The growing wealth of a portion of the nation was telling every year with increased force on the demand for domestic servants; and at the same ti

o pleased her; and in due time Sally was engaged at the, to her, fabulous wages of ￡10 per annum. Perhaps, had Lady Harriet Wiseman known that the pretty girl who thus entered her house in the humble capacity of still-room maid, was the daughter of "that seditious old poaching scamp, Wanless," as the squires called Sally's father, she might have vetoed her housekeeper's action. But that finely-distilled aristocrat did not condescend to notice such trivial matters as the coming and going of menials. She barely knew the names of some of the oldest servants about the place, and when she had occasion to speak to any of them-a thing she av

fed or uncomfortable in their bedrooms, or anything of that sort. Sins of that kind affected the reputation of her mansion, and jarred, moreover, on her sense of comfortableness. To have life flow easily, to see and feel none of the roughnesses of existence-this was Lady Harriet's ideal. For the rest-how could she help it if menials were low creatures? They were

s, but she loved ease, disliked trouble, and wrapped her mind up in the refinements proper to high birth and breeding. First amongst these she placed exemption from all the cares and duties of maternity, and from the worries of household management. Her aim was not lofty, and even her ladyship had begun to fear that somehow her life had been a failure. A weary look was often seen on her face-vis

gences in these and other ways made him gouty and diseasedly fat. His life had thus become a misery to himself and to all around him, even before he had become really old; and now his memory was failing him, a sottish stupidity was stealing over his brain, so that it was with much difficulty that his wife could rouse him to attend to the most necessary affairs of his estates.

ho has not known such without longing for a whip of scorpions, and a strong arm to wield it? One daughter had married a soldier-a showy man of good family but small fortune, who sold out, became stock-gambler, and bankrupt in the brief space of eighteen months; and then bolted to Australia to try sheep-farming with a few hundreds given him by his friends to get rid of him. He had left his wife and three children to the care of his mother-in-law. The eldest daughter-eldest also of the family-was slightly deformed, and had never le

hine too freely nor any wintry storm beat untempered, was now causing his mother more agony than she ever imagined she could bear and live. She felt she was wronged somehow in having so much sorrow by one she so deeply loved. Had she not done everything for him all his life, given him all he asked, made the whole household his slaves, forbidden his masters to tas

anners were engaging, and his conversation not without shrewdness. But its range was limited to matters of the stable. He had no acquaintance with literature outside the sporting papers and some filthy English novels. French he had never learned to read. He shone more in the stable than in drawing-rooms, and understood the philos

ht for him some years before in a regiment of dragoons, and by means of money he was now a captain, but there was little about him of the soldier. When not bawling on a race course he was lounging about the clubs of Pall Mall, playing bil

his extravagance from his father. The old man was growing stupid, but not on the side of lavishness. On the contrary, he clung to his money the more tenaciousl

d again did she beseech her darling to be careful, to restrain himself, to have pity on her grey hairs. She might as well have prayed to the church steeple. Cecil abused her, and told her that he would have money, get it how he might; if she did not give it him the Jews would, and it would be the worse for her. Sometimes she thought she must

ng no one but himself, despising natural affection, trampling it under his feet with the unconsciousness of a demon, and crying for money, money, as a horse leech seeks for blood. Such are some of the characterist