[Some Passages from the History of the Chomley Family]

The majority of men are so much occupied now-a-days with the present and the future, that they are unwilling to cast a glance upon the past. It seems a matter of little importance to them that even the very names of families, the members of which played a busy part in the history of their country, should die out unnoticed and uncared for. Yet it would not surely be so if we were better aware how much of interest lies in the story of the lives and careers of some of the “forebears” of our English gentry. Still it is not often that a fortunate chance enables us to see our ancestors as they lived and moved among their cotemporaries. Too frequently the details handed down respecting them are so few and meagre, that it is impossible to form out of them a faithful picture of either the men or their surroundings. These remarks do not, however, apply to the memoirs of Sir Hugh Chomley, in which he gives “some account of his family, and the distresses they underwent during the wars between the King and the Parliament.” For a long period these memoirs existed in manuscript only. But, towards the close of the last century, Mr. Nathaniel Chomley, one of Sir Hugh's descendants, had them printed for private circulation amongst the members of his family. Thanks to the kind permission we have received to make what use we please of the volume, we are in a position to give an abstract of their contents.

Every autobiography, whatever its merits or its defects may be, will present some points of interest. These will be increased in proportion as the writer neither attempts to glorify his own doings nor to paint his cotemporaries in any colours save their true ones. Moreover, when the memoir has not been written with a view to the public eye, but has been intended solely to keep the memory of their ancestor fresh in the breasts of his descendants, the probabilities become very great that in it we shall have a faithful representation of the life and times of the writer.

Many have been the motives which have induced men to record the story of their lives. In this case, Sir Hugh Chomley tells his sons that he was “first and chiefly moved to the work by the love he bore to their indulgent mother, his dear wife. Being desirous,” he says, “to embalm her great virtues and perfections to future ages, I consider it would not be so proper, nor so much for her honour, to speak of her single as to bring her in her proper range and place among those preceding deserving women, mothers of families, amongst which she will be found a prime flower in the garland. And this,” he goes on to say, “could not be done without mentioning their husbands, who, in respect of their sex, may not only claim to have the greatest honour and reverence ascribed to them, but commonly are the greatest actors in the scene.”

Sir Hugh begins his narrative with a sketch of the first of his progenitors, who planted himself in the East Riding. In the reign of Henry VII., Sir Roger Chomley, a “black, proper, stout man,” having married a daughter of Sir Marmaduke Constable, of Flamborough, quitted Cheshire, his native county, in order to settle in Yorkshire. In the fifth year of Henry VIII. Sir Roger was knighted, and on the 28th of April, 1538, he fell sick and died. Of the four children who survived him, Richard, the eldest, was made a knight at the battle of Musselburgh, in which he had commanded a regiment raised merely by his power and interest in his own county. Nor was he eminent as a soldier only; he was also a great improver of his estates, and added considerably to their extent. His chief place of residence was at Roxby, near Pickering, where he lived “in great port,” having a large family, comprising at least fifty or sixty men-servants. But although there used to be often as many as twenty-four pieces of beef put in the morning into the pot, yet sometimes it so happened that but one would be left for Sir Richard's own dinner. The idle serving men, it appears, were accustomed to have their breakfast in the house, and going into the kitchen would use so much liberty as to stick their daggers into the pot and take out the beef without the leave or privacy of the cook. On such ocasions Sir Richard would merely laugh and cry out, “What! would not the knaves leave me but one piece for my own dinner?” Nevertheless, he always liked to have a great train of these menials about his person. Even when he journeyed to London on business, unaccompanied by his wife, he used to be attended by never less than thirty, and sometimes even forty of them. And as there chanced to be a great feud between Sir Richard and his brother-in-law the Earl of Westmorland, who had married successively two of Sir Richard's sisters, the retainers of the gentlemen never met, whether in London streets or elseshere, but a fight took place. These brawls were, however, attended with less danger to life and less bloodshed than they would have been in succeeding times; for the men fought with buckler and short swords, and it was counted unmannerly to make a thrust.

In his youth Sir Richard had married Margaret, the daughter of Lord Conyers. She dying before him, he took for his second wife the beautiful widow of Lord Scroope of Bolton. Soon after the birth of their first child a difference, caused no doubt by Sir Richard's conduct, arose between the pair and continued many years. At last, coming to a gentleman's house where they were strait of lodging, the husband and wife were perforce thrown together. The consequence was a reconciliation, which was soon afterwards still more closely cemented by the birth of a son, whom they named Henry, and who in course of time succeeded to his father's estates.

At the age of 63, in the year 1589, the “great black knight of the north” died, and was buried in the chancel of Thornton church. He was tall of stature, “and withal big and strongly made, having had in his youth a very able body.” His hair was black, his eyes the same hue, and his complexion a clear brown. Nor was he great only in stature; but also in power, estate, and fortune. A wise and prudent man, too, as regarded the management of his estates, a kind master, a liberal landlord, a loving father, and a tender husband, albeit “extraordinarily given to the love of women.”

In his choice of wives he was peculiarly fortunate. His second wife, the Lady Katharine, was not only a gentlewoman of great piety, but endowed with a more than ordinary share of beauty. Outwardly a Roman Catholic, she seems to have been at heart a Protestant; for almost the last words she spoke were, “Daughter, let the priests be put out of the house.” She died in the year 1598, having survived her husband nearly twenty years, and was buried in the chancel of Whitby church “under the great blue stone.”

By his first wife Sir Richard had three sons and several daughters. By his second wife he had a daughter named Katherine after her mother, and a son named Henry. His eldest son, Francis, succeeded to a brief enjoyment of the title and estates. He was, like his stalwart father, a right proper man, and had been bred a soldier. Sir Richard loved him entirely, and if he had but married with his approbation would have left his estates freely to him. But the young man was obstinately determined to take to wife one Mrs. Jane Boulmer, who though of good family was not equally fortunate in the matter of reputation. In fact, her character and manner of life were such that Sir Richard was accustomed to say she was of a humour he liked better for a mistress than a wife for a son. When, however, he saw that Francis was not to be dissuaded from the match, he determined to settle his lands in such a way that his heir should have power to dispose of only E00 a year by will. If he had not made this arrangement, he was sure, he said, that after his death his Aunt Frank—for so he always called Mrs. Jane—would have made her husband cut off the entail, and so settle the estates that not a foot shuould come to any of his blood. The event proved that he had been right. No sooner had the old man gone down to his grave than Aunt Frank so wrought upon her husband that he settled on her all the lands he had at his disposal.

After his father's death, Sir Francis resided for the most part at Whitby, where he built a house. Yielding to Mrs. Jane's persuasions, the dwelling was constructed entirely of wood, although the country afforded plenty of good stone. “Wood would serve them well enough for their time,” the lady was wont to say, knowing she should not have a child, and therefore caring little what destruction she did to the woods. She was, moreover, of a most haughty spirit, and had such a hold over her husband, who was a very valiant man and a complete gentleman in all points, that it was thought her influence over him could only procede from witchcraft. So exceedingly over-topped was he by her that he even submitted to have the first letter of her name carved upon the door-post before his. Moreover, though Sir Francis died at Whitby, she would not permit him to be buried in his own church, but caused his body to be carried to Beverley, a place with which the Chomley family had no relations. There, in the church of St. Mary's, she laid him in his grave; but though she had vowed he should be buried in “a place where never a Chomley should set his foot on,” her purpose was afterwards frustrated, “as it were by Divine Providence,” piously observes Sir Hugh. After the death of Sir Francis, his widow married a man of mean quality, to whom she gave all the land which her late husband had settled upon her.

Sir Francis Chomley having died childless, his half-brother, Henry, became heir to the estates. Previous to the death of Sir Francis, Henry had married Sir William Babthorpe's daugter. Hthe lady being a Roman Catholic, and the husband and wife living then at Whitby, their house became a sort of receptacle for seminary priests coming from beyond the seas, and who landed frequently at that port. Sometimes as many as three or four of these gentry would come together; and as they generally made their appearance with but a scant supply of clothes and money, Sir Henry was accustomed to send them away, being so charged by his wife, with a great supply of all kinds of both necessary and superfluous garments. Thus those who entered the house in rags might be seen leaving it clad in scarlet and satin, and attended with men and horses, the better to disguise their profession. Sir Henry himself seems to have somewhat inclined to Catholicism, though he attended the services of the Reformed Church. His tendencies, and perhaps the imprudent conduct of his wife, often brought him into trouble. On several occasions he was not only called upon to pay heavy penalties, but had the grief of seeing his wife carried off, not merely once, but again and again, to prison, and kept there for a long time. However, as years passed by, his opinions underwent a change, and at last both he and his wife became not only Protestants, but very zealous ones too.

Sir Henry had shown by the liberal way in which he had treated the seminary priests that he was a man of generous nature. Nor was he a person to care very much about curbing his expenditure. Being, moreover, very nearly allied to the Earl of Cumberland, who loved him dearly, he frequented his company much, and was thereby led into expenses beyond what his means could afford. He was also much addicted to fleet hounds and horses; “vain, chargeable sports,” Sir Hugh terms them. Worst of all, he trusted too much to his servants in the management of his estates. The consequence was that in a very short time he fell into debt, and then, in order to free himself from his embarrassments, cast about for a way to cut off the entail. Although poor Sir Richard had thought he had so settled the succession that it would be impossible to alter it, yet by the cunning invention of the lawyers employed by Sir Henry the matter was effected. “Which shows,” says Sir Hugh, “that it is not good to be too solicitous in settling an estate or thinking to perpetuate a man's name and family, but leave it to succeeding Providence.” Still, notwithstanding that Sir Henry had sold much land, his debts were on the increase. At length he determined to turn over to his eldest son, Richard Chomley, the land which remained for the payment of his debts and the increase of his children's portions. Being much given to the pleasure of the chase he had always continued to hunt until, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, he fell from his horse while leaping a hedge. Tall and corpulent as he was, he was bruised to such a degree that he was never afterwards able to take any part in active life. So he removed from Roxby, where he had been residing for some years, and retired with his wife and family to York. There he continued to live until his death, which took place in the September of the ye the year 1617.

