Paid in Full.

BY HENRY J. BYRON.

CHAPTER XIV.

MR. LEDBITTER'S WALK,

MRS. GAUNT was not in the habit of fainting. She had never been known to go into hysterics, and looked upon smelling-salts with contempt. Her opinion of ladies who "felt the warm weather," and who took refuge in fanning and foolery, was by no means flattering; her notion in the summer being that you should "perspire and look pleasant over it." If by chance she came across a passage in a novel which spoke of a sensitive heroine giving way to her feelings in the conventional fainting fashion, the unemotional housekeeper would fling aside the book with many expressions of contempt for those who wrote, and those who read, such rubbish. But Mrs. Gaunt's time came in due season; and when she did faint, it was in downright earnest, and her coming-to was tardy and distressing to witness. So thought Felicia Penrose, an upper-servant whom Mrs. Gaunt had been in the habit of treating less harshly than the other domestics of the house, and who flew to assist the housekeeper and apply the necessary restoratives to that lady. Almost directly Mrs. Gaunt became herself again; but there was a frightened look in her generally bold eyes, and a tremor pervading her strong frame, which surprised Felicia, who was accustomed to class all attacks of this nature under the comprehensive title of "fits." According to Felicia's experience, bed was the proper place for those who recovered from fits; but she would have been indeed a brave upperservant who would have dared to suggest bed to Mrs. Gaunt. The housekeeper, after shuddering and throwing an alarmed glance over her shoulder, shook herself, and with a big sigh of relief became once more a very fair imitation, to a casual observer, of the Mrs. Gaunt of an hour back, though to sharp-eyed damsels, such as Felicia, the change was evident.

In

Felicia Penrose was a heavy-eyed, black-haired housemaid with a tight waist and a trim figure, who had some time previously cast an eye of favour upon the genteel body-servant of her noble master. Felicia's eyes gentility was every thing; she was the ultra-conservative of the kitchen, a below-stairs Tory of the truest blue, and upon the low radical levelling spirit of "some folks"-by which vague allusion it was well known to the whole establishment she pointed at the cook, a most independent person-she looked down with contempt and scorn. She was one of those unhappy servants who have the misfortune to come of

a family of "great respectability," who thought itself disgraced by her entering service, and so on; consequently, by a judicious consideration of the feelings of her relatives in menial matters, combined with considerable incompetency when it came to the higher domestic duties, Felicia contrived to pass her time agreeably enough, devoting much of it to caps, and maintaining a genteel, whiteness of the hand which was highly becoming. A somewhat deep and designing young woman was Felicia; but not sufficiently so to ensnare the heart of Mr. Ledbitter, who was always scrupulously polite; on occasion even tender; but never committed himself by a promise or any remark convertible into the semblance of one. Matrimonially considered, Lord Glenburn's valet was a highly desirable person. He was well off, of course. There was no proof that he possessed money; but it was generally believed by the Glenburn household that Mr. Ledbitter had put-by a goodly sum, which he had augmented by judicious investments. He was not at all the kind of man to retire and take a public-house, thought his acquaintance -that would be too common a sphere of action for him; he might pos-sibly go in for a large railway hotel, or do something extensive with refreshment contracts. But whatever he might do, it was very certain he would do it well; and Felicia Penrose pictured to herself a future of genteel comfort, when one evening the placid valet was more than ordinarily bland and attentive. Sharp as Felicia undoubtedly was, she was nevertheless very obtuse upon one point, she was perfectly blind to the pumping process she invariably underwent when in company with the agreeable valet. Being of a somewhat talkative nature, Miss Penrose only required the slightest indication of the conversational road for her to start off at a smart trot, which the occasional spur, in the shape of an exclamation, would sharpen into a downright gallop. Without at all intending it, Felicia found herself revealing to the valet all her own notions regarding her mistress and her mistress's constant companion, Mrs. Gaunt. It was with no desire to tattle or make mischief that Felicia talked very fast, and hazarded conjectures upon the mysterious friendship above stairs. She would, after a gossip with Ledbitter, run over in her own mind the many silly things she had contrived to cram into ten minutes' talk, and feel herself flush to the roots of her jet-black hair as she reflected upon the possibility of Ledbitter retailing the facts to a third party. Her misgivings would vanish though when she looked into the stolid countenance of her companion. It was the last face in the world to belong to a babbler; and, after all, he had not appeared peculiarly interested at her recital, though he had led her on somehow to tell things too. In fact, the self-possessed servant was a puzzle to Felicia Penrose, and after every gossip with him she would mentally resolve to hold her tongue in future. But as such self-denial necessitated a finish to those pleasant interviews with the valet which Felicia chose to consider as "stolen," and which she invested with a romantic interest of little less than Romeo-and-Juliet-like intensity, she con

