_THE PANELLED HOUSE. 259

of human nature, she might be marrying Edward
next month instead of me.”

** Now, Flora,” said Winny, resolutely, ‘once
for all, I am not going to talk to you about Nest.
If you have no shame for yourself I have for you.
I think you have behaved infamously, and if it
‘had not been to please Nest, who cares much more
than you do that your conduct shall not be known,
I never would have consented to be your brides-
maid. I am willing to stay and help you, but I
am not going to discuss my sister Nest with you.”

“Nor my brother Escott, apparently,” said
Flora, laughing. She was never angry with
Winny, unless in ill-humour beforehand, though
she rather liked to stir up her wrath and make
her rufile her feathers like a little angry robin.
And now that the world was going so prosperously
with Flora, it was a case of “let those laugh who win.”

“Never mind, Winny. I won’t rouse your
wrath again. All’s fair in love and’ war, you
know. Come now, kiss me;” and Flora pecked a
kiss, which was not returned by Winny ; but for
all that, she had left a sting in the girl’s heart.
Winny knew very little of life, but she did know
instinctively that dissipation of the kind which
Flora had described was not to be indulged in by
Escott with impunity, even such impunity as her
brother Evan might have known in like ease.
She looked all the more anxiously at him when he
came in,

Was it only her fancy, or was Escott’s appear-
ance really altered for the worse? He looked less
healthy and wholesome than he used to do; late
hours and unnecessary potations had not improved
his complexion or the clearness of his eyes. The
old discontented look was aggravated: no wonder,
since Escott was now not only discontented with
his father, but with himself also. A man of a
sensitive nature who, like him, knows the better
and does the worse, cannot drift downwards with-
out sundry pricks and twinges that prevent his life
from being a very pleasant one under the process.

Winny watched him, as he sat by the window
in the fast falling gloom of the November evening,
having come in for the afternoon tea, which had at

last, by Mrs. Escott’s connivance, been established
vat the Manor, in spite of the Colonel’s prejudices.
He had come in for something else, too—the object
of escorting Winny home. The little slender crea-
‘ture, who beside him was like a kitten by a New-
‘foundland dog, had a sense of protecting and
‘guarding him as she looked at him; and not
altogether in vain, for there was no one whose
| influence over him equalled hers.

When in galoshes and waterproof the tiny figure
was tripping along the splashy road by his side,
she turned to him and said from her heart, ‘I am

so glad to be at home again, Escott.”

Sian
had never

glad enough you are come, I wish you
gone.”

“T am back now at any rate; what does it
matter?”

“Nothing to you; a good deal to me, perhaps.
Well, never mind that now.”

“Now, Escott,” said Winny, in a playful tone,
but with a sore anxiety in her heart, don’t say
you have been getting into mischief at Mr. Alger-
non Smith’s.”

“ What do you know about him 2?”

“Not much,” said Winny, “and I don’t want to
know more.”

“Very well, then you shall hear nothing about
him from me. Would I be so disobliging as to
contradict your expressed wish? I won’t even
defend him.”

But there was real annoyance in his tone per-
ceptible beneath the banter.

“Are you very angry with me for taking you to
task ?” she said, with an arch glance into his face.

“No. I never could be angry with what you
said from your own heart; but I might if I
thought you had been put up to it. Not with you,
even then, I hope, Winny.”

“T hope not,” she said, with a little sigh.
“We never have quarrelled all the time we have
known one another, Escott. If we did, I should
be so dreadfully afraid that you would never
forgive me.”

“Why? Do you think me so very hard and
relentless, Winny ?”

“JT don’t know what you might be,” she said
with a little shiver, that did not come from the
damp November air. Then suddenly, gathering
up her courage, “ Escott, you may laugh at me as
much as you like, but you know you have always
let me tell you my mind.”

“Speak on, prophetess!” said he, with a little
laugh, though not altogether well at ease.

“J am sure Mr. Smith’s company is not good
for you. Is it? Would you like to take Flora
there ?”

“My dear Winny, you really don’t understand
the world. You know you have seen very little
of it,” began Escott, didactically,; then suddenly
breaking into his own natural style—‘“ The fact is,
I should go out of my mind in a fortnight in this
confounded place without a human being to speak
to; and Smith is very good-natured to me, and I
don’t believe one-half the stories people tell against
him. I don’t mean to say he is any thing remark-
able in the way of goodness, or that I should care
to see you talking to him; but I will say that I
believe one-half of the men who condemn him are
just as bad as he is, only he has a bad name for
his misdeeds, and they keep theirs quiet.”

Winny said nothing, and Escott went on bitterly.

82