Mr. Richard Chomley was about thirty-seven years old when his father died. At the early age of sixteen, Sir Henry, having then cut off the entail, had sent for his son from Cambridge and married him to Mistress Susanna Legard. The lady, who had lost her father and mother when quite a child, had been brought up by her cousin, Mrs. Hotham, mother to that unfortunate “yet truly honest and noble gentleman,” Sir John will be seen from the following anecdote:—

“when Sir Richard was of about the age of twenty-three years (i.e., in 1603), coming to London, he went to see a play at Blackfriars, and coming late was forced to take a stool and sit on the stage as divers others did, and, as the custom was, between every scene stood up to refresh himself. Whilst he was in that posture, a young gallant, very brave, clapped himself upon Sir Richard's stool, which he conjecturing was only to ease the gentleman for a while, did not demand his seat; which the gallant perceiving, he began to laugh and sneer, saying, “here is a young gentleman I have not only put by his seat, but he takes it very patiently.” And so continued jesting and making sport, insomuch as the company took notice thereof. Whereupon Sir Richard said “Sir, is it not sufficient to do me an injury but you must boast of it?” and, whispering him in his ear , said, “If you be a gentleman follow me;” and presently Sir Richard went out. The gallant followed, and, coming to an open place close by, the gentleman said, “What do you mean?” Saith Sir Richard, “That you give me immediate satisfaction with your sword for the affront you have done me.” “Sir,” replied the gallant, “I have no sword.” “Then buy one,” saith Sir Richard. “But I have no money about me,” quoth the gallant. “I will furnish you,” saith Sir Richard. So carrying him to a cutler's shop close by, the gallant turned over many, but could find none to please him, insomuch as Sir Richard offered his own, and would take any other. But neither did that please the gallant, who, whilst he there trifled away the time, his man came and brought with him a constable, and suddenly clasping his arms about Sir Richard's middle said, “Mr. Constable, lay hold on him: this is he; he will kill my lady's eldest son.” And the constable presently commanded him to keep the peace. Sir Richard, seeing himself surprised, said, “He meant the gentleman no harm, though he had done him an injury, of which,” said Sir Richard, “i will make you, Sir Constable, the judge.” And so, drawing the gallant out of the shop upon the pretence to relate the matter to the constable, as soon as they were in the street Sir Richard gave the gallant two or three good blows, and withal struck up his heels, and then turned to the constable and said, “I, Mr. Constable, promise you not to meddle further with my lady's eldest son.” So he was willing to be gone with his beating. And though a great gallant and gamester about the town, and one that much frequented the ordinaries and places where was then the most resort of company, he never appeared amongst them after.”

As soon as young Richard came of age he left his father's house where he and his wife had been living ever since their marriage, and went to board with his brother-in-law, Mr. Legard of Ganton. In 1608 he took up his abode at Whitby, where he gained the repute of being a wise man and great husbander of his property. By degrees he came to be looked upon as a person likely, not only to support, but to aggrandise his family. This doubtless he would have done had he not been drawn into various law suits, and had it not been for the death of his wife, which took place in 1611. This sad event plunged his domestic affairs into confusion, and occasioned him to break up his household. Having moreover, undertaken to pay some of his father's debts, and also his brothers' and sisters' portions, he resolved to live very quietly. Unhappily for him, his cousin, Lord Scroope, came to Yorkshire in the year 1619, in the capacity of Lord President of her Majesty's Council in the North, and Lord-Lieutenant of Yorkshire, Lord Scroope, soon after his arrival in the county, made Sir Richard Deputy-Lieutenant and one of the Council. Friendship and kindness increasing more and more between the two cousins, Sir Richard was drawn much to York, and his expenses proportionately increased. In the eighteenth year of King James's reign he was chosen burgess for Scarborough, and went with all his family to London; but being at the time in very indifferent health, he scarcely went half a dozen times to the Parliament House.

When his wife died she had left him with six children; and just about this time he married his eldest daughter, Margaret, “a very personable and beautiful woman,” to Mr. Strickland of Boynton, and his eldest son, Hugh, to Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Sir William Twisden of Peckham, in Kent. In the year 1624 he was made High Sheriff of the county; and not long afterwards, writs being issued for a new Parliament, Sir Thomas Wentworth and Sir John Savill stood to be Knights of the Shire for the county of York, and Sir Richard, being distantly related to Wentworth, declared himself for him, and did him all the favour he could. The expenses to which he was put on this occasion increased his debts to a sum “mysterious and incredible.” “All that can be said and imagined to account for it,” says Sir Hugh, “is that his carrying his family to London did not only put him out of his ordinary way of living, but drew him to an extraordinary charge.” Moreover, on account of the excessive cheapness of all goods about that time Sir Richard made little or nothing of those in his own hamds. Besides Lord Scroope, affecting running horses had put him into a humour of breeding (which, observes Sir Hugh in a parenthesis, I have found to be vain and unprofitable), and which obliged him to keep two or three horses in constant training at several different places the year through. Then his shrievalty had been a great expense to him. But one of his greatest cankerworms was the interest he had to pay on borrowed moneys. It seems that he was also, like his grandfather, a great admirer of the fair sex; but, observes Sir Hugh, “I have heard him protest that it was not costly to him.”

As if this had not been enough, a cousin of Sir Richard's, one Mr. Gascoign, went to live in his house when he came to London. This gentleman being much addicted to the search after the philosopher's stone, Sir Richard also fell in love with it. Accordingly Gascoign not only got money out of him for these purposes, but Sir Hugh discovered among his father's papers a cancelled bond, binding him to pay one of the adepts in that profession T0 for a certain secret. Sir Richard was always very slow in acknowledging how much these occult studies had cost him, but it is certain the money he spent on them tended very greatly to the increase of his debts. “Strange and remarkable it is,” Sir Hugh philosophically observes, “that a man who had passed the greatest part of his life with the reputaione of on of the ablest and wisest gentlemen of the country should now, at the age of forty-seven years, when commonly men's judgements are ripest and grown more sage by experience, not only be tempted into such a foppery and delusion, but even desire to intricate his eldest son therein too, for he would often try to persuauade him to join him in his researches, and when the young man refused would remark he was so increduluous he should never be better for his studies.” Then his son would reply, “Sir, let me be no worse and I will never desire to be better.” There being now no other way to get rid of his debts, he made over to his eldest son the whole of his estate for ten years, reserving only D00 a year for himself to live on.

He died ultimately, at the age of sixty-two, of a surfeit of oysters. He was buried in the chancel of Whitby church, under the great blue stone where his grandmother had been laid twenty years before him.

Sir Richard was twice married. By his first wife—the beautiful Susanna Legard, who died in 1611 of a fever she had caught in going to see her son Hugh, who was ill at Scarborough— he had four sons and two daughters. His second wife was Margaret Cob, with whom he had become acquainted and married during one of his visits to London. He was then about thirty-three years of age, and the lady some ten years his junior. Like her predecessor, she proved a loving dutiful wife, living many years at Whitby with her husband in great retirement, but with much content. She had four sons of her own, and was a good kind step-mother, bringing up her husband's two daughters with great tenderness, and when they died, grieving for them as if they had been her own children. On their part, they loved and honoured her as much as though she had been their own mother.

Having given an account of his ancestors and of his family, Sir Hugh begins his own autobiography. Being about to write the story of his own life, it puts him in mind, he says, of that fancy of the Emperor Charles V., when he would have the ceremony of his funeral procession performed upon himself while he was living. “Nor am I insensible,” he continues, “with what difficulty and prejudice I undertake this work, considering when I am to mention my own blemishes and imperfections, the frailty of human nature is such I shall scarcely discern or rightly judge of them; and if I mention aught may be to my commendation or advantage, it will be thought pride or vain glory.” Accordingly, he requires his sons, if they know of any remarkable infirmiies in him which he has not mentioned, that they should add it by way of a postscript to his biography. For the rest it is his desire to use as much truth and clearness as the frailty of human nature will permit.

Sir Hugh was the first child of his parents, his father being just twenty years of age when his son was born, at Roxby, on Mary Magdalen's Day, A.D. 1600. The little boy was unfortunate in his nurses, and for many years was but a weak ailing child. At three years old he also met with an accident which might have proved fatal. The maid who attended him let the child tumble out of the great chamber window at Roxby, and had it not been that in the act of falling he was espied and caught hold of by a servant who was waiting upon his grandfather at dinner in the room below, his life would have ended then and there. When he was but seven years old, his father and mother went to keep house at Whitby, and the little fellow accompanied them on horseback. He had just begun to ride a little way in advance with one of his father's servants beside him, when, on passing over a common called Paston Moor, he put his horse to a gallop. The animal running away, the child got alarmed and called out to the servant who, taking hold of his arm intending to lift him from his horse, let him fall to the ground. Fortunately, though one of the horses passed so near him as to tread on his hat, the little fellow escaped without hurt, as also did his mother, who in her fright had leaped off her horse. The following year, on the feast of St. Mary Magdalen, he was exposed to and escaped another great danger. It chanced that at his father's house there was a great fierce sow, which had two pigs about a quarter old. As the three were lying close together asleep near the kitchen door, young Master Hugh, out of folly and waggery, as he terms it, began to kick one of them. While he was doing so, the other got up, on which he fell to kicking them both to make them squeak. The sow hearing the cries of her young ones, rushed to the rescue, caught the young gentleman by the leg, and before he could recover himself, dragged him about twenty yards under the window of the larder. The three then began to bite him, and would soon have made an end of him had not the butler, who was carrying a glass of beer to his master, hearing him cry, set down the beer on the hall table, and running out snatched him away from the sow, who was just proceeding to attack her victim in the throat.