cluded by giving herself up to the unlimited pumping powers of her middle-aged admirer.

One fatal evening, however-and Felicia remembered bitterly afterwards that it was the very one on which the last link of her own suspicions had been added to the long chain of apparent trifles-the golden bubble burst, and Miss Penrose's vision vanished into air. She had been tender in her tone, and more than confiding; for the evening was calm, and Ledbitter had dropped hints of half-price to the play, and the atmosphere was redolent of happiness. Suddenly Mr. Ledbitter's manner changed; conscience seemed to have struck him in an abrupt and unexpected fashion. Remorse arose to his mind, and virtuous horror was stamped upon his brow. He lectured Felicia on the evils of a tattling tongue, and gravely shook his imposing head, and seemed to endure much pain at the thoughts of his companion's conduct. He spoke in an injured tone, and upbraided Felicia, with a quiet severity which was very heartrending, with making him the recipient of silly trifling secrets which meant nothing, but which, if breathed about, might prove very annoying to Lord and Lady Glenburn; and he worked up the climax to his rebuke with feeling, and strode with much stateliness from the room, ignoring the half-price question, and leaving Felicia oscillating between a wish to cry and a desire to tear his eyes out. She decided in favour of tears, crying in a fierce way, and rubbing her eyes in a sharp enraged manner, as ill-tempered nurses do those of naughty children. Then she gave vent to her indignation, and determined to instruct one of her many respectable relatives, who was an attorney, to commence a breachof-promise action at once against the deceiving wretch. Cooling down eventually, Felicia reflected that there never had been a promise; and that, divested of those little tender hints and artful amatory touches which go so far with the fair objects of the monster's attentions, and so little a way with a cold-blooded jury, her case was not a strong one; and, though a wish for vengeance rankled in the Penrose bosom, the Penrose intellect was alive to the futility of the law in such a matter. Hand-pressings and lover's looks and sighs, that express so much at the time they are heaved, come out miserably as evidence. One short letter of a definite nature, albeit love is spelt with a u, and the writer with praiseworthy modesty puts down a small i whenever he speaks of himself, will go much further in the stony-hearted law-courts than all the cruel wounds that reckless Cockney-sportsman Cupid is accountable for. Sighing and dying may do much; but they don't bring damages. So Felicia Penrose did not consult her highly-respectable distant relative; but hated Ledbitter in her heart, and wondered how she could have thought for an instant of a man old enough to be her father.

The acute attack of rage and mortification had subsided, and Felicia had entered the chronic stage of unseen but no less deadly hatred towards the man who had treated her so unfeelingly about the time of Mrs. Gaunt's sudden illness. The first thing the housekeeper said when

she recovered her animation was "Shut the door!" She did not object to the attentions of Felicia; but not for worlds would she be seen by the other servants in such a condition. Felicia had shut the door; an act of forethought which was not lost upon the housekeeper. Miss Penrose had not entered the room without having previously caught a glimpse of the rapidly retreating form of Mr. Ledbitter. There could be but one view to be taken of the matter. In the female mind there never is but one view to be taken of such interviews. Ledbitter had evidently been proposing marriage to the housekeeper, and the unexpected declaration of his respectable passion had been, as a matter of course, too much for her.

"Ha," thought the dark-eyed damsel to herself, as she looked upon the prostrate form of the housekeeper, "if I only had a letter or something substantial of the kind, I'd wait till the marriage, and then make him pay for his perfidy."

