himself and Gerald Herkimer."

"Will they be there?" cried Betsey kindling into interest. "We'd better go, auntie, there's no slight. I see the sort of thing it is; there are a few little girls--big little girls though, all the same--to give it the name of juvenile and take off the stiffness. Just like the candy pulling we had at Farmer Belmore's. You know Farmer Belmore's, Muriel? He lives just across the river and down below the island at St. Euphrase. His son's family from Michigan were with him in the fall, and his wife and daughters are too dévotes to meet their neighbours, and are only waiting his death to go off to the convent. However, the old man--and a good Protestant he is--was determined the children should have a good time, so he gave--a candy pulling and invited everybody for miles round--said it was for the children. So we all went--drove across the river on the first ice of the season--whether we knew Mrs. Belmore or no. And, Muriel, we had just the most too-too time you can imagine. The daughters sat in the back-room with one or two old French women, away from everybody, and the eldest granddaughter received the guests. There was a fiddle, and, oh, just a lovely time! Joe Webb and I pulled the whitest hank of candy in the room, and we danced eight-hand reels and country dances, till one of my shoes gave way and I had to sit out with Joe Webb. It was something beyond, I tell you!"

"Tush, Betsey!" said her aunt. "You are in the city now and must not go into raptures over rustic frolics, or people will think you know no better. I shall ask the Miss Stanleys about this, when I see them to-morrow. They will be able to tell me if we had better go, and how you should dress."

"Dress! Haven't I my geranium poplin?"

"But this is town, my dear, which may make a difference; one never knows. In my young days, now, I always wore white muslin and a blue sash! And you cannot think how many civil speeches I used to get" added the old lady, bridling, with a spot of pink on either cheek and a toss which set the treacle-coloured curls quivering. The war-horse is never too old to prance and champ his bit at the sound of the trumpet, though he may be so old that no one can remember his ever having been in action.

"I do not remember ever seeing geranium poplin at a party," said Muriel, looking to Betsey; but her eyes fell before the glance of displeased superiority she met there.

"You have not seen my dress, or you would speak more guardedly. Besides, you are not out yet, and cannot be expected to know what goes on at fashionable gatherings."

"No," said Muriel, meekly, "I am only a little girl, I know that. Still, at the juvenile parties I go to--Mrs. Jordan's, Mrs. Herkimer's, and the rest--and at our parties at home, though they are not balls by any means--quite small affairs--the people dress very nicely--velvet, satin, lace, and so on--but I never saw a geranium poplin."

"No! Poplin is only coming in! I know that from 'Godey's Magazine.' It was just a mere chance Quiproquo of St. Euphrase having one dress piece. I bought it, and you cannot think how rich it looks. Cut square!--they are all cut square in the higher circles this year--with elbow sleeves and a fall of rich lace at twenty-five cents a yard."

Muriel held her breath at the catalogue of rustic splendour. She would have liked to say a word in mitigation of the fright she feared Betsey was intending to make of herself, but dreaded to have her youth flung in her face again. The young are so ashamed of their youth while they have it; it is only after it has fled, that, like flowers drooping in the midday heat, they sigh for the dried-up dews of morning which erewhile weighed down their heads with mistaken shame.

There followed more talk of millinery, and then it was time for Muriel to go, after effusive farewells and appointments for future meeting. Mrs. Selby came forward last, when the more boisterous adieux were over. She would have liked to take this young girl in her arms; she felt so strongly drawn to her, and knew not why; but she restrained herself, and only begged her to come often while Betsey remained, and to be sure to come to the family room in passing, next time she came for a music lesson. And Muriel, looking in the face of the whitened lady, so venerable and sweet, not only promised--as in good nature she could not avoid--but really intended to fulfil, promising herself pleasure in doing it.

CHAPTER III.

CONSIDINE.

A great rise in the world had come to Cornelius Jordan, Q C. They seem all to be Q.C.'s, my reader, those lawyers in Canada; or more than half of them. The Queen is so remote a centre, that the beams of her favour are very widely, if thinly, spread, and this especial title of honour has come to be regarded as a polite and inexpensive attention which new prime ministers make haste to bestow upon their friends. And there are so many prime ministers, that at last it became a ground of dispute, between the minor premiers of the several provinces, and the premier-major at Ottawa, as to which should have the exclusive run of the alphabet for decorative purposes. Mr. Jordan, I repeat, had risen since we met him last at the Misses Stanley's garden tea. Then he was a rising man in his profession, doing well, and in comfortable circumstances; now, he was one risen--full head and shoulders above his fellows, living in a house of the very largest size, and with horses and servants to equal the most prosperous of his neighbours, and reported to be wealthy; not with the startling but evanescent opulence of the merchant prince, which to-day is, and to-morrow is nowhere; but with the reality which attaches to professional wealth in the popular mind, as money actually coined from a man's own brain--the golden fees raked in from grateful clients--without risk, and irrespective of rising and falling markets. His name was spoken with that slight involuntary pause before and after which carries more distinction than any title; it is a form of respect so undefined. "What a man he must be!" his neighbours said, "to have made so much money, and made it so quickly!" made it at his profession, too. Nobody doubted that, for his name was never mixed up in other affairs.

It would have been hard guessing for a quidnunc about the Court House, had he attempted to trace how all that prosperity had been built up out of the fairly good solicitor's and conveyancer's practice carried on at his chambers, or from his not unusually frequent or brilliant appearances in Court; though now that the fruits of success were so evident, these were vastly on the increase. "Ah!" those knowing ones would say, "he is not a brilliant speaker; but sound, sir, sound! What a head for Law the man must have! What clearness of understanding, to have realized such an income. What a style of living he keeps up! How many thousands a year does it take? Quite the leading counsel at our bar." And so clients multiplied, and the suitor whose case failed in his hands felt surer it had had the best presentment than he would have felt had it succeeded with any one else. "If Jordan could not win the suit, pray who could?"

Jordan was liked, too, as well as respected. How could he fail of that? At his dinners, given every week all through the winter, were found the choicest bills of fare and the best people, and every one else was invited to share the feast. It is manifest that one cannot talk unkindly of a man while the flavour of his wine still hovers about the palate--so long, that is, as there is prospect of another invitation. When