The Brays’ mansion in Harley-street, and as grand a dinner as had been in the long, gaunt, dreary place for months past. Sir Philip and Charley had called the morning before, and Nelly had planted herself by Charley’s side, to keep there the whole time. Not that Laura seemed to mind; for she was gentle, slightly constrained, but there was a saddened suffering look in her countenance which lighted up whenever Charley said a few words.

For some reason she kept glancing at him with a troubled air—perhaps from some dread in connection with her plain avowals; but Charley was the quiet gentleman in every word and look; and before they left, all seemed to be quite at ease, so that the young man was almost angry with himself for feeling so quiet and happy during the half-hour or so the visit had lasted, besides which he had been merrily laughing two or three times with Nelly.

“Do, do, please!” Nelly had whispered; and those whispers had made Laura’s breast heave as she interpreted them to relate to Ella Bedford, whose name, however, had not been mentioned.

“I daren’t,” said Charley laughingly, in answer to Nelly’s appeal.

“O do—do—do!” whispered Nelly again. “You owe me ever so much for being your friend.”

Charley’s face darkened.

“Please I didn’t mean to hurt you,” said Nelly gently; “don’t be angry with me,” for she had seen the cloud cross his countenance.

“I’m not angry, my child,” he said, smiling again.

“That’s right!” whispered Nelly. “I do love to see you laugh; it makes you look so handsome. I say, Charley, I do wish you had been my brother! But now, I say, do declare you won’t come unless they let me dine with you all. I am so sick of the schoolroom.”

Poor Nelly! Inadvertently she kept touching chords that thrilled in Charley Vining’s breast; but he beat back the feelings, and laughingly said aloud that he thought he should not be able to come.

“O, really,” shrieked Mrs Bray, “I shall be so disappointed!”

Laura looked pained, but she did not direct her eyes Vining-ward.

“I find that a particular old friend of mine is not coming to dinner,” said Charley, “and therefore I shall decline.”

“O, really, my dear Vining,” said Mr Bray, ceasing to warm the tails of his coat, “don’t say so; give us his name, and we’ll invite him at once.”

“’Tain’t a him at all,” cried the ungrammatical one, jumping up, laughing, and clapping her hands; “it’s a her, and it’s me; so there now—you must have me to dinner, after all. And why not, I should like to know. I’m only an inch shorter than pa.”

So Nelly dined with them that day, and Charley took her down, and sat between her and Laura, “behaving more jolly than ever he did before,” so Nelly vowed; while Laura could not but own to the quiet, staid, gentlemanly tact with which he avoided all the past; and trembling and hopeful, she watched him unseen the whole evening.

He did not, neither did she, seek a tête-à-tête; but at the first opportunity Nelly dragged him aside in one of the drawing-rooms, under the pretence of showing him pictures; and though Laura saw all, she did not stir.

“That’s pretty, ain’t it?” said Nelly. “I sketched that.” Then in a low voice, “You like me, Charley, don’t you?”

“Yes, very much, my child,” sa............