It was the work of a very few moments with Mrs. Gaunt to re-arrange her iron-gray hair, put her cap straight, and collect her scattered senses. In as short a time as it would have taken a practised fainter to sigh, look round, draw a long breath, and say "I'm better now," Mrs. Gaunt was apparently as firm upon her feet as ever; and though pale and evidently trembling, she walked up and down the room as steadily as ever, and bade Felicia leave her, and hold her tongue about it to the servants, in her natural voice.

Later in the day the housekeeper sent for Felicia, and at once dispelled the girl's notions that there was any tender sentiment regarding Ledbitter in the breast of Mrs. Gaunt. Their opinions tallying, the valet received much hearty abuse in his absence; and if his ears did not tingle that afternoon, it was no fault of the indignant couple in the housekeeper's room. Mrs. Gaunt liked Felicia in her grim way, and treated her very differently from the other domestics, much to their annoyance and greatly to the discomfort of poor Felicia, who, being unpopular from the first on account of her superior antecedents and grand airs, now found herself completely tabooed and treated with extreme contumely. But Felicia returned scorn for scorn, and with interest; dining with her nose elevated in the air, and smiling with contemptuous pity at the general bad grammar of the Glenburn household. The interview between Mrs. Gaunt and Felicia was not a very long one, for the housekeeper had a knack of coming very soon to the point; and as the tendency of her instructions was inimical to Ledbitter, Miss Penrose's perceptive faculties were more than ordinarily acute.

As the valet strolled out to take his accustomed turn that evening, a young woman, closely veiled, might be seen following him at a respectful distance. The veil was not a very thick one, and twinkling through it might be seen a pair of rather restless and wonderfully sparkling black eyes.

CHAPTER XV.

IN THE MIMIC WORLD.

PRISCILLA, to speak the honest truth, was not overwhelmed with delight at Horace's success with the Criterion manager. "Behind the scenes" was in her mind a very dreadful place, and she was somewhat shocked at Horace having been there. As he wished to tone down any unpleasantness he might have encountered during the morning, it is to be feared that he gave rather a too roseate hue to the description of the whole business; and as he was not in the habit of disguising his thoughts, he dwelt so enthusiastically upon the attractive manners and charming appearance of Miss Julia Mellington, that after one or two attempts at depreciation of that popular favourite, Priscilla burst into tears, and left her dinner to sob and sulk upon the sofa. As it was injudicious at that particular season to agitate his wife, Horace mastered his indignation, and, after much persuasion and promises of new things out of the manager's cheque, coaxed her back to the cold mutton. But somehow Miss Julia Mellington got mixed up with domestic and irrelevant themes; and Horace, who always felt more charitable after his meals, ventured to declare that, no doubt, even Slagg was a good sort of fellow when one got to know him. Then he expatiated on the delights of seeing his name in big letters on playbills and posters, of hearing people speak of him as a public character, of being pointed at as a celebrity, and compared the joys of a wide popularity with the insignificancy of the career of commonplace professional people or grovelling traders, such as Pulling, for instance. Priscilla scarcely saw matters through the same luminous lens, and ventured to hint that she had frequently heard it stated that public characters were in the habit of going about a good deal without their wives; "picking up character,” as they called it, and picking up very bad characters for themselves in many cases. Horace, who now gave himself all the airs of an established literary man, said it was nothing of the kind; that she knew nothing about it; that there was no class so domestic, for the mere fact of their being made so much of by a parcel of people they knew nothing about, made them appreciate more thoroughly the genuine joy of their fireside. In fact, he talked a good deal of nonsense, as was his custom when any subject ran away with him; but he did not succeed in convincing Priscilla, who, getting into better spirits as the evening wore on, became a little sarcastic on the subject of the Criterion soubrette, and said one or two smart things which were not received very graciously. Like all strongly satirical folks, Horace was excessively thin-skinned. He winced terribly at ridicule, and couldn't bear to be laughed at in the least. Priscilla, who had never seen an actress in her life, was accustomed to look upon them as "hussies." In her mind there was no excuse for a parcel of people wasting their time in dressing themselves up and talking nonsense, instead of stopping at home and