At eleven years of age Hugh was sent to the free school at Beverley, where he was attended by his usual ill fortune. Soon after he had gone there he took a fever which was prevalent there. Hearing of his illness, his cousin, Mrs. Hotham, sent for him to her house at Scarborough, where his mother going to see him caught the fever and died. The poor boy felt her loss greatly, for she had been a tender mother to him, and adds Sir Hugh, “I loved her dearly.” After the boy had been about two years at Beverley school, Mr. Petty, the head master, was chosen Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. He had, by that time, become so much attached to his pupil, as well as thinking him apt to learn, that he persuaded Hugh's father to let the boy accompany him to Cambridge, though he was then only just past thirteen years of age. Sir Richard gave consent, and he was entered as a fellow commoner. There being a youth there who some years before had been at Beverley school, Mr. Petty introduced him to young Chomley. But the acquaintance proved a very undesirable one: the young gentleman in question being a loose liver of questionable habits, and likely to ruin his companion as well as himself. Circumstances happily led to the breaking up of the set to which they belonged; and Hugh, though idle to the last, shook himself clear of dissipation.

He was seventeen years old when he finally left the university. He then spent a year in the country with his father, and became so fond of hunting, hawking, and horse races, that he could not easily put aside those pastimes, when he afterwards saw the vanity of them. On his going to London the following year, he was admitted a member of Gray's Inn, at the end of Michaelmas Term. But he totally neglected the study of the law during the whole of his three years' residence in the metropolis. After he had quitted the Inns of Court he took a lodging in Fleet-street, then a very fashionable part of London, and misspent his time more than ever, doing nothing but frequenting bowling-houses and gaming-houses. “Though for other extravagances, I was,” he says, “very temperate.” So matters went on until he had arrived at the age of twenty-two, when he was married, at the church in Milk-street, to the daughter of Sir William Twisden. The wedding breakfast was held at Sir William's town house in Redcross-street, “which was so good a house,” says Sir Hugh, “as few gentlemen in town had the like, and bravely was it furnished.” There, in the year 1624, Mrs. Chomley presented her husband with a son and heir. The baby was as fair and fine a child, in its father's estimation, “as ever was born of a woman, and the instant after it came into the world looked broad with its eyes and as pert as if it had been a month old.”

Not quite two years after this event Mr. Chomley went to Yorkshire to make some arrangement for the payment of his father's debts, for which he had rendered himself responsible. It was finally settled that he should go over to France, where he would be out of the reach of the creditors. But when he was just on the eve of setting off, he received a passionate letter from his father, full of love and grief, begging him to return to Yorkshire, and speak with him. Mr. Chomley consequently altered his resolution, wherein, he says, he had cause to acknowledge God's good providence. For he soon saw his father could not have carried on any businsss without him, and that his going beyond the seas would have occasioned great disorder, if not ruin to the estates.

It was in the spring of this year 1626 that Sir Richard made the arrangement by which he leased his estates to his son for ten years. Mr. Chomley was consequently obliged to remain in Yorkshire, and take up his abode in the gate-house at Whitby. Meanwhile, his wife, who was still in London had been making preparations to rejoin her husband. Having been informed that it would be much more convenient to forward her goods by sea, she sent by water not only the household stuff and plate, but the whole of her wearing apparel, excepting what she had on her back, or in a small cloak bag. Unfortunately, the vessel was seized by a Dunkirker before it could make the port of Whitby; Mr. Chomley chanced, to have a suit of hangings in the gate-house and a bed for one chamber, so that they were not left utterly destitute. “Though it was a time of trouble,” says Mr. Chomley, “I have heard my dear wife often say she never lived with more content any part of her life; and though myself,” he adds, “had many hot businesses to perplex my head in the day, God gave me ability to lay all under my pillow at night, so that then they were no more trouble to me.”

The payment of his father's debts was indeed no trivial business which Mr. Chomley had set himself to perform. As for Sir William Twisden, he gave up his son-in-law for ruined, and would not stir a finger to assist him. Seeing this, other of his friends, with the exception of his cousin, Mr. Legard, and Sir John Hotham, stood aloof, so that at first he had no other resource than what was to be found in his own wits. However, through the blessing of God on his endeavours, by the end of the ten years he had either paid off the debts or given such security as fully contented the remaining creditors. On this affair being brought to a conclusion, he was able to say that it had neither prejudiced his health nor depressed his spirits. For he had ever, he said, carried in his mind, a speech of Sir Ralph Babthorp (a wise gentleman and his grandmother's brother) which was, “Not to be dejected for any troubles or crosses, for when a man's own heart fails him all the world forsakes him.”

In the midsummer of this year 1627 Mr. Chomley sent for his little boys, who had hitherto been staying at their grandfather's house in Kent. At that time Dick was just three years old, and Will a year and a half. The day they were expected, Mr. Chomley and his father rode out to meet them on the moors. Dick, who was a weak, tender child, took little notice of the gentleman, but drooped, and seemed tired with the journey; but Will, as soon as he saw Mr. Chomley at the coach-side, fell a whooping and hallooing, and staring at his father as if they had been well acquainted. At this, old Mr. George Conyers, who had travelled with them from the south, said, “Sir, you must be very indulgent, and take care of this eldest child, for he is very weak and tender. But if you turn this other on the moors, he will live and thrive there.” “Which I beseech the Lord he may,” observed Sir Hugh, “they being fallen to his lot and portion by the death of his elder brother.” Two years after Dick had been brought to Yorkshire, the always ailing little fellow died.

“He was much fairer and more beautiful [says his father, lamenting his loss] than any other of my brood; for his hair was amber colour, his eyes grey, and his complexion as fair white and red as ever I saw. He died at the age of five years, yet had the courage and resolution of a man. For being to have an incision on a lump which rose on his right arm, he would say, ‘Father, would you have it done?’ And when I made answer, ‘Yes, sweetheart; the doctor thinks it necessary;’ then he would hold out his little arm without shrinking or whining. The same resolution he would show in taking medicine, which he could not endure.”

The following year Mr. and Mrs. Chomley had a daughter born to them, whom they named Elizabeth. But when she had reached her fourth year she fell suddenly sick, and died within a fortnight's time. “Then,” says Mr. Chomley, “the Lord, who after the saddest and blackest storms causeth the sunbeams to break out and refresh all his creatures, was pleased to cheer up our hearts with the birth of our son Hugh.” Mrs. Chomley, after her recovery, was obliged to leave her home for a time. On her return an incident occurred which Sir Hugh thus relates:—

“My wife, longing to see her boy, whom she had left but two months old, being nursed near hand, at a place called Southward House, I gave orders the nurse should dress her own boy (but half a year older than mine) in my boy's coat, and to have him in her arms when my wife came into the house. And though the nurse's boy had grey eyes and mine black, I had told my dear wife they were grey, like my Dick's, which was dead, which she much desired; so that when she saw the nurse's boy she took it in her arms and kissed him, and seemed very well contented with him; till going into an inner parlour where the nurse's maid had our boy Hugh in her arms, as soon as ever my dear wife cast her eyes upon him she gave a start, and all her blood coming into her face, she said, ‘O Lord, sweetheart, this is my boy;’ and running to him caught him in her arms and kissed him with much more fondness and earnestness than she did the other; though I, keeping a sober countenance, told her that was the nurse's boy. But she replied, ‘if I must have the other, I will have this too; for I am sure this is my own boy.’ And in earnest, it was pretty and admirable to see how, by the instinct of nature, she had found out her own child.”

But she could never quite forgive the trick which had been played upon her. In long after years her son often heard her condemn this action of his father's, and say that the deceipt put upon her from the nurse's child had bred such a fluctuation in her mind, that she could neither then willingly part with it, nor, for some time after, without a troublesome doubting be assured of her own.

In the spring of 1653, Mr. Chomley, now become Sir Hugh, removed with his family from Fyling Hall to the Gate House as Whitby, where he remained until his own house had been repaired, and rendered habitable. When it was fit to receive them, Lady Chomley, who was excellent at dressing and making all handsome within doors, put it into a “fine posture, and furnished it with so many good things, that there were few gentlemen in the country that had better.” Having, moreover, mastered his debts, Sir Hugh did not only appear at all public meetings in a very gentlemanly equipage, but he also lived in as handsome and plentiful a fashion at home as any gentleman in all the country of his rank. He had between thirty and forty in his ordinary family: a chaplain, who said prayers every morning at six, and again before dinner and supper; a porter, who merely attended the gates, which were ever shut up before dinner, when the bell rung to prayers, and not opened till one o'clock, except for some strangers who came to dinner, which was always abundant enough for three or four besides the family, without any trouble; and whatever their fare was, they were sure to have a hearty welcome. Twice a week a certain number of old people, widows, and indigent persons, were also served at the gates with bread and pottage made of beef.

