history of the Browns. Be that as it may, Mrs. Talboys and O’Brien now became strictly confidential, and she would enlarge by the half-hour together on the miseries of her friend’s position, to any one whom she could get to hear her.

“I’ll tell you what, Fanny,” Mackinnon said to his wife one day,—to his wife and to mine, for we were all together; “we shall have a row in the house if we don’t take care. O’Brien will be making love to Mrs. Talboys.”

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Mackinnon. “You are always thinking that somebody is going to make love to some one.”

“Somebody always is,” said he.

“She’s old enough to be his mother,” said Mrs. Mackinnon.

“What does that matter to an Irishman?” said Mackinnon. “Besides, I doubt if there is more than five years’ difference between them.”

“There must be more than that,” said my wife. “Ida Talboys is twelve, I know, and I am not quite sure that Ida is the eldest.”

“If she had a son in the Guards it would make no difference,” said Mackinnon. “There are men who consider themselves bound to make love to a woman under certain circumstances, let the age of the lady be what it may. O’Brien is such a one; and if she sympathises with him much oftener, he will mistake the matter, and go down on his knees. You ought to put him on his guard,” he said, addressing himself to his wife.

“Indeed, I shall do no such thing,” said she; “if they are two fools, they must, like other fools, pay the price of their folly.” As a rule there could be no softer creature than Mrs. Mackinnon; but it seemed to me that her tenderness never extended itself in the direction of Mrs. Talboys.

Just at this time, towards the end, that is, of November, we made a party to visit the tombs which lie along the Appian Way, beyond that most beautiful of all sepulchres, the tomb of Cecilia Metella. It was a delicious day, and we had driven along this road for a couple of miles beyond the walls of the city, enjoying the most lovely view which the neighbourhood of Rome affords,—looking over the wondrous ruins of the old aqueducts, up towards Tivoli and Palestrina. Of all the environs of Rome this is, on a fair clear day, the most enchanting; and here perhaps, among a world of tombs, thoughts and almost memories of the old, old days come upon one with the greatest force. The grandeur of Rome is best seen and understood from beneath the 

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