I wonder a man ever has the perseverance to go through with it. Many a time I thought it really was not worth the labour and trouble. But I suppose it's something like cigar-smoking-it's sickening at first, and it takes a long practice before one can get quite used to it and enjoy it; but at last one suddenly finds he can't do without it.”

Talking this way, we reached pleasant St. John's-wood, and the house in which Lambert lived. It was a pretty, fantastic little house, one of a terrace which stood upon the sort of almost imperceptible rise that in the suburbs of London men call a hill. Lambert had the firstfloor of the house, and enjoyed a very pretty view over the outskirts of London; the windows being so placed as not to overlook the vast cluster of streets and spires and domes, fog-surmounted, which lay below. Looking from the room, one might at times catch faint, hazy glimpses of something like the country. Flowers in profusion grew on the patches of garden in front and back of the house; trailing plants fell from eaves to basement. It was altogether a very pleasant, gracious, and tempting place, and I thought Lambert might well feel glad to return to such a nest every evening from the town.

The rooms were neatly furnished; for the most part, of course, the regular furniture - chimneyglass, ornaments, pictures of suburban lodgings in London. But there was a small organ, hardly bigger than a piano, of my friend's own design and construction, with some of his special and newest improvements; and there were some clever specimens of wood-carving, which he made a frequent recreation, he told me; and there were books of his own-books on carving, on music, on science, Greek Lexicons and class-books; and there was a photograph over the chimneypiece which caught my eye the moment I went into the room: it was that of Christina.

Lambert took a book-a sort of scrap-book, apparently-out of a drawer of his writing-desk, and, turning hastily over its leaves, called my attention to it.

"Critiques of her," he said; "I used to watch for them in the papers, and cut them out and paste them in."

Yes; there were criticisms of her performances from the Moniteur, and the Débats, and the Indépendance Belge, and the National-Zeitung of Berlin, and the Ost-Deutsche Post of Vienna, the Pungolo of Milan, the Osservatore of Rome, the Opinione of Turin, the Courrier Russe, the Times, the Morning Chronicle (there was a Morning Chronicle then), the Morning Post, and I know not what other papers. I glanced over them. Often, indeed, the letters danced and flickered before my eyes. I read them with amazement, with pride, with delight-ah, and with selfish shame and pain as well! They differed as to minor points of criticism-some extolling as a special charm what others deprecated as the one sole defect; some declaring that the voice was incomparable, but the singer had yet much to learn; others insisting that the skill of the musician conquered some vocal defects; others, again, leaning

more on the acting than on the singing. But all rang to the one grand chime—success. In Berlin the students of the university had a serenade by torchlight in honour of their gifted countrywoman; in enthusiastic and music-mad St. Petersburg the singer was presented, on the occasion of her last performance, with a coronet of gold and a diamond brooch. So on. It was simply success. Christina had suc

ceeded.

I put the book away, and sat thinking and silent for a few moments. The whole thing was unreal to me; I was as one who dreams. Only the other day it seemed when she called to me a farewell from her window, and the flower she had worn in her bosom fell on the pavement at my feet.

I rose and went to the chimneypiece, and looked calmly at her portrait. She had developed, but not much changed. The photograph made her look a little older, perhaps, than I could have expected; but most photographs have that sort of effect. She was certainly very beautiful, and of a beauty which was in no sense commonplace. In a portrait-gallery filled with the pictures of handsome women-most of them even of handsomer women-one must, I thought, be attracted at once by that striking face, with its fleece of fair hair and its eyes so large and dark, and the singular softness and sweetness-almost a sensuous sweetness-of the expression on the lips and the outlines of cheek and chin, contrasting as strangely as did the hue of the hair and eyes with the energy and decision which the forehead and brows expressed.

