starboard were the same thing, and that larboard was the righthand side of the vessel; but as, according to his custom when confused, he offered a bet on the subject, Angela would not believe him wrong. On went the little boat merrily, and a little nautical song from the pretty actress was introduced with much appropriateness. "How glorious to be upon the waters, and feel that you ride them as their master," said Paul, heroically." After which sentiment I will refresh myself with a cigar-smoke not disagreeable to you, Mrs. Bong-rather like it than not, of course-so do you, Miss Livingstone-very good. Then here goes." And he made fast the tiller, while he went forward to get his paletot, which he had tossed into the bow.

As he was fumbling for his light, a tremendous shout from Mrs. Bong came upon his ear, and it was followed by a scream from Angela. He leaped up, and, to his especial dismay, beheld a steam-tug dragging along a huge vessel, and bearing directly down upon them, while a perfect storm of curses broke from the deck of the tug, with an order which would have been perfectly intelligible to a seaman, but which, in Paul's state of fluster sounded only like a command to go to a very bad place indeed. Nearer and nearer came the tug, Mrs. Bong thundering her mandates to it to get out of the way, and Angela screaming and clutching at everything in turn in the vain hope of doing some good. Paul made a leap at the main sheet, but missed his footing and fell down, and Angela, seeing what he intended, instantly grasped the rope, and pulled it into an unmanageable knot, at which Paul, as soon as he could recover himself, hauled and swore in vain. Then was a moment of intense terror for them all, and the next, the tug struck the boat amidships, and a crash was heard, at which Mrs. Bong literally roared in her fright, while Angela, white as ashes, trembled like an aspen leaf, and Paul, in a mingled state of wrath, remorse, and fear, stamped, raved, and looked helplessly around. In another instant they would be under the roaring paddles of the steamer. It was but a moment, however, for the tug's men, not altogether unaccustomed to such scenes, were on the alert, an enormous grappling iron was dashed into the boat, and she was brought up alongside. But the crash had been so severe, that she was no longer seaworthy, and the water began to pour in through the fissure.

"We are sinking-we are sinking! Save us!-oh, save us, if ye be men and sailors!" exclaimed Angela, her stage recollections coming back to her in the hour of need.

They told better on the Thames than in the magistrate's room, and the captain of the tug, sorely reluctant, however, issued the orders to ease and to stop her. Ropes were thrown out, and in a few minutes the party had scrambled upon the dirty deck of the tug. Angela immediately fainted, and Paul, in his efforts to restore her, lost a considerable part of the sarcasms which were lavished upon him by the crew of the tug. But as the pretty girl gave signs of returning animation, he said spiritedly,

Now, be good enough to hold your tongues on the subject.

You will not lose by civility, but you may by insult. The affair was an accident, and there is an end of it. When can you put us ashore?"

"To-morrow some time, perhaps," said the captain.

goes your boat, you see."

"There

And, truly enough, there was the boat, filling, and in a very fair way to verify the prediction of the discontented mariner on the pier.

CHAPTER XIX.

LILIAN'S WHITE UNCLE.

EUSTACE TREVELYAN was the third member of the group assembled in the drawing-room at Lynfield Magna on the day of Carlyon's first visit, and he was alluded to by Mr. Heywood, in the subsequent and memorable interview, as one whose consent must be obtained to the engagement of Lilian and Bernard. If the death-like ashiness of that man's features be remembered, it is probable that his history will be read.

