the utmost surprise that her marble countenance was ever capable of expressing; "What! the Mr. St. Just, who-who-who-oh! I know all about you-the-in fact, Miss Stuart's Mr. St. Just?"

"Madam," replied Harold, blushing, "I know not whom I am addressing: I have but done that which honour required of me to do. I don't know that you have a right to demand of me any other information than what I have already given you. I might in return be bold enough to "

"Oh yes," replied Virginia, "you shall ! know all about me directly; but are you the same Mr. St. Just, who-who broke off the match with Mabel Stuart?"

Harold now grew so confounded with the pertinacity of his inquisitor, and the searching way in which she persisted in her cross-examination, that though resolved the moment before not to gratify her curiosity at all, he found himself unconsciously giving her the very information she was bent on extracting, as he

U

replied, "Say, rather,-whom Miss Stuart has not thought worthy of herself."

He said this with such evident emotion, as brought back again for awhile Virginia's womanly nature to her; and made her see the necessity for offering some sort of apology: so she added:

"I dare say you think me very impertinent, Mr. St. Just, but I have a particular reason for wishing to know. Besides, if I am rightly informed, you are becoming a sort of public character, and public men, you know, must not mind being talked about. My name is Miss Grindall, niece to Lord Harbottle; I believe you are at the bar, Mr. St. Just, and I am sure it will give my uncle pleasure to make your acquaintance."

The conversation here dropped. All thoughts of any more sight-seeing that morning were of course by mutual consent abandoned, and the cousins were glad enough to find themselves once more safe at home; while Virginia's heart was already considerably softened towards the

'wicked young man who was ruining the profession and upsetting society.'

So truly does one kindly personal act obliterate preconceived antipathies, and prejudice melt away before the winning warmth of Christian courtesy !

CHAPTER XVIII.

"He hung his head-each nobler aim
And hope and feeling, which had slept
From boyhood's hour, that instant came
Fresh o'er him, and he wept-he wept!"

MOORE.

HE thief, who was but a lad in years, though old in crime, expiated his

audacity at Parkhurst, with hard labour and a sound whipping, and amidst the contaminations of his prison fellowship learned how to pick pockets still more cleverly another time: whilst Virginia had, by one of those fictions of Law which she so admired, to accept that incarceration as the sole atonement for her loss, her purseful of sovereigns having been pitched too adroitly into the vaults of the gang to be ever forthcoming again.

But it is not with the thief, or his future career, that we have any more concern; but with the cousins, who on the morning following his conviction at Bow Street, to which they had duly contributed, were once more seated in the drawing-room in Queen Square.

Annette, whose spirits always rose with the return of safety, was engaged in drawing an admirable caricature of the recent proceedings in the Police Court, whilst Virginia in a more thoughtful mood was transferring to a superb piece of embroidery her uncle's new heraldic supporters and motto. Neither seemed disposed for awhile to disturb the train of their reflections. At length Annette had perpetrated in her sketch something so evidently successful, that she could not refrain from bursting into a laugh of satisfaction.

"You merry light-hearted girl," said Virginia: "how I wish I had your spirits! one would think that you would like to meet with one of these adventures every day: they seem to make you so happy afterwards."