The time was now approaching when Sir Hugh was to play a more conspicuous part in public affairs than he had yet performed. In June. 1637, two Holland men-of-war chased into Whitby harbour a small Dunkirk vessel belonging to the King of Spain. Sir Hugh, having heard of the circumstance, went to the Dutch captains, and ordered them not to offer any act of hostility, for that the Spaniard was the King's friend. After some expostulations they promised they would not harm the Dunkirker if he offered no injury to them. However, after leaving Sir Hugh, the Holland captains sent for the Dunkirk captain to dine with them, and soon after took occasion to quarrel with him, at the same time ordering their men to fall upon the Dunkirk ship. Meantime Sir Hugh, hearing some pistols discharged, made haste to the shore, having only a cane in his hand. On his arrival at the scene he found one of the Holland captains with a pistol in his hand calling to his men, who were then in the Dunkirk ship, to send a boat for him. Sir Hugh hailed him, and keeping him in talk till he got near him, caught hold of the pistol. Then some one in the ship cocked a musket at him; but Sir Hugh caught sight of him in time, and turning the captain between himself and the ship, prevented the man from firing. As soon as the captain had been arrested, Sir Hugh caused a boat to be manned, in order to recapture the ship. But when the Hollanders saw it approaching they fled out of the vessel to get away to their own ships. In the afternoon, Sir Hugh intercepted a letter on its way to the captain, telling him to be of good cheer, for they would land at midnight with two hundred men to take him away. Sir Hugh finding what was in contemplation, instantly gave notice to Sir John Hotham, who was then sheriff of the county, to come to him with all the train-bands he could muster. Accordingly they had about two hundred men on guard that night, and no rescue was attempted; but they were so inexpert, that not one amongst them, except some few sailors, knew at all how to handle their arms or discharge a musket. “Happy had it been for this nation,” adds Sir Hugh, “if they had continued in that ignorance.”

In A.D. 1640, at the beginning of the Short Parliament, the Earl of Strafford, then Deputy of Ireland, returned to London. Sir Hugh Chomley, as soon as he heard of his arrival, went to his lodging to do his service to him. To his surprise, however, he was not only barred the freedom of going into his bedchamber, as he had used to do; but when the Earl came out and saluted divers gentlemen, he passed by Sir Hugh as though he did not know him, and moreover with some scorn, which Sir Hugh's temperament could ill bear. The fact was that Strafford was displeased with him because he had refused to pay ship-money. Nor was his anger shown only in his personal behaviour. For he not only put Sir Hugh out of his commissions as Justice of the Peace, Deputy-Lieutenant, and Colonel, but, as soon as the Parliament was dissolved, he caused him to be brought before the Council, and there accused him of words which he had never spoken in the House, nor could they be proved against him. On his return to Yorkshire, Sir Hugh attended a public meeting of the gentry, which was held at the High Sheriff's. There it was agreed that an address should be made to the Lords of the Council, and a remonstrance of the grievances under which the country was labouring. Sir Hugh Chomley, Sir john Hotham, and one or two other gentlemen were accordingly requested to draw up a petition. Having withdrawn into a private room, the business was quickly done, Sir John Hotham and Sir Hugh having already got a petition in their pockets, which they had drawn up previously to the meeting. Although it was couched in what Sir Hugh calls a “pretty high style,” it was approved and siged by about one hundred of the nobility and gentry. A gentleman was sent up purposely to deliver it; and it having been the first complaint which had been made touching the King's prerogative, it somewhat startled the Council. Soon afterwards, the King coming to Yorkshire, and summoning all the train-bands to York, would have returned Sir Hugh to his commission. He refused, however, saying, “Either he did not deserve to have it taken from him, or not so soon to be restored.” Afterwards he went privately to the King to thank him for the favour he had done him. He then told him that he had not refused to accept the regiment because he declined to do his Majesty service, but because he would not serve under the Earl of Strafford, who was then general of the army, as he lay under his displeasure. However, his brother, Sir Henry Chomley, might have the regiment, and would be ready to do his Majesty service. To this the King replied, “that they would not march with him;” but Sir High answered that they would, and himself promised to bring them to the place of rendezvous. On the retreat of the King to York, his Majesty desired the gentry to meet the Earl of Strafford at the Town Hall the next day, to consult about the marching of the train-bands; but the gentlemen, as soon as they had left the presence of the King, went to an inn and drew up a statement, showing that they could not consent to his Majesty's proposition, and desiring him to call a parliament. Lord Fairfax was next chosen to deliver the petition, but was unable to do so until the next day, when most of the gentry had left the place. Meantime Strafford, taking advantage of the circumstance, gave the King a notion of the sentiments of the country entirely different from those expressed in the petition. Whereupon Sir John Hotham, Sir John Savill, Sir Hugh Chomley, and some others, to the number of about sixteen gentlemen, met together to consider how they might petition his Majesty once more. However, one the number gave notice to the court of the meeting, on which Sir Hugh, Mr. Bellasis, and Lord Wharton were sent for to the King. His Majesty then told them that “it was not lawful for them to meet in that manner upon petitions; that he might question them in the Star Chamber for it, but would at that time pass it over, because he loved them all so well, but charged them never to meddle more in petitioning him in that kind.” After many other good words to the same effect, his Majesty dismissed them. The next morning, however, just as Sir Hugh and Sir John Hotham were ready to put foot into stirrup, Charles sent a man of the name of Stockdale to bring them before him. On entering his presence, his Majesty reproved the two gentlemen in very sharp words, telling them “they had been the chief cause and promoters of all the petitions from that country,” adding in plain terms, “that if ever they meddled, or had any hand in any more, he would hang them.” To this speech Sir Hugh made the following answer: “Sir, we are then in a very sad condition; for now the Lord President and those you set governors over us may injure and oppress us without hope of redress; since we, being country gentlemen, and without acquaintance in court, have no means but by petition to make our grievances known to your Majesty.” Then the King answered, “Whenever you have any cause of complaint come to me, and I will hear it.” On which Sir Hugh humbly thanked his Majesty, and the three gentlemen took their leave.

Having on former occasions refused ship-money, and showed himself jealous for the public liberties, Sir Hugh was much looked up to in the Parliament which met in 1641. Accordingly in the following year he was nominated one of the commissioners to go to the King, and give assurance to his Majesty of the sincerity of the Parliament. But when Sir Hugh came to receive his instructions from Pym, he found that they were enjoined to draw the train-bands together, and to oppose the King whenever it was necessary in the interests of the people. These orders Sir Hugh refused to accept, saying, “it were to begin the war, which he intended not;” on which Pym desired him to draw up the instructions in any way he liked. But Lord Fairfax and Sir Hugh departing before they could be finished, the orders were brought by Lord Howard and Stapylton, and, though not so explicit as they had been at first, contained much to which Sir Hugh could not assent. On the arrival of the commissioners at York, they found there were few about the King except such as were soldiers of fortune, or such as were no friends to the public peace.

“I discovered also [Sir Hugh says] that there was a party about the King which held intelligence with another prevalent one in Parliament; both of which so well concurred in fomenting distractions, as whensoever the King offered anything that was reasonable, the party in Parliament caused it to be rejected. And whenever the Parliament did seem to comply to the King, that party with him made it disliked; so that the Searcher of all hearts knows I was infinitely troubled at the distractions likely to succeed. After some prayers to the Lord for directions, and in the depth of my trouble taking a little psalter-book in my hand, I used to read in, I first cast my eye on the 6th and 7th verses of the 120th psalm, which was :—‘My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace. I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war.’”

Then reading the following 121st psalm, Sir Hugh says his heart was enlightened and cheered up beyond imagination, so that ever after he went cheerfully on in performance of his duty, without any trouble or disturbance. While his Majesty was at York the commissioners sent a paper of nineteen propositions from the Parliament to the King, which Sir Hugh thought the most unjust and unreasonable that were ever made to any monarch. When the propositions were presented it fell to Sir Hugh's turn to read, but he would not, and passed on the paper to Sir Richard Stapylton. He was afterwards appointed to carry the King's answer to the Parliament. A month afterwards he was again selected to go to his Majesty, who was then at Beverley; but disliking the employment, he declined it, and another gentleman was put in his place.

About the latter end of August, 1624, Sir Hugh was directed to go to Yorkshire and to call together his regiment for the purpose of defending Scarborough. How he conducted himself in that employment he does not state in his memoirs. He merely says, in the account which he has given elsewhere, “that he did not forsake the Parliament till they had failed in performing those things they had engaged to do, and which they had made the basis of the war—namely, the preservation of religion and the liberty of the subject.”

Lady Chomley was in London when her husband declared for the King. The Parliament being nettled that it had lost a person who had been so useful, took a mean and petty revenge upon him by plundering his wife of her coach-horses, and otherwise treating her rudely. However, she managed to procure a pass to rejoin Sir Hugh. After two days' sojourn at Whitby, Sir Hugh carried his wife to Scarborough, of which place he had been made governor by the King. There they lived “in a very handsome port and fashion;” but in such a way as not many in employment for either the King or the Parliament did the like. For he had neither pay nor allowance, but maintained the post of governor upon his own purse, not having the worth of a chicken out of the country which he did not pay for till the time came that they were besieged.

When the place was attacked in the month of February, 1644, Lady Chomley, who would not forsake her husband in his time of danger, desired him to send his two daughters into Holland. This he did, though not without great trouble, for he was very fond of them. The siege lasted above twelve months. On the surrender of the castle, Sir Hugh, being in a very indifferent state of health, took ship for Holland at Bridlington, leaving Lady Chomley with not above J in her purse, while he himself had barely enough to defray his passage. As soon as he arrived in Holland, he sent his two daughters back to their mother, and being thus left alone, fell into great sadness and trouble of mind. In a short time he went to Paris where he found a letter written to a merchant there by his son William, who was then on his return from Italy, in which letter he said that unless he had a speedy supply of money from his father he should be forced to turn soldier, and trail a pike in Catalonia for his subsistence. In the spring of 1645, he sent William, who not long before had joined his father in Paris, to England to look after his estates; and fortunate it was that he did so, for, with the help of his uncle Sir Henry, Mr. Chomley was able to get the manors of Whitby and some other lands out of sequestration. In May, 1647, Sir Hugh went to Rouen, where he was joined by his wife, his two sons, and his daughters. Thus the family which had not been together for five years' time, were once more reunited. At Rouen they remained for a year and a half; but the plague having made its appearance in the city, they took house at Gallion, sixteen miles distant, and the seat of the archbishop, and where they remained a short time. Their return to Rouen took place soon after the Parliament had beheaded King Charles, at which the French were so incensed, that the people were ready to stone Sir Hugh and his party at the landing of the river. “And truly,” adds Sir Hugh, “but that we had formerly lived there and were known by many to be of the King's party, I verily think they would have done us some mischief.”