I looked at it long and silently, compressing my lips the while, and crushing, with such force of self-control as I could command, all rising emotion down into obedience. But I might have allowed my feelings their full sway without fear of observation, for Lambert had quietly left the room the moment he saw me approach the photograph. He did not return for some minutes. I conjectured that he would not return, in fact, until I had given some audible intimation that I needed no longer to be alone. I sat down and played a few random chords on his organ. He presently came in, looking animated and cheerful, and told me he must apologise for having left me, but that he had been compelled to have a long and profound consultation with his landlady on the subject of dinner. Dinner came at last, and we drank some wine, and became very talkative and cordial and friendly. By a sort of silent agreement we avoided all reference to past times, and said no more of her.

After dinner we opened the windows, lighted cigars, and smoked. Lambert told me, with the innocent, boyish pride which was rather an attractive part of his character, that he was the only lodger ever allowed to smoke in that sacred room; that the landlady, a most respectable old lady, positively insisted that he must have his cigar there whenever he pleased; and that, whenever he was leaving the place for good, he meant to present her with a set of entirely new curtains.

"It wouldn't be any use my giving them before," he added; "I

VOL. VIII.

should only spoil them, and she would benefit nothing by the transaction."

The evening was calm and sultry, as we sat quietly smoking. Presently I saw Lambert get up and grasp the collar of his coat with one hand, while he looked inquiringly at me.

"Would you mind," he asked, "if I were to-" and he stopped. "Mind what?" I asked in my turn, not having the least idea of what he meant.

"Well, just to pull-off my coat, you know. It's very hot this evening, and the fact is I haven't got rid of all the old ways yet. It does seem so pleasant still to sit of a Sunday evening in one's shirtsleeves. I am gradually breaking myself of the fashion; but just now I begin to feel so very comfortable that, if you really didn't mind and wouldn't be at all offended-I have a dressing-gown, you know, and rather a handsome one; but still it isn't quite the same thing, just yet.” I could not help laughing; but he was quite grave and earnest. "Sit in your shirt-sleeves, by all means, Lambert, if it makes you comfortable," I said. "My poor father was a boat-builder, as you know, in his best days, and he always used to like to sit in his shirt-sleeves of a Sunday evening; but I think my mother discouraged and finally abolished the practice in him, and she never allowed me even to attempt it. Therefore I have an enjoyment the less, you see, and I rather envy you your additional comfort."

So Lambert pulled-off his coat, and lay with his lithe, long, manly figure back in his arm-chair, and chatted with additional freedom and fluency all the evening.

The night passed pleasantly, and it was time for me to go. Ned insisted on walking part of the way with me, and did in fact walk nearly all the way. We made arrangements, of course, to meet again, and meet often. He inquired gently and cautiously into my prospects, and hinted in the most delicate manner that he might perhaps be able to give me some advice, or to make me acquainted with somebody whose advice would be better than his. I opened to him freely whatever plans, prospects, and hopes I had.

"One thing," I said, "I am resolved on, Lambert. I will make a way and a place for myself, and in opera. I will be a primo tenore one day; I will sing with her, and she shall acknowledge that I have something in me; or I will find a way of dying, if it has to be by a plunge from Waterloo-bridge." We shook hands and separated.

CHAPTER XV.

THE HEAVY FATHER'S MISTAKE.

MY parting words to Lambert expressed not too strongly a resolution which had grown up in my mind. I was resolved to slave, and strive, and wear myself out, if need be, in order to qualify myself

for success in opera, that I might once sing with her, perhaps on equal terms. All other objects in life seemed to be as nothing compared with that, thus to triumph, thus to prove myself not unworthy of the opinion she once held of me,-and then come what might!

Strangely enough, this determination was not inspired by any hope that we might fulfil the other part of our early dreams, and be married. I do not think such a hope ever entered into my ambition and my resolve. She did not love me; it was only too evident that she could not really have loved me at any time as I would have been loved; and even were it probable or possible that the far-off date of my success could find her still unmarried, I was too proud to think of courting the love of one who had flung me thus away, and left me to my loneliness and my misery. No, passionate as was my futile love for her, it was not that which now influenced me to my determination and my hopes. It was the absorbing desire to prove myself not unworthy, not all a failure. To wring that compensation from Fate was now my one sole object in life.

