patroness, and ingratiate herself into her good graces, by riding in turn all her favourite hobbies, and listening deferentially to her Utopian schemes, and carrying, or seeming to carry, into practice all her pet theories, whether they were practicable or not.

Honoria knew that she had only to listen with an appearance of deep interest, and ask questions about ventilation, and chemical properties of food, and mental and physical culture, to ensure Lady Charlotte's good opinion. And, indeed, her deluded ladyship, clever as she imagined herself to be, was completely taken in by the still cleverer Miss Butterfield. And Honor studied, or pretended to study, which did quite as well, phrenology, and animal magnetism, and philosophy of various kinds, and domestic chemistry, and homoeopathy, and allopathy, and hydropathy. And if there be other pathies in vogue besides these pathies, they were skimmed over by the earl's daughter, and that subservient young person, her aide-de-camp and toady, Honor Butterfield.

No wonder that poor Miss Clupp, who was narrow-minded enough to wish to give the cottagers' daughters a plain education only-that is, to read, and write, and cipher moderately, to sew excellently, to be respectful to their superiors, and to be modest, industrious, and God-fearing—should be in the minority.

And when sympathising friends counselled Miss Clupp to remonstrate, and to shew up her rival in her true colours, she only answered, "I can afford to wait; things always find their level: my lady will know before long that all is not gold that glitters, and that hollow vessels make the loudest sound. I can wait!"

But as Honor grew more conceited, and the girls more impudent, and the programme of school duties more and more marvellous, she was sorely tempted to resign, and leave her rival to founder and make shipwreck by herself.

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE SUB-EDITOR.

WHEN Ermengarde reached home that night, she found Marcia had gone to her room, leaving word that she was tired, and did not wish to be disturbed. This was no more than Ermy had expected. Marcia always took her into confidence, and asked counsel of her; but she generally worked out the problem of all her great difficulties by herself beforehand; and that now she should choose in silence and solitude to look her position in the face, and to decide upon her immediate course of action, was not at all surprising.

Ermy went into the drawing-room, feeling very dreary and desolate. How she wished that Christopher were in his old home, that she might talk with him, and get some kind of consolation, some sort of cheer with which she might brighten up herself, and encourage Marcia. For that Marcia was feeling it all very keenly, she could not doubt. Marcia loved every stone and gable of the old Manor House, she had said so a hundred times; she loved every tree, and terrace walk, and grassy lawn; and she had taken such pride in her beautiful gardens, and in her amateur farming, which, contrary to everybody's expectations, had turned out well. And now it was hers no longer; there was no such person as the lady of Singlehurst Manor, and she was only Miss Trevanion, a lady who had seen better days.

But if Christopher was not there in person, something that most nearly represented him was close at hand. The evening post had come in during Ermy's absence; and there, on the table before her, but so placed that she had not seen it on entering, was an envelope, directed in the well-known hand, and bearing the welcome London postmark. Certainly the next best thing to talking to Christopher was hearing from

him; and this was a charming long letter, taking a twopenny stamp, and very closely written on thin paper.

On the second page Ermy read:

"Now I will tell you all about myself, and the people with whom I am so continually associated; also about the places with which I am most familiar. You desired me to give you a finished pen-and-ink delineation of my new life, and of the scenes around me-of the busy arena in which I play my part. You know London tolerably; that is, you know the West-end, and you know something of the great tumult and rush, and ceaseless throb of the city; but you have no idea what it is to be in it all day, and every day-to be working in it -to feel yourself a mere unit among eager, bustling, unsympathising thousands. Our office is anything but a paradisiacal abode : it is gloomy, dirty, and dark, and so small that I feel cabined and confined,' physically as well as mentally. The room in which I write is about eight feet square; there is a carpet on the floor that may have had a design on it once; whether it is altogether threadbare, or altogether dusty, or only half and half, I really cannot say. My seat is a heavy, old-fashioned chair, with a dilapidated horse-hair cushion; my table is the ordinary office or library table, covered with worn leather, and having a good store of drawers; but I should think it was bought second-hand about fifty years ago, and doomed to wear out the remainder of its existence in ignominious decay. The windows are extremely dirty, which saves the expense of blinds; the walls and ceiling of this cheerful apartment are covered with a dingy, oak-coloured paper; there is a rusty grate, with the usual accompaniments of fender and fire-irons, rusty likewise; and a waste-paper basket with a hole in it, boiling over perpetually. Outside there is all the roar and ceaseless traffic of Fleet-street; but that does not disturb me, now that I am used to it. At first I found it intolerable, and, for a day or two, it really inconvenienced me, and kept me back with my work but one might get accustomed to earthquakes, I suppose, if they were continually occurring. I think it is Lady Sale who writes in her journal, March 13th: Earthquakes as usual!'