In February, 1648, Lady Chomley went to England, and in the June of the year following, Sir Hugh took ship at Calais and landed at Dover. Thence he went to London and from there to Whitby.

In the spring of 1651, many gentlemen were committed to prison on suspicion of favouring the cause of the King. Amongst them were Sir Roger Twisden and Sir Hugh Chomley, who for some time past had been residing with his brother-in-law at Peckham. One Saturday, early in the morning, they were suddenly carried off by a party of horse and conveyed to Leeds, where they were kept in prison for the space of six weeks.

In July, 1652, the whole family returned once more to their beloved Yorkshire home. The place had, it is true, been plundered of all that had made it pleasant and comfortable. Nevertheless, Lady Chomley, with her own housewifery, had made some bedding, had put it in a condition to receive themselves and a friend. Sir Hugh's intention was to live there as retiredly as possible; nevertheless, even then his family amounted to twenty persons in nunmber.

In October, 1664, Lady Chomley and her husband went to London. They remained there till the following spring, when Sir Hugh having occasion to go to Yorkshire, and his wife not feeling very well, he left her at her sister's house at Chiswick. She remained there about a month, and then went to the lodgings which her cousin, Lady Katharine Moor, occupied in Bedford-street, Covent-garden. There, after having been ill for a week of fever, she died on the 17th of April, “making,” says Sir Hugh, “a most pious and Christian end.” The news of her sudden death reached her husband at Whitby, from which place he made haste to remove, not being able to endure the sight of the rooms and places where he had been accustomed to enjoy her society. “It is now a year and a half since she departed this life,” he says, “most of which time I have resided among her friends, whom I love very much, and where I shall, I think, for the most part continue, except the Lord change my condition, to whose protection and providence I commit the remainder of my days, the number and nature of which He only knoweth. I beseech they may be for His glory, and then I am pleased however he pleases to dispose of me.” Sir Hugh did not survive his wife more than two years. He died at East Peckham on the 30th of November, 1657, about six months after he had brought his autobiography to a conclusion. On a plain monument of alabaster in Peckham church, rasied by Sir Hugh to the memory of Lady Chomley, it is stated that for the great love he bore the virtues and worth he found in his wife, he had declined being buried in his own county, among his ancestors, and had chosen to be laid beside her.

Sir Hugh has appended to his biography a “particular relation and description” of her, whose great virtues and perfections he stated in his preface he had been desirous to embalm to future ages.

Lady Chomley was, her husband tells us, of the middle stature of women, and well shaped; yet in that not so singular as in the beauty of her face—her features being very delicate, and yet proportionate to her body. Her eyes were black and full of loveliness and sweetness, her eyebrows small and even as if drawn with a pencil. She had a very small, pretty, well-shaped mouth, which sometimes, especially when in a muse or study, she would draw up into an incredible little compass. Her hair was a dark chestnut; her complexion brown but clear, with a fresh colour in her cheeks. In her looks there was loveliness inexpressible, and in her whole composition she was so beautiful a sweet creature at her marriage, as not many did parallel; few exceeded her in the nation. Yet the inward endowments and perfections of her mind did excel those of her body, for she was a most pious, virtuous person, of great integrity and discerning judgment in most things. Of a sweet kindly nature, she was compassionate beyond imagination, insomuch that there was nothing she took more interest in, nothing that was more agreeable to her disposition than to be helpful to everybody's needs, of what quality or condition soever; being even more touched with others' wants than with her own. She was of a most noble, generous mind, and would not do an unjust or dishonourable act to gain the world; apt to remit trespasses, she did not retain revenge longer that her anger, which was over in a moment. She was of a timorous nature, though in great danger had a courage above her size. Thus, on the capitulation of Scarborough Castle, when the commanding officer threatened that in case one drop of his men's blood should be shed, he would not give quarter to man or woman, but would put all to the sword, Lady Chomley, conceiving her husband would the more resent these menaces on account of her being there, went to him, and without any trouble or dejection begged he would not, for any consideration towards her, do aught that might be prejudicial to his own honour or the affairs of the King. Notwithstanding all the hardships she had to undergo she would never be persuaded to leave her husband. Very great indeed some of these hardships were. On the castle being besieged she had been forced to lie in a little cabin on the ground several months together; neither did she escape a touch of the scurvy, which was then rife in the place, and from which she never entirely recovered. During the time of the siege she took a most extraordinary care of the sick, making such provision for them as the place would afford. After the surrender of the castle, she stipulated that the garrison in her husband's house at Whitby might be removed, so that she might have liberty to dwell there. But the captain, who was in possession, liked his quarters so well, that he would not stir until one of his servants had died there of the plague. Then he left in a fright; and before he could return Lady Chomley had ventured over the moors from Malton, in the middle of winter, in a dangerous season, the moors being then covered with snow, in order to reach her home; she being then in sad condition, for her husband and her two sons were over the seas, and her girls she dared not send for on account of the plague. She had only one maid and one man servant, who acted as cook. And as she was solitary so also was she miserably accommodated. For the house having been plundered, she had nothing but what she borrowed; while her bed was so hard, she would complain she could not get warm, nor was she able to lie on it. This she was accustomed to say was the saddest and worst time of her life. Yet her spirit would not submit to make complaint and application as she might have done to the Parliament assembled at York.

“The people about Whitby,” says Sir Hugh, “owe a particular obligation to her memory, their manners being much improved and refined under her influence. For she was very courteous and affable, and many of the best in the country desired to have their daughters in service with her.” From their mother, who had been bred up in the court of Queen Elizabeth, she had inherited great taste and skill in needlework. Much of the bedding and the blankets were made by her own hands; and there was a suit of green cloth hangings with flowers of needlework, wrought by herself and her maids, which her husband much esteemed and prized, as he also heartily wished his posterity might do, desiring his children, for her sake, to preserve the hangings with extraordinary care. Her chief delight, however, was in her books, and very well versed was she in history. Though by constitution inclined to melancholy, she was generally pleasant and loved mirth. She was, moreover, as true a friend as was in the world.

By way of foil to set off all these perfections, Sir Hugh says, “she was passionate and soon provoked to anger, saying at times what she did not intend or think. But it was quickly over, and then she would be sorry for it.” She was, also, much troubled at evils which could neither be prevented or remedied. “And now,” says her husband, “having laid open her imperfections, which may be reckoned rather frailties than faults, and considering how much her virtues overbalanced them, I hope posterity will have the memory of her in great honour and veneration, as I am sure all have that knew her, but especially myself, who best knew her virtues and have the greatest loss of her.”

Her death took place on the 17th April, 1665, being Easter Tuesday. Singularly enough, her birth, marriage, and death, had all fallen upon the same day in the week. Before she became ill she had been exceedingly well in health, and although in her fifty-fifth year, she did not look more than forty. She only kept her chamber a week, and the physicians thought her in no great danger even a few hours before she died. On Lady Katharine Moor advising her to send for a divine but mentioning only such as were Presbyterians, Lady Chomley replied, “she needed them not.” At last her son-in-law, Mr. Stephens, asked if he should fetch her the Bishop of Armagh. She answered, “With all my heart, I pray you do.” He arrived just two or three hours before her death, and knowing her to be well prepared, he said he was come to marry her to the Lord Jesus. To which she answered, “Blessed day that I am to be married to my Saviour, the Lord Jesus.” These words were thenceforth never out of her mind, or scarce out of her mouth, for she often repeated them till she died, a true daughter of the Reformed Church of England. Though she often asked for her husband during her illness, she said, “she saw that it could not be, and therefore submitted to God's pleasure.”

In conclusion we may mention that in some nursery gardens at Whitby, there is still preserved a memorial of Sir Hugh and Lady Chomley. A stone in the boundary wall bearing the following inscription :—

“I,Sr. Hugh Chomley, Kt. And Barronet, And Elizabeth, My Deare Wife, Daughter To Sr. Will. Twisden Of Great Peckham, In Ye County Of Kent, Kt. And Barronet, Built This Wall And Planted This Bech. Anno Domini, 1652.”

Under these lines there is a shield bearing the arms of the families of Chomley and Twisden. Beneath the shield are these two lines,—

[The Deserted Mansion]

A few years ago, a picture appeared in the Exhibition of the Royal Academy, which peculiarly impressed my imagination; it represented an ancient ruinous dwelling, surrounded by dilapidated gardens set in somber woods. The venerable trees, the moat filled with nettle and rubbish, the broken fences, green stagnant waters, the gabled, turreted many-windowed, mouldering mansion, a perfect medley of chaotic architecture. The visible silence, the spirit of supreme desolation brooding over the precincts, filled my mind with involuntary sadness; while fancy conjured up strange, wild tales of other days, in connexion with the scene. I could not shake off the belief that reality was portrayed on the canvass; and writing an account of the various pictures to a friend who resided in the country, I dwelt on this particular one, and my singular impressions respecting it. When I next received a letter from my friend, she remarked how unaccountable my fancies were; fancies which were, however, based on the foundation of truth.