And if I should fail?

Well, I was no idiot, and I thought of that. The most passionate aspiration cannot conquer success, nor is it evidence of capacity for success, unless when it comes as a mere instinct of the nature, like the desire of the water-fowl for the pool, of the young eagle for the flight. I therefore laid little stress on my own mere aspirations, knowing well how greatly they were stimulated by my love and my wounded pride. So I contemplated coolly the possibility, the chance, of utter failure, and I resolved upon my course. Once let it be certain, let it be beyond all doubt-and I felt convinced I could judge my own cause impartially and rightly-that I was a failure, and I would withdraw instantly and for ever from these countries, change my name, bury myself in some remote western region of America, and live there, a hewer of wood and drawer of water, till my life should come to an end.

I have said thus much in explanation of the resolute energy with which I now went to work at musical training, and at savingup money with which to go to Italy and improve myself, and begin a career there which I hoped might wake an echo in England. My friend Lambert entered quietly, earnestly into all my plans, calmly assuming my perseverance and my success as a matter of course; and he lent me valuable assistance by advice and suggestion. Lilia, too, was in our full confidence, and was quite delighted with the project, frequently reminding me of the magnificent day at the Derby she was to have the first season of my London success. Weeks and months went on, and I began at last to see Italy in the near foreground of my hopes.

Before I proceed to sum-up in a few lines one tolerably long chapter of my life-a chapter as quiet and uneventful to tell of as it was to me momentous-I must relate two incidents.

me.

I went very often to see Ned Lambert; he very often came to see He made himself very friendly and familiar with Lilla and her mother. He would sit for hours listening to the poor old woman telling him of her trials and her disappointments, her feats of cooking, her new and incomparable methods of applying sauce and preserving peaches, Lilla's sicknesses and Lilla's charms. I don't believe there was an ailment Lilla had had, from her first "thrush" to her latest toothache, of which Edward Lambert did not hear many times, and seemingly with profoundest interest, the full details. Lilla herself used to grow dreadfully impatient under these narratives, and I observed, not without curiosity and interest, that she was far less enduring now than she used to be when I was the spellbound victim.

Often, therefore-indeed, whenever I could-I intercepted Mrs. Lyndon, flung myself in her path, and engaged her in colloquial battle, in order that Lambert might be saved, and that he might, if he liked, have all the time with Lilla to himself. I thought his eyes rested sometimes fixedly and tenderly on her when he was not near her, with an expression as if he would gladly be beside her; and I was quite willing to give him the full opportunity, so far as I could bring it about. Soon, too, I began to observe that Mrs. Lyndon watched with somewhat uneasy glances when these twain talked too closely and too long together, and that the pleasure of expatiating to an unresisting, patient listener like myself lost some of its charm under such circumstances. These were symptoms, omens perhaps, not to be overlooked.

One fine starry night of winter, when the hardened snow gleamed glassy on the ground, and the lighted clock of Chelsea Hospital showed brightly through the clear and rarefied air, I walked part of the way home with Lambert from our quarter by the Thames. He was unusually silent for a while, then suddenly said:

"I say, Temple" (he had got into the way now of calling me Temple, and not Banks), "what a very pretty girl your friend Miss Lyndon is !"

"Very pretty, and very clever, and very good."

"Yes, she seems a sort of girl that could understand a fellow, and help him to think, and bring him out. Do you know, I talked to her just now of some new ideas I have got-good ideas, I think; in my own line, of course-and she listened to me all the time, and quite understood it all and cared about it. I know she did by the questions she asked. Never mind the answers a girl gives. I don't; they're no test. Some girls will know by the mere expression of your face, if they haven't even been listening to a word, what kind of answers they ought to give. But the questions-if they venture upon questions, that's the real test. You can't mistake, if you have a question asked. You know at once just how far she has gone with you, and how far she is able to go. Well, sir, that girl asked me one or two questions