddenly Katie goes to one end of the room for a book and Crauford to a table for another; and for a moment we two are left alone on the great otâ€" toman, with nothing but the space of one empty velvet triangle between us. “Speak to me,” he says suddenly. in a half-whisper, bending his head to look intony face. “Why won't you speak to me. But I look at my pictures stubbornly, feeling that now it is my turn to make myself unpleasantâ€"if I can. “What have I done that you should send me to Coventry like this?” Even if I had been inclined, I have no time to answer him. Katie has come back ‘with a volume of Tcnnyson’in her hand. Crauford with Dorc‘s splendid “Dante,” and in another moment they are all por- long ago at Ling over the illustrations together, child. From the pudding our conve‘rsa- Katie's brown head very near Gerard tion wanders away to other mattersâ€"the Baxter’s dark one, while Crauford takes dearness of everything in London, how up his old position close to me. I am thus in a manner forced into their con- sultation, and, though I am playing a role \vhichlsuits me very ill, I cannot help being amused by it and laughing and sugesting with the rest. "So your handsome friend is coming to Madame Cronhelm's concert?” Olive says, on our way back to Carleton Street. "How do you know?" I ask carelessly. “He said so just now. He is coming With the_Rollestons. Do you know I fancy he is an admirer of Katie‘s-I saw their heads very close together over those prints of Dore’s. I do not like the suggestion; it vexes me all the evening, while I practice my concert-music, while I sit in my chair over the fire, reading the latest dispatch- es from Woodhay and Yattenden. while I muse with my feet on the fender, and ‘Probation” half-open on my knee. Mr. Baxter has been in his studio all the evening; he must have left the door open. for I can hear him whistling a bar of a song now and then. sometimes singing it in a desultory, .kind of way. Once, when I pause to listen, my door being also ajar, I can distinguish the words of a song I know: she manages in the way of catering for her lodgers. “I do the best I can for them,” she says, “especially for the poor young man upstairs. Another person might not trou- ble her head as to whether his beef~steak was tough or not; but I take just as much trouble about his meals as I do about your own. I’m not one to neglect a lodger because he cannot afford grand joints. Many a time I've gone out of my way to get a chop or a cutlct cheaper for him. though he’d never know itâ€"ay. and added a bit of my own to it too. In a house like this, where there is so much going, nobody would miss a couple of slices of butcher’s meat.” _ Is he perchancc fed from the jomt that left my table, this proud young man who had dared to tell me that I had taken a liberty in presenting him with a bunch of violets? The thought gives me plea- sureâ€"fills me with a little, small, wo- manly triumfih of which a man would have felt as 'amed. - . "I know he's hard up sometimes, poor lad!" Mrs. Wauchope goes on. “He wouldn’t say so to save his life, but_we landladies know more than people think. And somehow I feel more for the proud distant ones. that wouldn’t tell you their troubles if they were starving. than for them that makes a poor mouth about {belligelvea and is always down on their uc . Had I dared to insult him” and he so poor as this? My mind misgives me for having brushed by him so cavalierly this morning on the stairs, for haying spoken to him so rudely the other night in Berke- ley Street. He must have car-ed for those unfortunate violets, or he would never have worn them, half withered as they were; and yet I had vexed him so much that he had ground them With his heel into the floor. I am ashamed and _angry with a vague uncomfortable feeling of having made a fool of .myself beSides. The next time I meet him. 1 shall act difi‘erently, though it is a fact that I am beginning to hate him for having put me out of conceit ~With myself. But the next time I meet him he turns the tables upon me~supposmg me .to have been the aggressor in the first in- stance. I am coming into the-house as he passes out, and he never so.much as looks at me to see whether I mean to take any notice of him or not. So that he has himself virtually put an end to our acquaintance. Of course I feel mortified, though he may possibly think it was my Wish that we should ignore that introduction at the Rollestons’. But I know that it was not my wish, and that I would have bowed to him this time if I had got the chance, and his looking in that deter- mined way over my head makes me feel very angry. However I do not cncoun~ ter him again in Carleton Street or any- where else for more than a week. and, though Mrs. Wauchope tells me that he is more at home than he used to be, and working hard at his picture, I gradually forget his rudeness and my own folly in busy preparations for Madame Cron- helm’s concert. which is to take place on the evening of the twenty-first. Inam to sing twice. first the “Jewel Song from “Faust,” then Blumenthal’s "Bend’ of the “Why turn away when I draw near? Why cold to-dayf Once I was dear. Thenbthy heart stirred and flushed thy I‘OW, Never a word welcomes me now. Speak to meâ€"speak! Be my heart hard. Or will it break for one kind word; No vow to_ bind, no pledge I seek, Only be kind. Speak to meâ€"'speak!” I listen till the song is ended, and then I close the door softly and go back to the fire, laughing. 'I know at least of whom he is thinking; those were the ,,very words he said to me this afternoon -â€"“Speak to me. Why won‘t you speak to me?" The old spirit of mischief prompts me to sit down to the piano and sing something that might seem like an answer; but the disastrous consequences of my former folly’arc too recent toen- courage me t2 transgress a'second‘time. It is the evening‘of Madame Cronhelm’s concert, which is indeed more of a con. versazione than a concert, the performers River." The selection is Madame Cron- helm‘s; but both songs are old friends of mine and old favorites. Herr yon Ko- nig tells me I had better have an en- core ready, unless I care to repeat those two: but I tell him laughingly that that would be a very unlucky thing to do, to prepare an encore beforehand. . 