She went on to say, that reading my letter to Mrs. L——, an octogenarian in wonderful preservation, that lady informed her of the locality of my deserted mansion, and also of its history; the picture being actually painted for Mrs. L——'s son; and the tale attached to it, which my friend eventually gave me in the old lady's own words, was as follows:—

“Fifty years ago the mansion of St. Elan's Wood was reckoned ancient, but it was a healthful, vigorous age, interesting and picturesque. Then, emerald turf lined the sides of the moat, and blooming flowers clustered within its sloping shelter; white drapery fluttered within the quaint latticed windows, and delicate climbers festooned them without; terraced walks and thick holly hedges were in trim order, fountains sparkled in the sunshine, and blushing roses bent over and kissed the clear rejoicing waters.

“Fifty years ago, joyous laughter resounded amid the grenwood glades, and buoyant footsteeps pressed the greensward; for the master of st. elans had brought home a bride, and friends and relatives hastened thither to offer congratulations, and to share the hospitalities of the festive season.

“Lady St. Elan was a very young wife; a soft-eyed, timid creature; her mother had died during her daughter's infancy, and her father (an officer of high rank in the army) being abroad, a lady whom we shall call Sabina, by whom she had been educated, accompanied her beloved pupil, now Lady St. Elan, to this new home. The death of Lady St. Elan's father, and the birth of a daughter, eventually mingled rejoicing and mourning together, while great anxiety was felt for the young mother, whose recovery was extremely tedious. The visis of eminent physicians, who were sent from great distances, evinced the fears which were still entertained, even when the invalid roamed once more in the pleasant gardens and woods around. Alas! it was not for the poor lady's bodily health they feared; the hereditary mental malady of her family on the maternal side, but which had slumbered for two generations, again darkly shadowed forth its dread approaches. Slight, indeed, had been the warning as yet, subtle the demonstrations of the deadly enemy, but enough to alarm the watchful husband, who was well acquainted with the facts. But the alarm passed away, the physicians came no more, and apparent health and strength, both mental and physical, were fully restored to the patient, while the sweet babe really deserved the epithets lavished on it by the delighted mother of the ‘divinest baby in the world.’

“During the temporary absence of her husband, on affairs of urgent business, Lady St. Elan requested Sabina to share her chamber at night, on the plea of timidity and loneliness; this wish was cheerfully complied with, and two or three days passed pleasantly away.

“St. Elan was expected to return home on the following morning, and when the friends retired to rest on the previous night, Sabina withdrew the window curtains, to gaze upon the glorious landscape which stretched far away, all bathed in silver radiance, and she soon fell into a tranquil slumber, communing with holy thoughts and prayerful aspirations. She was suddenly awakened by a curious kind of sound in the room, accompanied by a half-stifled jeering laugh. She knew not how long sleep had lulled her in oblivion, but when Sabina turned round to see from whence the sound proceeded, imagine her horror and dismay at beholding Lady St. Elan standing near the door, sharpening a large knife on her slipper, looking wildly round now and then, muttering and jibing.

“‘Not sharp enough yet—, not sharp enough yet,’ she exclaimed, intently pursuing her occupation.

“Sabina felt instinctively, that this was no practical jokeshe knew instinctively the dread reality—, by the maniac's eye—, by the tone of voice—and she sprang from the bed, darting towards the door. It was locked. Lady St. Elan looked cunningly up, muttering,—

“‘So you thought I was so silly, did you? But I double-locked it, and threw the key out of the window; and perhaps you may spy it out in the moonshine you're so fond of admiring,’ pointing to an open casement, at an immense height from the ground—for this apartment was at the summit of a turret, commanding an extensive view, chosen for that reason, as well as for its seclusion and repose, being so far distant from the rest of the household.

“Sabina was not afflicted with weak nerves, and as the full danger of her position flashed across her mind, she remembered to have heard that the human eye possesses extraodinary power to quell and keep in abeyance all unruly passions thus terrifically displayed. She was also aware, that in a contest where mere bodily energy was concerned, her powers must prove utterly inadequate and unavailing, when brought into competion with those of the unfortunate lady during a continuance of the paroxysm. Sabina feigned a calmness which she was far from feeling at that trying moment, and though her voice trembled, yet she said cheerfully, and with a careless air,—

“‘I think your knife will soon be sharp enough, Lady St. Elan; what do you want it for?’

“‘What do I want it for?’ mimicked the mad woman; ‘why what should I want it for, Sabina, but to cut your throat with?’

“‘Well, that is an odd fancy,’ exclaimed Sabina, endeavouring not to scream or to faint: ‘but you had better sit down, for the knife is not sharp enough for that job—there—there's a chair. Now give me your attention while you sharpen and sharpen, and i'll sit opposite to you; for I have had such an extraordinary dream, and i want you to listen to it.’

“The lady looked maliciously sly, as much as to say, ‘you shall not cheat me, if I do listen.’ But she sat down, and Sabina opposite to her, who began pouring forth a farrago of nonsense, which she pretended to have dreamt. Lady St. Elan had always been much addicted to perusing works of romantic fiction, and this taste for the marvellous was, probably, the means of saving Sabina's life, who during that long and awful night never flagged for one monent, continuing her repetition of marvels in the Arabian Night's style. The maniac sat perfectly still, with the knife in one hand, the slipper in the other, and her large eyes intently fixed on the narrator. Oh, those weary, weary hours! When, at length, repeated signals and knocks were heard at the chamber-door, as the morning sun arose, Sabina had presence of mind not to notice them, as her terrible companion appeared not to do so; but she continued her sing-song, monotonous strain, until the barrier was fairly burst open, and St. Elan himself, who had just returned, alarmed at the portentous murmurs within, and accompanied by several domestics, came to the rescue.

“Had Sabina moved, or screamed for help, or appeared to recongnise the aid which was at hand, ere it could have reached her, the knife might have been sheathed in her heart. This knife was a foreign one of quaint workmanship, usually hanging up in St. Elan's dressing-room; and the premeditation evinced in thus secreting it was a mystery not to be solved. Sabina's hair which was black as the raven's wing, when she retired to rest on that fearful night, had changed to the similitude of extreme age when they found her in the morning. Lady St. Elan never recovered this sudden and total overthrow of reason, but died—alas! it was rumoured, by her own hand—within two years afterwards. The infant heiress was entrusted to the guidance of her mother's friend and governess; she became an orphan at an early age, and on completing her twenty-first year was uncontrolled mistress of the fortune and estates of her ancestors.

“But long ere that period arrived, a serious question had arisen in Sabina's mind respecting the duty and expediency of informing Mary St. Elan what her true position was, and gently imparting the sad knowledge of that visitation overshadowing the destinies of her race. It was true that in her individual case the catastrophe might be warded off, while, on the other hand, there was lurking, threatening danger; but a high religious principle seemed to demand a sacrifice, or self-immolation, in order to prevent the possibility of a perpetuation of the direful malady.

“Sabina felt assured that were her noble-hearted pupil once to learn the facts, there would be no hesitation on her part in strictly adhering to the prescribed line of right; it was a bitter task for Sabina to undertake, but she did not shrink from performing it when peacefully away to a better world, bequeathing the mansion house and estate of St. Elan's Wood to Sabina and her heirs. In Sabina's estimation, however, this munificent gift was as the ‘price of blood;’ as, but for her instrumentality, the fatal knowledge would not have been imparted; but for her the ancestral woods and pleasant home might have descended to children's children in the St. Elan's line,—tainted, indeed, and doomed; but now the race was extinct.

“There were many persons who laughed at Sabina's sensitive feelings on this subject, which they could not understand; and even well-meaning, pious folk thought that she carried her strict notions ‘too far.’ Yet Sabina remained immovable; nor would she ever consent that the wealth thus left should be enjoyed by her of hers.

“Thus the deserted mansion still remanins unclaimed, though it will not be long ere it is appropriated to the useful and benificient purpose specified in Mary St. Elan's will—namely, failing Sabina and her issue, to be converted into a lunatic asylum—a kind of lunatic alms-house for decayed gentle-women, who, with the requisite qualifications, will here find refuge from the double storms of life assailing them, poor souls! both from within and without.”

“But what became of Sabina, and what interest has your son in this picture?”asked my friend of old Mrs. L——, as that venerable lady concluded her narration; “for if none live to claim the property, why does it remain thus?”

“Your justifiable curiosity shall be gratified, my dear,” responded the kindly dame. “Look at my hair—it did not turn white from age: I retired to rest one night with glossy braids, black as the raven's wing, and they found me in the morning as you now behold me! Yes, it is even so; and you no longer wonder that Sabina's son desired to possess this identical painting: my pilgrimage is drawing towards its close—protracted as it has been beyond the allotted age of man—but, according to the tenor of the afore-named will, the mansion and estate of St. Elan must remain as they now stand until I am no more; while the accumulated funds will amply endow the excellent charity. Were my son less honourable or scrupulous, he might, of course, claim the property on my decease; but respect for his mother's memory, with firm adherence to her principles, will keep him, with God's blessing, from yielding to temptation. He is not a rich man, but with proud humility he mat gaze on this memorial picyure, and hand it down to posterity with the traditionary lore attached; and may none of our descendants ever lament the use which will be made, nor covet the possession, of this deserted mansion.”

[A Fear for the Future]

It has happened that for the last five-and-twenty years I have lived altogether out of “the world.” Of course, an intelligent reader will understand what I mean by the expression. I haven't been staying in Sirius, nor making the tour of the Great Bear. But circumstances have combined to keep me and my dear wife and family in a remote corner of this busy England whereto the clash and clamour of its onward progress has penetrated but imperfectly, and wherein our experience of society has been limited in extent and primitive in quality.

Not but that we have been very happy, in spite of our disadvantages and privations. Our utmost dissipation in the winter time (our social season), consisted in going to tea among our one or two neighbours and playing a rubber at whist in the evening; or at christmas time. Around game at vingt-un or speculation for the children. The pretty speckled beans of the scarlet runners were our counters, and a penny per dozen the rate at which we gambled. What excitement there used to be over those momentous stakes, and what laughing and fun! Yes: we enjoyed those festivities, and thought them very pleasant. People don't know the true worth of a pack of cards who have never lived in the country, five miles from a post town, and in the midst of a small social circle, wherein the desideratum is to obtain the greatest amount of amusement at the smallest intellectual expense.

