ill. It troubled her to perceive the junction of these different

qualities in her mother; and still more it troubled her to think what, in case of coming to some point of conflict, she should do? How would she get out of it? Would it be only by succumbing wholly, or had she the courage in her to fight it out?

“Little un,” said Markham, coming up to her suddenly, “why do you look at the mother so? Are you measuring yourself against her, to see how things would stand if it came to a fight?”

“Markham!” Frances started with a great blush of guilt. “I did not know you were here. I--never heard you come in.”

“You were so lost in thought. I have been here these five minutes, waiting for an opportunity to put in a word. Don’t you know I’m a thought-reader, like those fellows that find pins? Take my advice, Fan, and never let it come to a fight.”

“I don’t know how to fight,” she said, crimsoning more and more; “and besides, I was not thinking--there is nothing to fight about.”

“Fibs, these last,” he said. “Come out and take a little walk with me,--you are looking pale; and I will tell you a thing or two. Mother, I am going to take her out for a walk; she wants air.”

“Do, dear,” said Lady Markham, turning half round with a smile. “After luncheon, she is going out with me; but in the meantime, you could not do better--get a little of the morning into her face, while I finish my letters.” She turned again with a soft smile on her face to send off that piece of information to Louisa Avenel and Mary St Serle, closing an envelope as she spoke, writing the address with such a preoccupied yet amiable air--a woman who, but for having so much to do, would have had no thought or ambition beyond her home. Markham waited till Frances appeared in the trim little walking-dress which the mother had paid her the high compliment of making no change in. They turned their faces as usual towards the Park, where already, though Easter was very near, there was a flutter of fine company in preparation for the more serious glories of the Row, after the season had fairly set in.

“Little Fan, you mustn’t fight,” were the first words that Markham said.

She felt her heart begin to beat loud. “Markham! there is nothing to fight about--oh, nothing. What put fighting in your head?”

“Never mind. It is my duty to instruct your youth; and I think I see troubles brewing. Don’t be so kind to that little beggar Claude. He is a selfish little beggar, though he looks so smooth; and since Constance won’t have him, he will soon begin to think he may as well have you.”

“Markham!” Frances felt herself choking with horror and shame.

“You have got my name quite pat, my dear; but that is neither here nor there. Markham has nothing to do with it, except to put you on your guard. Don’t you know, you little innocent, what is the first duty of a mother? Then I can tell you: to marry her daughters well; brilliantly, if possible, but at all events _well_--or anyhow to marry them; or else she is a failure, and all the birds of her set come round her and peck her to death.”

“I often don’t understand your jokes,” said Frances, with a little dignity, “and I suppose this is a joke.”

“And you think it is a joke in doubtful taste? So should I, if I meant it that way, but I don’t. Listen, Fan; I am much of that opinion myself.”

“That a mother--that a lady----? You are always saying horrible things.”

“It is true, though--if it is best that a girl should marry--mind you, I only say if--then it _is_ her mother’s duty. You can’t look out for yourself--at least I am very glad you are not of the kind that do, my little Fan.”

“Markham,” said Frances, with a dignity which seemed to raise her small person a foot at least, “I have never heard such things talked about; and I don’t wish to hear anything more, please. In books,” she added, after a moment’s interval, “it is the gentlemen----”

“Who look out? But that is all changed, my dear. Fellows fall in love--which is quite different--and generally fall in love with the wrong person; but you see I was not supposing that you were likely to do anything so wild as that.”

“I hope not,” cried Frances hurriedly. “However,” she added, after another pause, colouring deeply, but yet looking at him with a certain courageous air, “if there was any question about being--married, which of course there is not--I never heard that there was any other way.”

“Brava, Fan! Come, now, here is the little thing’s own opinion, which is worth a great deal. It would not matter, then, who the man was, so long as _that_ happened, eh? Let us know the premises on either side.”

“You are a great deal older than I am, Markham,” said Frances.

“Granted, my dear--a great deal. And what then? I should be wiser, you mean to say? But so I am, Fan.”

