CHAPTER XXIV.

HOME AGAIN.

MARCH winds were announcing themselves by boisterous gusts on the first day of the month, and dust, equal to many a royal ransom in value, if the old adage be true, scoured and swirled through London streets, as Mr. Henry Fitzroy, with tightly-buttoned coat, reached his front door at a pace that was almost a run, dashed inside, and slammed it in the face of the blast.

"It is an evening!" quoth Mr. Fitzroy. "Cutting! Hey,-Edith!"

out.

The drawing-room door opened and Harry came

"Dessie here?" asked Mr. Fitzroy. "I could not be home sooner."

"Just arrived. The train was punctual."

Mr. Fitzroy pulled off his overcoat, and strode into the drawing-room with a "Well?"

Dessie had not known before how fond her father

was of her. She could not feel, in this moment of meeting, that she would have been content never to see her home again. Rather, she wondered how she had been content to remain so long away.

"Well?" Mr. Fitzroy said again, releasing her from a hearty greeting. "Well, my dear, we are glad to have you back. And you have enjoyed yourself immensely, of course?"

"O yes, especially the first few months, papa." "Ah, true, the ankle lately has been a hindrance on sight-seeing. Stand off, and let me see you. Grown, certainly.”

"Six inches at least," said Dessie, with an attempt at merriment.

"Well, no; not more than five and a half, I should say. But seriously, I think she has grown,

Alicia."

"I don't see much difference in height," said Mrs. Fitzroy. "She is thin."

"She

"She is different," said Mr. Fitzroy, surveying her all over with an air of mock dismay. is altered-changed-transformed-developedmetamorphosed. Didn't I know it would be so? The grub has become a dragon-fly. The chrysalis is a butterfly. The hoyden has grown into a real live young lady."

"I don't think I feel myself one," laughed Dessie.

"If you are not sensible of the fact, I am. Positively I have a sense of alarm. Hair smooth, collar straight, dress whole, buttons and strings not lacking! What have they done to you? All individuality destroyed. It reminds one of the little boy with the lisp, who was left by his fond mamma at school, and by dint of great pains and trouble was cured of the weakness. Fond mamma, coming to

the school to see her darling, exclaims in dismay to the schoolmaster, 'O Mithter Thmith, what have you done to that beautiful lithp?'"

"I thought the remark was, 'Oh, he hath lotht that beautiful lithp,' papa.'

"One version is Want to sit down?

as good as another, my dear.

How is the ankle ?"

"It isn't good for much yet," said Dessie. "I can walk, and that is something, but I have to count my paces and measure my motions. If I do too much, I am back on the sofa for a week."

"It has been a bad business," said Harry.

"I had nobody to blame but myself," remarked Dessie. "And the odd part of the matter was, that up to the moment before the accident I really did not know I was afraid. I suppose one never does quite know oneself. It was just a sudden feeling of fright that made me jump up; but I am not given to sudden frights as a rule. If Miss Bruce had done it, nobody would have been surprised." "How do you like Miss Bruce?" asked her father.

"Oh, I like her, papa. She is so good and unselfish and clever that one can't help liking her. I did not think I should at first, and we had some battles, but I came off worst in them. She is as firm as steel over lessons, and I respect her the more, for it must be a tremendous effort to her. She has no bones naturally. They are all acquired."

"Dessie herself, but with a difference," murmured Mr. Fitzroy over this speech; and when Dessie went to prepare for dinner, accompanied by Edith,

he rubbed his hands together and said, "She'll do."

"Dessie is greatly improved," said Harry.

"She'll do," repeated Mr. Fitzroy. "It is satisfactory. I never was quite sure what turn in life Dessie might take. Truth to tell, I was always rather afraid it might be a 'girl of the period' turn, or else an extravagant patronage of ultraæstheticism. There was no knowing. But she will do now."

"She does not look well or in good spirits," Mrs. Fitzroy said.

"Not in good spirits? I should have said she had kept the old sparkle. That is what I am so glad to see. I was half afraid Sid and Laura might squeeze all the fun out of her."

But Mr. Fitzroy began to have doubts as to the unchanged flow of spirits, before the evening was far advanced. Dessie seemed to be under a weight of some description-a weight which they could not fathom. They could not know how she dreaded to meet Cecil and Ella, how she shrank from seeing little Hugh, how the thought of the disclosure which must soon be made pressed upon her. She laughed, and talked, and jested; but the laugh was often forced; the talk often dropped into silence; the jest was often laboured. All through the dinner she had upon her a strange sense of unreality and dread, with regard to past, present, and future; and that sense she carried into the drawing-room. Sometimes all in connection with little Hugh and her own long absence seemed like a dream. Sometimes

the truth of his condition and of her impending confession rushed over her, with a force which threatened to break down self-command altogether. For though she had not yet obtained Anne's leave, and had not yet determined on the precise steps that should be taken, she had come at length to a clear understanding with herself that in one way or another the truth must be made known.

They had been for some time in the drawingroom, after dinner, when the door quietly opened and Cecil entered.

The slowness of his movements struck Decima at once and forcibly. In old days he had been, like his father, impulsive and eager in action and in speech. Now he moved like one with a burden on him, and his tread had a certain heaviness about it, in marked contrast with the old buoyancy. The grave set of his lips scarcely relaxed for a moment into a smile as he came forward and kissed Dessie, then turned away, and let himself into an easychair with a wearied look.

"Ella asked me to step in and bring a welcome from her to Dessie," he said.

The welcome was a serious one. Silence seemed to have fallen upon the whole party with Cecil's

entrance.

"How is Ella to-day?" asked Harry, finding Dessie unexpectedly dumb.

"Not very well.

She wishes Dessie to go and

see her in the morning."

"Dessie will go, of course," said Mr. Fitzroy.

"What hour?"