Still, though I repeat we were very happy, with our summer picnics and our winter card-playing—still, it will easily be perceived that our “life” for twenty years past has been a very different sort of thing from what you London people call by the same name. And no doubt it is simply natural that now we have temporarily emerged from our seclusion; now that we are in this great metropolis staying on a visit, and going about as country visitors usually do, doubtless, it is only to be expected that we should be very much astonished at many things we see— that we find nothing as it used to be, and are perpetually involved in bewilderments and perplexities. But there are some phases of this changed aspect of things which more than perplex; they alarm me. Some metamorphoses in the state of affairs which have taken place “since my day cause me, I must own, serious uneasiness.

I have got over my first surprise and dismay at a good deal. Different as evening parties are from the routs and assemblies of my youth, I can now "assist" at one without making my eyebrows ache with perpetual astonishment, or tiring out my intimate friends by my continual questions. It no longer overwhelms me to hear a gentleman, in asking a lady to dance, abrogate all the chivalrous old-fashioned ceremony of petition with which I used to prefer that request; nor, when the free and easy invitation is accepted, does it quite shock me out of my self-possession to see the cavalier enfold the lady in his embrace, and then whirl her off at a speed and in a fashion at which the more dignified maidens of thirty or forty years ago would have been both frightened and ashamed. I have grown accustomed also to the wonderful spectacle of a lady in evening dress. I can regard it at last with tolerable composure, though I admit it was long before my old-fashioned eyes could patiently endure the sight of that head about which hangs such a mass of tropical vegetation; or the extraordinary incongruity of that vast and voluminous extent of skirt, and marvellously scanty provision for sleeve, and what my wife, I believe, calls corsage. I don't marvel now, when the guests that were invited at eight o'clock don't appear till eleven; and I have ceased to be distressed by people of moderate means and small-sized houses, persistently and periodically inviting a hundred and fifty of their fellow-creatures to cram themselves into an apartment designed to afford comfortable sitting room and breathing space for about a third of that number. Nor do I now look wildly for supper towards the clock of these entertainments, though I admit I did at first; for standing for five consecutive hours is hard work, particularly when singing has to be listened to all the time; and exhausted nature does, I must say, crave for some refreshment beyond the thin biscuits and weak negus which are served out in the china closet down-stairs, on such occasions at these festive mansions. At Slowington, now, our card parties were always wound up a famous supper, when at least thrice the amount of comestibles that could possibly be consumed by the number of visitors, were ranged upon the board. There—the scarcity always was of people to partake, and not of things to be partaken. The style of hospitality prevalent in this modern Babylon is certainly much more ethereal—wine and water, biscuits, and “jam,” as my son Charles says, is all you need expect at these crowded reunions. Well, I'm getting used to it; and by dint of fortifying myself with a solid meal beforehand, manage to get creditably through similar severe evenings.

But there are other changes than these, that have taken place within this quarter century, to which all my philosophy is unable to reconcile me. These changes are not of that class which simply affect dress, manners, or customs. Humanity itself comes under their influence; and the great soul of Womanhood especially, seems to me to be no less altered from what it used to be, than is its external appearance. It is this which excites my most lively apprehensions. As the father of six boys, all of whom I hope one day to see husbands of wives and fathers of families, I feel particularly intrerested in the younger generation of women now growing up around us. And in no one particular do I find that “world” from which I have thus long been isolated, so signally changed as among them.

I miss everything I have been accustomed to meet with, in these charming members of the great human family. I could almost imagine they had become a different race of beings altogether. In my time girls were romantic, addicted to falling in love, and to wasting their time over novels and letterwriting. Their worst foible was apt to be love of admiration; their most perilous tendency one towards thin shoes and young officers. In a word, they were a thoughtless, foolish, bewitching, loving, helpless, irresistible set of creatures, in whom one saw at a glance all that was faulty or pernicious; and found out more and more with every day of closer intimacy the great underlying wealth of worth and goodness.

I know it was so in my case. My wife was a slender young thing of seventeen when I first made her acquaintance. What nonsense we used to talk in the moonlight, leaning out on the balcony of her father's house, till we were summoned in and reprimanded for our imprudence! What colds she used to catch, walking with me along the banks of the river after sunset, clad in a muslin dress and lace pelerine! When i quoted poetry (sometimes Byron's but more frequently my own, which she preferred), how she listened, her blue eyes fixed on my face, in breathless admiration and delight! When I played the flute, (dreadfully out of tune, I've no doubt, and looking anything but sublime in the act), how innocently charmed she always was. Many a day she has asked me to play “The Thorn” and “The Manly Heart” six or seven times over. There's enthusiasm and sentiment for you! Then how shy and timid she was! I think it was in helping her to cross the stream by a narrow plank one day, that I lost my heart irretrievably. The way in which she clung to my arm, the bewildering helplessness with which she looked at me with those dove-like eyes—ah, it was irresistible! No man could be expected to stand it.

But now-a-day, no such peril menaces masculine bosoms. No, my six dear sons; your peace of mind is little likely to be disturbed by similar feminine attractions. Nothing of that kind is characteristic of the female nature of this present time. The pretty ignorance, the fascinating helpessness, the charming unconsciousness that enslaved us bachelors of long ago—where are they all gone to? Where is the graceful weakness that appealed so eloquently to our awkward strength; where the delicious unreasonableness that so subtly flattered our logical profundity; where the enthusiastic romance that seemed expressly to temper and balance the matter-of-fact worldliness inevitable more or less to the nature of the masculine animal which has to work for its living? Where, I ask, in eager anxiety, for the sake of my six boys?

As for Romance, it has had its day. Young women in whose fresh untutored minds and generous hearts it had known from time immemorial its sure stronghold and sanctuary, have gone over in a body to the enemy, and now range themselves under the brown banner of Matter of Fact, Stern Reality, and Common Sense. They no longer pore over Byron and Lamartine, delight in moonlight and solitude, and the sacred sympathy of one congenial spirit. They study McCulloch and Adam Smith, and light the candles directly it is too dusk to read or write. Moreover, they have grown gregarious in their habits; they incline towards Committees, and take pleasure in Associations. They know too much about sanitary laws, and pay too great attention to them, ever to think of such things as moonlight rambles, or meditations after dark at an open window. The Juliets of the nineteenth century would entirely decline holding any clandestine communication with Romeos from a balcony. In the first place, they would consider it weak and nonsensical, and secondly, they wouldn't like to risk catching cold. They have a wholesome consideration for rheumatism and catarrh,— disorders which the damsels of my day regarded with lofty and increduluous disdain. As for thin shoes, except for dancing, they appear to have altogether vanished from the feminine toilet. “Balmoral” boots, soles half an inch thick, and “military heels” have usurped their place. Those boots, and the martial red petticoats now so familiar to every eye, are to me eloquent manifestations of the change that has come over the spirit of womanhood. They are sensible, strong, and matter of fact; just as the thin slippers and muslin robes of old time were foolish, fragile, and poetical. I suppose the influence on the statistics of female health under this new regime must be considerable. All very well; but when I was a young man the notion of statistics in connection with a woman would have appeared to me almost profanely impertinent.

Again, looking back on those long past days, I recollect how few were the acquirements, how limited the information, of the fairer half of humanity. I know they generally employed themselves indoors with wool-work, harmless flower-painting, or a little gentle music. I never heard of anything more profound than these forming their pursuits. Few among them were readers (at least of aught but novels and poetry), and as for writing, they used to write “letters” with much state and ostentation, retiring to their own rooms for the purpose, and occupying whole long mornings in crossing and re-crossing divers pages of fair paper with those long-tailed straggling characters of theirs. No exigencies of “writing for the press” had as yet cramped their free flowing caligraphy. No ideas of original composition had ever entered their innocent heads. They detailed the events of their daily lives, they repeated their mild sentiments and innocuous platitudes in these latticed-worked epistles with the most contented self-complacency, never dreaming that anything better or wiser could be required of them. They were women, the helpmates, consolers, and adornments of our homes; like the lilies, they toiled not, but fulfilled the end of their existence, being lovely and pure amid the coarser and more useful herbs of the field.

But now! What modern young woman, of average ability and education, who is not at least a “a writer” in some magazine, or probably yet more ambitious, the author of a book, be it novel in three volumes, travels in two, or poetry in one? As for the exceptionally clever among their sex, such light labours in literature no longer content them. They attack science, and produce authoritative tomes, books of reference, to be regarded with awe by all men, on the several subjects on which they have brought their minds to bear. Or they devote their energies to politics, indite fierce “leaders” in newspapers, and make themselves obnoxious to sundry continental governments. I need hardly say, that like all respectable country gentlemen, I am a stanch Conservative, and it at once adds to my alarm, and confirms my unfavourable impression of this new state of things, when I find that all these female politicians are furious Radicals and Reformers.

What do you suppose are my feelings when I look around me at an evening party, inspecting what used to be the brightest ornaments of that social institution—the young girls—and find that, according to my notion and definition of the species, no such creature exists there? No. These are women, old, elderly, middle-aged, passe1es, in their prime; young, very young—very young indeed, in years; but as for freshness, the bloom, the artlessness, the timidity, the everything most characteristic of girlhood—all has fled, and is no longer there.