Well-born, Eustace Trevelyan was the son of parents whose property, though considerable, was not so large as to enable their sons to dispense with professions. Sensitive and amiable, but remarkable neither for high intellect nor a vigorous frame, Eustace passed the ordeal of a public school with considerable suffering, and without gaining the mental or the physical distinction, either of which, attained in that noble but perilous arena, sends forward the young victor with so proud a step to the sterner battle of life. He was weak at wrenching out the rich meaning from the subtle Greek chorus, slow at planting the rattling facer which brings out those shrill plaudits from the schoolboy ring. His nature was to avoid competition of every kind, and he would make way for the youngest rival who displayed pluck and push. The boys despised, the masters tolerated him. He was, of course, taken in hand three or four times by teachers, who can do and will do so much for a boy with capabilities, but on the non-elastic nature of Eustace the most earnest effort was wasted. It was found useless to apply the ordinary awakening process which so often makes a neglected, spoiled, or careless lad discover how much he can do, and how particularly essential it is to his comforts that he should do it. Eustace wept, and struggled to please for it was his tutor's smile more than his praise that the boy desired-but it was not in him, and a night's toil produced nothing but English that was vicious, and Latin that was downright criminal. The kindliest remonstrance was urged, the most patient assistance was given, and Eustace felt grateful, wiped his red eyes, and went humbly to work, but Juvenal became aimless, and Sophocles meaningless, in the mouth of their feeble interpreter. Punishment was inflicted, not wantonly, but as one of the experiments which, when all else has failed, it is but justice to try - Eusstace writhed, but the stimulant put no new energy into him. Then there was an end of the matter-he was let alone; and simply cared for. What more can a teacher do with such a

mind--a teacher with a hundred minds to cultivate? For ninetynine of that hundred, the discipline of the great school is salutary and bracing-Eustace was the hundredth, and the exception. The great school did him no good, and its system embittered his young life. When, in after years, he reflected upon this, he had not the philosophy to be consoled by the recollection that all systems must work unpleasantly for somebody, and that so small a minority as he represented ought to rejoice that the majority was so large, instead of complaining of its own unhappinessbut then it has been said that he was not remarkable for his intellect.

Eustace was happier at Oxford, as was natural. There the mildest man can remain unmolested, if he pleases, and Eustace was, by dint of hard teaching, a proficient in the art of keeping out of the way of other people. The calm, grand old university was very kind to him, in the way he most wished, that is, he was not troubled. At school, he had been compelled, at times, to run, to row, and even to fight, but at college there is no compulsion to become athletic against your will. He neither read hard nor gave wine-parties-was neither medallist nor pugilist-neither wrangled nor chaffed. He was simply quiet and inoffensive, and he was allowed to remain so. Lord Algernon St. Agincourt (himself screwed) screwed up Eustace's door once, and the present excellent Bishop of Beldagon occasionally threw a cat, adorned with crackers, in at his window, but these were the only persecutions which he had to record during his college life.

A profession, as has been said, was necessary for him, and there was a family living, of some value, marked down as his. He duly received holy orders, and was as duly inducted. And although the Reverend Eustace Trevelyan was not the man to fight the Church's battles, to clear new areas of action for her, and to maintain them against all comers, qualities which, it would seem, become day by day more necessary in the servants of the altar, which must be missionary, or ruins, his gentle nature and conciliating disposition made the quiet duties of his rural parish pleasant enough to the meek priest. Yet, even in the retired district committed to him, there occurred scenes which he would gladly have avoided, strife which disquieted the interposing pastor more than the brawling rivals: death-beds, where his calm formulas and common-place consolations became mockeries in the presence of solemn scepticism and of maddening remorse. Eustace would retire from such conflicts, conscious that he had been neither dignified, nor wise, nor successful, and with a bewildered brain and fluttering nerves, would fling himself down in his garden and repine that antagonism was a condition of useful existence, and a condition that even uselessness could not escape.

But a more perturbed lot was destined to Eustace Trevelyan, and in due time it fell to his hand. The petty irritations, the darker incidents of his ministration, troubled him but for a time, for the same nature which bade him shun conflict bade him also

shun its memories, and he gradually trained himself, not unsuccessfully, to the habit which dismisses the things of yesterday, and looks forward. He was calm, but not content. He distrusted himself, his intellect, and his energies, and at times he even found a humiliating comfort in the consideration of his own insignificance. He was nothing-he was nobody. This was at least a pledge that, acquit himself poorly, meanly as he might, there was no circle of spectators to shout derision at him, no grave superior to regard him with pitying contempt. He was no longer at school. He lived on as it were by sufferance, but he was unwatched, except by his own carking, self-reproaching spirit, which brought vague charges against itself, hints, and whispers, and an ever-recurring consciousness of short-comings and unworthiness. Nor had the priest yet learned, even in the place whence he taught, how all such voices can be silenced. He proclaimed the language of the oracle, but it fell meaningless upon his own ear. During this period of his life, Eustace's being was an unhealthy stagnation, at times disturbed, but only that the stagnant waters might again sleep in their sullen repose.

