ALL IS NOT GOLD THAT GLITTERS. 127

child, while the arms she had flung round her
cousin’s neck prevented Rose from moving.
Their tears once more mingled, as they had oft-
en done in childhood—once more—but not for
10ng.

“Leave me alone for a little, and I will ring
for my maid,” she said at last; “‘ I am too arti-
ficial to be waited upon by you, Rose. It was
otherwise when you used to twine gay poppies
and bright flowers in my hair, telling me, at the
same time, how much wiser it would have been
to have chosen the less fading and more fra-
grant ones.” :

‘‘ Her husband—and her children!” thought
Helen; “if she had neither children nor hus-
band, she would have been of such value to me
now ; noisy children, I dare say, troublesome
and wearying. Native air! native air, indeed,
ought to work wonders.” It would be hardly
credited that Helen—the beauty—the admired
—the woman of rank—bestowed quite as much
trouble upon her morning toilette as if she had
been in London. Such was her aching passion
for universal sway, that she could not bear to
be thought faded by her old lover, though he
was only a farmer; and this trouble was taken
despite bodily pain that would have worn a
strong man to a skeleton.

It would be difficult to say whether Helen
was pleased or displeased at finding Edward
Lynne what might, witho ‘t any flattery, be

PP