boots.'

'Had she any visitors the first evening I arrived?'

'None, sir. She hasn't told any of her friends, I imagine, that she is here; as it is not to be supposed as how such a well-to-do lady as she seems is without a whole score of friends, as would keep me busy at the door if they only knew where she was.'

'Do you think she objects to visitors then?'

'How can I say, sir? Were you pleased to wish to call?' she inquired somewhat slily. 'I'll speak to the lady, and find out if it would be agreeable, if you like, sir?'

'Please yourself about that,' he returned with feigned indifference. 'If I can be of any service to her or her son, beyond the newspapers, I shall be happy to call.'

'You are very good, sir, I am sure, and I'll tell her. She was most grateful for the newspapers.'

With a glow of triumph on her face, Mrs Griffiths next morning appeared before Mrs Arlington. It was now her settled conviction that her theories concerning the unreality of the enmity of certain men for women was as 'true as gospel,' to use her own phrase; and as there is nothing dearer to human nature, from the deepest philosopher even to a speculating landlady, than to feel that they have hit upon an infallible vein of truth, her rejoicing was very natural.

She had been planning all the way up the stairs how she might best introduce such a delicate topic with due acceptance, for Mrs Arlington was a lady, she felt, who was not to be taken liberties with; but impulse overruled discretion, and she burst out plumply with the question: 'Would you please to like the gentleman to call? I think, ma'am, for all he feigns to hate us, he's about dying to come up.'

Mrs Arlington fairly laughed aloud at the partnership in the compliment assumed by her good-natured landlady. 'What do you say, Fred?' she inquired, appealing to her son, as though declining the matter for herself.

'By all means have him up. We should be Goths to accept his papers, and say "No, thank you," to himself.'

'You can tell him then, Mrs Griffiths, that we shall be happy to see him this afternoon.'

'You will, you mean,' said Fred. 'You know I promised Cathcart to go out with him, at yesterday's exam., and spend the afternoon upon the Serpentine, after our week's fag.'

'Very well; then I will receive him. Tant mieux. I can judge if he is likely to prove a desirable friend for you, Fred.'

With the afternoon came Mr Meredith's servant with his master's card, requesting to know if Mrs Arlington could receive him.

Having granted the permission, her face betrayed unwonted agitation, which it required all her nerve to control before the door opened and he entered. He had advanced half-way up the room to where she stood waiting to receive him, when their eyes met, and flashed one mutual heart-stirring glance of recognition, which she was the bravest to bear, as he started exclaiming: 'Gertrude Bancroft!'

'Firman Meredith!' she cried, but with calmness, for she at least was in a measure the more prepared of the two. They shook hands; nay more; they met as we meet the loved and mourned, after years of parting; and then she whispered, as she held his hand: 'I am Gertrude, but not the proud, soulless, imperious girl whose portrait you have so faithfully preserved. I am now Gertrude Arlington, whose life, I hope, has not been altogether spent in vain. And yet mine was not the whole wrong; was it Firman?'

'No; my poor girl; God knows it was not. To myself alone I take all blame.'

'Nay; I cannot allow that.'

'But it is the truth all the same,' he sighed. 'Had you yielded to my will, I might have slain you with my cruel stony heart; when you resisted, as you must have done, matters might have ended I know not how. Indeed, I might have destroyed you, as surely as he who takes weapon of steel or drops of poison to rid himself of her of whom he has wearied! A merciful God saved you from such a fate, and me from the worse one of causing it.'

'You judge yourself too harshly, Firman; I have no such thought about you.'

'Not so, Gertrude, believe me. There are many gone to their rest who, if they could return, would tell you "he speaks truly:" poor souls, who have gone to their graves thanking God for their release from a life which left them nothing to hope for but death!'

'Then, Firman, there is nothing to regret between us; for across the gulf of precious years, wherein we have each learned so much, we can clasp hands faithfully as truest friends. May I tell you, it was for this I remained; for I recognised the sting I had left in your heart when I saw the pencil sketch of the portrait you had made; and I thought that if we could meet once more, and leave happier impressions than those remaining, it would be wise and right to thus overcome past evil with future good. And now once more you are my friend; are you not?'

'And nothing more! Ah, Gertrude, have you no dearer name to promise me, after all these years of sorrow and loneliness without you?' he pleaded.

'Yes; my whole life shall be yours, if you think I can make you happy,' she murmured; 'but not unless—have no misgivings, Firman.'

'Happy! That is a poor word to express the intensity of my gratitude for this meeting, and your promise that we shall never part again. Oh! I too have a past to repair, of which I hope your future life may be the witness! You are my Gertrude; and yet, now I look well at you, you are not mine, for your face has altered, and wears a softened look, different from the old Gertrude.

'Let us forget her altogether, and paint me afresh as I am—a woman, who for years has prayed for nought else but what is born of a humble, tender, loving heart. If you find I possess it, then, Firman, our long parting has not been in vain. But now we have much to tell each other of our past lives.'

'I shall feel more interested in planning our future,' he remarked, smiling.

'Ah, well, whatever we may arrange about that, I shall consider it a point of honour not to rob Mrs Griffiths of her pet lodger! It would be base of me to requite the good Samaritan by running off with the ass!' she added merrily; 'so we must keep her rooms for the present.'

'I'll take the whole house, if that is all, and then you will be obliged to stay altogether; for where I am, there you must be also.'

'And I leave it to you to tell Fred, my boy,' she added with a pretty blush, 'for I feel a guilty cheat towards him; he has looked upon me as his mother, I may say, for so many years, I shall seem like a deserter.'

'Say rather you have been one, and are now returning to your colours.'

'Strange to say, Fred was struck with the portrait, but found no resemblance to the original.'

'Because you are no longer the same woman; the original has gone.'

And thus were happily reunited for life two who, though severed for a while, had been all along intended for each other—this was the Romance of the lodging.