0n the day before the concert, Ellinor and Olive Deane call for me to go With them to the Rollestons'-â€"not to an “At Home” there but merely to pay a visit to the girls. They are to give a fancy ball early in April. and we amuse our- selves with nortfolios of sketches of na- tional and fancy-dresses, sitting in .the great handsome somber city drawmg- room, with its balconies darkened by flowering plantsâ€"five or leI-gITlB. alto- gether, with two kindred spirits m.the shape of Fred Deane and Crauford Rnl- leston. who are quite as good on the sub- jeot of ladies’ dress as ourselves. -. Katie and Craiiford Rplleston and I are studying a colored print of an Alsaci- an together, and I am saying how pretty the black velvet car) would look on a blonde head like Olive’s, when two rico. nle come into the room whom I. scarcely looking up. and even then scarcely see. ing them in the diisk..sunnnsed to be Jack Rollestrm and his brother-in-law Captain Kingsleyâ€"ore of them I know to be Jack. They stroll over to a group at one of the windowsâ€"Olive and Poppy and Susie Rollesto". and I think no more nbout them, till Crauford says sudden- ly“le+ artist over “were ought to melt” sketch for you. Katieâ€"something ori- inal, you know. Anythingprigmal would be so much more interesting than these old hsckncvnd national costumesâ€"overv- d , th of them. I syv. body is fire to dim invent somemmg Concrete Root Cellar Costs Less Than Wood and is MuchMore Durable Comparison. a, repair. "0h, do,” Katie exclaims, making room , Stop it in 30 minutes, without my harm to any part of your system, by taking ’ ‘ “NA-DRU-CO” Headache Wafers 25cm" 93'“ NATIONd’L Dnuo AND CHIMIcAL co. or CANADA LiMi'rno. M0 ISAL'. 31. mixing among the audience when not ac- tually required on the raised platform at the upper end of the room, grand piano an are located, and- the intervals between the songs and con- certed pieces. many friends among both performers and audience, Gronhelm's uses‘only, public in any capacityâ€"if so exclusive a, reunion can be called public at all. My “Jewel” song is among the first on the programme; and, when I have sung it. and plimented me on what he is pleased to call the delicate grace of my vocalism. and called my voice “truly celestial.” I make my way down to the Rollestons, whom I see grouped at a little distance from_the blaze of light which makes a dazzling centre of the stage. fore I can reach them, through the dense crowd, with my long black satin skirt in one hand and my fan in the other, Gerard Baxter appears, I know and offers me his arm. “Allow _me to make way for you,” says. smiling, “and allow me to congra- tulate you on having ‘brought down the in house. “0h, "Why “Because to pay compliments.” "‘I paid you a compliment once and you misunderstood it,” he says more gravely. “Perhaps I may find some safer road to your favor than that. me yet “Long ago,” I answer frankly. forget all about a piece of folly for which I am sorry, and of which I am heartily .don’t you flatter me," shrugging my shoulders. l “So I have heard. I think she is quite right. Such a voice as hers was never. meant to ‘rust unburnishcd, not to shine in use.’ " _ “0r yours?” he questions a little wist-‘ fully. “They tell me you are studyin for public exhibition too.” ' Who could have told him so? The ide amuses me so much that I do not im- mediately advise him to the contrary. .1 “And if I am," I say, laughing, “do you; think that I am right. in putting thel talent which has been given me to some practical use?" _ "If you have no other means of live-l li'nood-yes.” _ . “You do not approve of singing on thestage?” _ - . .t‘;II do not care to think of your doing; I . “But one can do it, and yetâ€"7" “I hope you will never do it,” he in- terrupts, with more passion than the oc-, casion seems to warrant... “I hope to Heaven you will never do it!” I I “But if I must do it?”' I say, Wilfully encouraging the idea which he somehow or other seems to have taken into his head. “If my daily bread depends upon it, what am I to do?" . “Can’t you teach, or something?” he says boyishly. “You could teach other. girls, couldn't you?” . “But fancy teachingâ€"fancy. wearing} one's self out with a troop of idle girls, as Madame Cronhelm does. when. one might be bowing to a delighted audience where the violins and violincello hum of talk fiilling up We all enjoy it. having so and, though most of Madame fillplls take part in the chor- t ey are pleased to appear in when Herr von Konig has com- . But, be- movmg slowly not from what coign of vantage, he I laugh, do you emphasize the ‘you’?” it seems unnatural for you , 1 behind the footlighlts. With one s arms, full of bouquets.” , “That‘s just what I hate.” he retorst| savageluy. “That is just_ what no girlâ€"1 no cousin or sister.0f mineâ€"«should iverI degrade herself by doing. How do you think a man‘who loved you, for in- stanceâ€"would like to see other men level! their opera glasses at you, and neiziapsv . . Have you forgiven for my stupidity?” “Let us agimmed‘” \ â€"indeed certainlyâ€"make comments on _I am ready to forget, all you. do not your personal appearance?” I Wish me to remember, he rejoins at “If they were complimentary, I don't once' - . suppose she would mind very much." And then’ matead 0f mlde “17755” "But he would mi-nd. If he were her nearer to the Romesmnsi I find myself brother or her husband, he would rather sitting on a chair near a cool bank of ferns and exotics with Mr. Baxter stand- ing. behind me, listening to a girl with .a. magnificent contralto voice singing the "Clang of the Wooden Shoon.” see her in her coffin than subject her to‘ such degradation." selfish 1” "How delightfully I laugh, I listen like one in a dream. I know 11 i and than the overture to that he is there, standing near me in his Eganfihflgérn commending, we find it im- sombre evening raiment, and that I am possible to talk any more for the pr» happy. With a strange unaccountable em. sense of happiness, which I could not ana- lyze even if I would. “Do you like her singing?" when the song is ended. “She has a very pure contralto voice. Herwoice is better than her method of singing. “Yes. 'is studying for the. stage, gomg to Italy to finish her musical edu- cation." 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