·

"Now for the people who inhabit this gloomy den of Christendom! Archibald Lovell, the editor, is a man of colossean stature, and also of colossean powers of mind. He is not only very tall, but very gaunt likewise. His features are sharp, and strongly marked; his eyes large and grey, sometimes as dreamy as if his soul were in another sphere, and sometimes wild and full of fire, as if with him were all the oracles of God and man. He has a grizzly beard, and hair standing bolt upright from his large, grand head. He will begin to talk to you sensibly enough, and you will be delighted with his

originality of thought, his brilliant satire, sharp and clear as crystal, and his melodious voice, and eloquent utterance; when suddenly he breaks off, perhaps in the middle of a sentence, looks fixedly into the air, as if he saw spirits; his brow expands, his eyes dilate, and he seizes his pen and dashes through half a quire of paper before he speaks again.

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Generally, he refuses to see people on business, so John Barrington holds a levee most mornings, and does his best to speak dictatorially. He has already turned over some of the contributors, and would-be contributors, to me, and they seem quite astonished, and rather alarmed, at meeting with civility. I believe that Mr. Lovell considers brusquerie and severity to be essential to the editorial dignity, and Mr. Barrington has caught up the idea, and carries it out, as far as his good-natured, essentially jolly temperament will allow him.

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"I am sorry to say that Mr. Lovell is a woman-hater, and he shows his dislike to feminine creatures in a hundred ways; consequently the feminine creatures dislike him; and it does not, I find, tend to editorial success to be under the ban of the ladies! And yet he has a wife, a meek-looking little matron, who now and then comes into the office, like a frightened dove, and nervously invades the editorial den. The underlings downstairs marvel among themselves that she ever comes out again; they wonder 'Magog,' as they irreverently call him, does not in his impatience shake her to death, or in utter absence of mind trample on her, and wonder what it is that he is tumbling over ! She is a pocket edition of a woman, very neat and nice, with light pretty curls, and fair eyebrows, no particular features, and complexion to match; and she wears charming little bonnets, and, I dare say, manages her house admirably; but what she married the editor for, or why he married her, who shall divine? They had a baby once, and it died—it is affirmed because its philosophic papa insisted on commencing its moral and mental training when it was three months old! It became a remarkably good and talented baby, evincing wonderful self-command, and a very inquiring mind; and it might have been Magog II., only one day its poor little brain and its poor little limbs collapsed together, and all that it ever wanted more was a tiny coffin and a little grave.

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'August 8th.—This morning, as I sat diligently at work on certain paragraphs, word was brought to me that my presence was required in the editorial 'den.' That den, of course, is superior to mine; for there is a Turkey carpet on the floor, and the editorial chair is something between a lounge and a throne, and there is a marble chimney-piece heaped up nearly to the ceiling with books waiting for review. Mr. Lovell was writing when I went in, and I could see he was in a very furious mood; he was plunging his pen passionately into the ink, and

viciously digging it into the paper; also, he looked extremely bilious; he suffers horribly from dyspepsia, poor man, and is sometimes laid aside altogether! He has not been hors de combat for a single day since I came here; but when it shall happen that illness detains him, I am to take his place.

"Also, when he is idle; for John Barrington told me confidentially that he works by fits and starts. Sometimes for weeks together he gives himself no rest; he eats as little as he can, and he never sleeps as long as he can keep awake. He half kills himself, and then comes reaction, and he does literally nothing for days together; he smokes and meditates, but will not vouchsafe to hold any conversation, and never takes his pen in hand. Very often he is really ill; for, with all his powerful physique, and immense development of muscle and sinew, there is something wrong with his constitution.

"Presently he finished his article, and began reading it to me. It was on one of the vexed political questions of the day, and as a production of genius it was admirable; but, though up to a certain point I agreed with him, I thought some of his assertions were unqualified and unjustifiable, and the whole thing injudicious, calculated to give dire offence, without any equivalent of public or private good to be wrought out from it. Being asked for my opinion, I gave it, of course,

and was met with a storm of denunciation such as I had never conceived of! Mr. Lovell, it seems, had counted upon my co-operation in this particular; he wanted a series of articles on the same subject and in the same strain, and, as he candidly confessed, he was too lazy to write them himself. He strove to convince me, he argued, he inveighed, he denounced, he thundered, and the longer he stormed the more utterly Quixotic he became, the more extreme in his declarations, till at length I began to be afraid he was going crazy.

"I let him have his say, till he commenced to grow cooler; then I told him that the publication of such sentiments would certainly injure the paper, not only decrease the circulation, but diminish its influence for good. Oh, the extravagant passion into which he fell ! His excitement was extreme, and all my nerves thrilled in sympathy. 'Let the paper suffer!' he exclaimed; 'what are a few paltry hundreds or thousands of copies per week compared with the promulgation of a great truth?'

"I ventured to suggest that many people would not receive it as a truth, but rather as an error.

"That did not matter,' he replied; a truth was a truth, whether accepted or rejected;' and he took for the text of a long sermon which he preached to me on the spot, 'I believe, therefore have I spoken.' Now, I could see plainly enough that in Mr. Lovell's article, as well as in his comments therein, there was the nucleus of a great