WYLDER'S HAJVD. has always seemed a disgrace. But this apathetic beau- ty had either more moral courage or more stupidity than I, and was plainly terribly indifferent about the catastro- phe. I've sometimes thought my struggles and sinkings amused her cruel serenity. I told her my early recollections of Brandon and Gy- lingden, and how I remembered her a baby, and said some graceful trifles on that theme, which I fancied were likely to please. But they were only received, and led to noth- ing. In a little while in comes Lord Chelford, always natural and pleasant, and quite unconscious of his peerage — he was above it, I think—and chatted away merrily with that handsome animated blonde—who on earth, . could she be ? — and did not seem the least chilled in the stiff and frosted presence of his mother, but was genial and playful even with that Spirit of the Frozen Ocean, who received his affectionate trifling with a sort of smiling, though wintry pride and complacency. I thought I heard him call the young lady Miss Lake, and there rose before me an image of an old General Lake, and a dim recollection of some reverse of fortune. He was — I was sure of that — connected with the Brandon fam- ily; and was, with the usual fatality, a bit of a manvais sujet. He had made away with his children's money or squandered his own; or somehow or another impoverished his family not creditably. So I glanced at her, and Miss Erandon divined, it seemed, what was passing in my mind, for she said: — "That is my cousin, Miss Lake, and I think her very beautiful — don't you?" "Yes, she certainly is very handsome," and I was go- ing to say something about her animation and spirit, but remembered, just in time, that that line of eulogy would hardly have involved a compliment to Miss Brandon. "I