But the waters were troubled at last, though not for healing. There returned to his estate in Trevelyan's parish a gentleman who had long resided abroad, that his property might recover itself from the effect of the share its owner had taken in certain revels-fashionable when a Regent set the fashion. The property was by no means clear again, for Sir Frederic Larrendon had essayed to live with his betters, and Corinth is an expensive locality. But there was enough for the shattered man, once a blood, and twice a dandy, but now a querulous, chalkstony valetudinarian-enough for his beautiful, black-browed, black-eyed, Frenchified daughter, who came with no good grace from her Boulogne circle of scampish pleasantness to rusticate in an English country-house. Flora Larrendon liked adoration murmured from under moustaches, and forgave it for being scented with cigar smoke and seasoned with double entendre. Fearless, unhesitating, and unabashed, she was the star of a French wateringplace, with its écarté, intrigue, and shiftiness, but in an English country town-all propriety, spite, and Sunday-schools--Flora's splendid black hair streamed like the hair of a comet. sation made by the dashing Miss Larrendon was painful, and the sentiment she excited was something like that of the fashionable young woman in the "Spectator," who went to a quiet church in such style that one very wise old lady said she ought to have

been taken up."

66

The sen

Flora Larrendon was doomed to her rural seclusion, at least until her wearisome and exacting father should, like other wicked, be at rest, or, at all events, cease from troubling. But amusement was necessary, and she looked round for it. Her state must have been desperate when she could find no better game than the poor clergyman. Really, however, she was reduced to Eustace, or plain and ornamental needle-work, for there was nobody else to speak to. The doctor of the town was sixty, and of the two

lawyers, who were gentlemen, one had six children, and the other was newly married to a wife whom he liked. There were no country houses within reasonable distance, and in fact Eustace was the only educated man within reach. Flora turned her superb eyes upon Eustace, and almost felt compassion towards him for the extreme helplessness with which he instantly dropped at her feet. As usual, the man made no fight at all. It was really no victory for her; it was the poor racoon on his tree, calling to the nevermissing American sportsman, " O! is it you? you needn't fire, I'll come down."

All that Eustace wanted, and felt he wanted in himself, he found in Flora Larrendon. His slower intellect, his timidity, his uncertainty, were all rebuked, but not, poor fellow, unpleasantly, in the presence of her quickness, courage, and decision. She read him at a glance, and needed not to notice twice his nervous entry into her presence, his colour heightening at the shortest notice, or his wordy and unprecise speeches (so different from our epigrammatic snip-snap, nous autres Français), to see how fragile a person was her spiritual pastor and master. Her real difficulty was to avoid frightening him by too much encouragement, for she had quite perception enough to know that he was a gentleman, and sensitive, and that a very little extra-demonstration would scatter the flirtation to the winds. But the good Flora managed very well, and Eustace loved for the first and only time in his life. I wish that Flora had been a better girl, for she did great good to Trevelyan.

The passion awoke him. He had, hitherto, been little better than a maundering boy; he became a man. He turned a new face upon the world, and confronted that which the world turned upon him, physically, as well as morally. The step grew more steady, the eye more resolute, the voice more decided. The moral nature hardened into firmness. Eustace began to do his duty as one who had himself to answer to, but who was not afraid of the tribunal. He submitted less to dictation from others, and insisted more upon his position and dignity. The priest asserted himself, and demanded reverence for his credentials. The change was sudden, and though there were few subtle-souled psychologists in his parish, the effect was noted. In a less sensitive nature than that of Trevelyan, it would have been less observable. This elevation and improvement, Eustace owed to Flora Larrendon. But in her presence there was little of it seen. There, Eustace was what he had been on their first interview. It would seem as if they had then, and at once, fallen into relative attitudes, which were not to be disturbed, and this Eustace himself felt, and would not have changed it if he could. He knew that he was stronger as against the world, and he was content to owe that strength to the woman before him. He loved, and yet was grateful; the paradox was in his nature. It will not be found in that of many men.

Far less strange was the fact that his love re-acted. When the flirt took the parson in hand, it was a heartless snatch at a victim. When Flora and Trevelyan became intimate, and frequent interviews enabled the gentle priest, in some degree, to unveil the