“It was not _that_ I meant. I mean, it is you who ought--to marry. You are a man. You are the eldest, the chief one of your family. I have always read in books----”

Markham put up his hand as a shield. He stopped to laugh, repeating over and over again that one note of mirth with which it was his wont to express his feelings. “Brava, Fan!” he repeated when he could speak. “You are a little Trojan. This is something like carrying the war into the enemy’s country.” He was so much tickled by the assault, that the water stood in his eyes. “What a good thing we are not in the Row, where I should have been delivered over to the talk of the town. Frances, my little dear, you are the funniest of little philosophers.”

“Where is the fun?” said Frances gravely. “And I am not a philosopher, Markham; I am only--your sister.”

At this the little man became serious all at once, and took her hand and drew it within his arm. They were walking up Constitution Hill, where there are not many spectators. “Yes, my dear,” he said, “and as nice a little sister as a man could desire;” and walked on, holding her arm close to him with an expressive clasp which spoke more than words. The touch of nature and the little suggestive proffer of affection and kindred which was in the girl’s words, touched his heart. He said nothing till they were about emerging upon the noise and clamour of the world at the great thoroughfare which they had to cross. Then “After all,” he said, “yours is a very natural proposition, Fan. It is I who ought to marry. Many people would say it is my duty; and perhaps I might have been of that opinion once. But I’ve a great deal on my conscience, dear. You think I’m rather a good little man, don’t you? fond of ladies’ society, and of my mother and little sister, which is such a good feature, everybody says? Well, but that’s a mistake, my dear. I don’t know that I am at all a fit person to be walking about London streets and into the Park with an innocent little creature, such as you are, under my arm.”

“Markham!” she cried, with a tone which was half astonished, half indignant, and her arm thrilled within his--not, perhaps, with any intention of withdrawing itself; but that was what he thought.

“Wait,” he said, “till I have got you safely across the Corner--there is always a crowd--and then, if you are frightened, and prefer another chaperon, we’ll find one, you may be sure, before we have gone a dozen steps. Come now; there is a little lull. Be plucky, and keep your head, Fan.”

“I want no other chaperon, Markham; I like you.”

“Do you, my dear? Well, you can’t think what a pleasure that is to me, Fan. You wouldn’t, probably, if you knew me better. However, you must stick to that opinion as long as you can. Who, do you think, would marry me if I were to try? An ugly little fellow, not very well off, with several very bad tendencies, and--a mother.”

“A mother, Markham!”

“Yes, my dear; to whom he is devoted--who must always be the first to him. That’s a beautiful sentiment, don’t you think? But wives have a way of not liking it. I could not force her to call herself the Dowager, could I, Fan? She is a pretty woman yet. She is really younger than I am. She would not like it.”

“I think you are only making fun of me, Markham. I don’t know what you mean. What could mamma have to do with it? If she so much wanted Constance to marry, surely she must want you still more, for you are so much older; and then----”

“There is no want of arguments,” he said with a laugh, shaking his head. “Conviction is what is wanted. There might have been times when I should have much relished your advice; but nobody would have had me, fortunately. No; I must not give up the mother, my dear. Don’t you know I was the cause of all the mischief--at least of a great part of the mischief--when your father went away? And now, I must make a mess of it again, and put folly into Con’s head. The mother is an angel, Fan, or she would not trust you with me.”

It flashed across Frances’ memory that Constance had warned her not to let herself fall into Markham’s hands; but this only bewildered the girl in the softening of her heart to him, and in the general bewilderment into which she was thus thrown back. “I do not believe you can be bad,” she said earnestly; “you must be doing yourself injustice.”

By this time they were in the Row in all the brightness of the crowd, which, if less great than at a later period, was more friendly. Markham had begun to pull off his hat to every third lady he met, to put out his hand right and left, to distribute nods and greetings. “We’ll resume the subject some time or other,” he said with a smile aside to Frances, disengaging her arm from his. The girl felt as if she had suddenly lost her anchorage, and was thrown adrift upon this sea of strange faces; and thrown at the same time back into a moral chaos, full of new difficulties and wonders, out of which she could not see her way.