There are plenty of good-looking young ladies, whose toilette is not the most carefully adjusted in the world, and whose hair is arranged in a fashion suggestive of the very probable idea that they were called away just before achieving the desirable ceremony of washing their faces. They are influential members of society; they are presiding influences of sundry Committees and Female Associations for the Alteration of This, the Aboliton of That, or the Advancement of the Other. They write pamphlets, and issue manifestoes; they speak at crowded meetings, and take an ardent part in important controversies. They are not really young women—they are Public Persons. Any of my sons, I am quite sure, would as soon think of making love to Lord Brougham or the statue of Mr. Canning, as of uttering a word of anything sentimental to these ladies. Moreover, outward appearances can by no means be assumed to be a reliable criterion. At one of the first evening parties which I attended this season, I was greatly attracted by a group of pretty, fair-looking damsels, who seemed to herd together in one corner of the room, chirping like sparrows among themselves—their flower—decked heads nodding and tossing with charming impetuosity, and their little gloved hands gesticulating with fans, bouquets, and handkerchiefs. They appeared to me almost children in years; and something in their aspect quite warmed my disappointed heart with a sense of freshness and sweetness. I assumed the privilege of my age and grey hairs, and approached them, with some conciliatory remark, at once suave, benignant, admiring, and jocose—in fact, couched after the usual manner of old gentlemen to young ladies.

“And what breeze is stirring the flowers?” say I—“what momentous subject is rippling over those rosy lips? Will you admit an old man to your conference?”

At this they all look at me, and then at each other, with sudden seriousness. They are evidently astonished; and presently the rosy lips assume curves not of the pleasantest; and I am conscious, before any reply is vouchsafed me, that these innocent white-robed maidens know what sarcasm means.

“We are talking about our dolls, of course,” replies one.

“That subject and dress, are all that ever occupy our minds,” says another.

“Now, what did you suppose we were discussing?” a third asks me, laughingly, and with an air of candour that would be very delighful if on such a smooth brow, there were not a suspicion of boldness about it.

“Oh,” I rejoin, determined not to fix the theme too low, “I might have thought you were canvassing the merits of the last new song, or picture, or novel. Young ladies now-a-days, are great critics on such matters.”

“But we don't talk ‘shop’ when we come out to parties,” flippantly observes Nymph No. 1, At which I mystified, not understanding slang: and no doubt I look so, for they all exchange glances again, and laugh, and the candid one obligingly explains.

“You see we all of us either write, or compose, or paint. We are professional artists.” But here she broke off suddenly, as another lady came quickly towards us, and said with great earnestness and energy:—

“Mr. ——'s in the other room. Go and speak to him about the Bill. I'll get hold of ——, and attack him.”

Off they all fluttered, and I was left stranded in a very blank solitude. Yes, though in the midst of a brilliant crowd, and with the hum and buzz of confersation, and music, and laughter thrilling around me, I confess I felt a strange sense of loneliness creep over me; I seemed to have lived too long: I had ceased to be a part of the things of this present world. I was like a harpsichord tuned to the concert-pitch of a quarter of a century ago, which could take no part in the orchestra of to-day, being utterly discordant with every instrument therein; and while depressingly conscious of my own “flatness,” I could not but feel some anxiety as to the issue of this fiercely strung-up, highly-tensioned state of things. What would it all end I experienced a yearning after the little girls of my friend Brown, at Slowington, nice little things in short frocks and pinafores, and I marvelled if they would grow up into women, simply ah, could they do better? or if they would graft on to that fair heaven's work alien growths resulting in something strange and nondescript, like many of those I saw about me then. a don,t deny that I profound, and perhaps an unreasonable melancholy overcame me as I looked round that well-filled room, and took note, individually and collectively, of the fairer half of its occupants. For not the least perplexing element in this new system of perplexing, is to see external characteristics remaining as they wore, and musical propertion, grace of form, and delicacy of colouring still marking the broad distinction between the physical nature at least, of women and man. But how long will this lingering remnant of the original idea remain? I thought to myself. Will politicians, like that one in pink silk there, who I am told, understands the state of foreign affairs as well as any man living, continue to boast the fresh, shell-like compelxion, the lustrous eyes, the winning dimples on the cheek, that I see now? As the mind hardens with its abstruse studies and its bitter experience of practicalities, will not the skin grow coarse and rough, the lines deepen into furrows, and the whole aspect alter, till the outward aspect of a women becomes feebly masculine, answering to what, as I take it, she is now trying to make her mind? And if so—if this should come to pass—I want to know what is to become of my sones, and other men's sons? Where are they to look, when they go seeking among the daughters of the land that they may take unto themselves wives? How is it to be expected that they will feel towards these public character, who have been working side by side with them in the great arena of business, politics, or science; blackening their faces and roughening their hands in the same hard labour, only with the difference that they have to stand on their tip-toes to reach their fingers to the tool-board, and to run very fast to keep pace with the bigger labourer's show walk? Can it be supposed that my sons and their compeers will continue to regard these anomalous beings with the chivalric deference that conscious strength always feels to conscious helplessness? Are they to be supposed capable of entertaining for them the proper manly feeling of protecting tenderness to the physical weakness, of self-reproaching, half-wondering admiration of the gentlenss, purity, and moral strength that in former times used to make women, women? Yet of these peculiar feelings love is born; and I want to know what is to be done when the last blow is struck at them, and they cease to be.

I declare to you (and hence the source of my dismay) that if I were a young man thrown into the society of the present day, I should find myself perfectly incapable of falling in love with any of the young ladies that as yet have come under my notice. I couldn't do it. These followers of the arts, whose life is in the pictures they paint, or the books they write, these scientific damsels who would strike me dumb with a sense of my helpless ignorance if I began to converse with them—these political ladies, above all, who influence the affairs of Europe by their pens, and talk leading articles at you by the hour together if you give them a chance—could I ever feel a tender sentiment for any of these? Does a man fall in love with artist, novelist, mathematician,or politician? No, he doesn't; and the end of all these speculations is, that I turn with a feeling of profound relief and thankfulness to my beloved Alicia, who is, as she always was, neither more nor less than a loving woman, strong enough in mind and body for all a woman's work and duties, but for no more; who would as soon think of picking pockets as of writing books—knows no more of algebra than a flower, or of politics than a skylark. Oh, if I could find six such women for my boys! But I despair of it; I don't believe they exist. Education, cultivation, intellectual elevation, and so forth, have absolutely annihilated the species. Alas, the day!

“Doubtless I shall be deemed illiberal in these lamentations. Doubtless the cry oc my heart, Oh, for a little ignorance among women! oh, that their minds were not so expandad and their intelligence so developed!" sounds narrow, selfish, and shallow. Probab I shall find few to echo my wish that the sex was rather what it used to be, with all its weaknesses and follies and shortcomings, than what I dismally fear it is about to become. Be it so. Of course, if the world is satisfied with itself as it goes on, it is all very well for the world, and I must even keep my doubts and discontents buried in my own old fashioned breast.

This once, however, I may surely be allowed to speak out, and unburden my mind of this Fear for the Future.

[The Sexton's Hero]

The afternoon sun shed down his glorious rays on the grassy churchyard, making the shadow, cast by the old yew-tree under which we sat, seem deeper and deeper by contrast. The everlasting hum of myriads of summer insects made luxurious lullaby.

Of the view that lay beneath our gaze, I cannot speak adequately. The foreground was the grey-stone wall of the Vicarage garden; rich in the colouring made by innumberable lichens, ferns, ivy of most tender green and most delicate tracery, and the vivid scarlet of the crane's-bill, which found a home in every nook and crevice — and at the summit of that old wall flaunted some unpruned tendrils of the vine, and long flower-laden branches of the climbing rose-tree, trained against the inner side. Beyond, lay meadow green and mountain grey, and the blue dazzle of Morecambe Bay, as it sparkled between us and the more distant view.

For a while we were silent, living in sight and murmuring sound. Then Jeremy took up our conversation where, suddenly feeling weariness, as we saw that deep green shadowy resting-place, we had ceased speaking a quarter of an hour before.

It is one of the luxuries of holiday-time that thoughts are not rudely shaken from us by outward violence of hurry and busy impatience, but fall maturely from our lips in the sunny leisure of our days. The stock may be bad, but the fruit is ripe.

“How would you then define a hero?” I asked.

There was a long pause, and I had almost forgotten my question in watching a cloud-shadow floating over the far-away hills, when Jeremy made answer —

“My idea of a hero is one who acts up to the highest idea of duty he has been able to form, no matter at what sacrifice. I think that by this definition we may include all phases of character, even to the heroes of old, whose sole (and to us, low) idea of duty consisted in personal prowess.”

“Then you would even admit the military heroes?” asked I.

“I would; with a certain kind of pity for the circumstances which had given them no higher ideas of duty. Still, if they sacrificed self to do what they sincerely believed to be right. I do not think I could deny them the title of hero.”

“A poor, unchristian heroism, whose manifestation consists in injury to others!” I said.

We were both startled by a third voice.

“If I might make so bold, sir” — and then the speaker stopped.

It was the sexton, whom, when we first arrived, we had noticed, as an accessory to the scene, but whom we had forgotten, as much as though he were as inanimate as one of the moss-covered headstones. “If I might be so bold,” said he again, waiting leave to speak. Jeremy bowed in deference to his white, uncovered head. And so encouraged, he went on.

“What that gentleman” (alluding to my last speech) “has just now said, brings to my mind one who is dead and gone this many a year ago. I, may be, have not rightly understood your meaning, gentlemen, but as far as I could gather it, I think you'd both have given in to thinking poor Gilbert Dawson a hero. At any rate,” said he, heaving a long, quivering sigh, “I have reason to think him so.”

“Will you take a seat, sir, and tell us about him?” said Jeremy, standing up until the old man was seated. I confess I felt impatient at the interruption.

“It will be forty-five year come Martinmas,” said the Sexton, sitting down on a grassy mound at our feet, “since I finished my 'prenticeship, and settled down at Lindal. You can see Lindal, sir, at evenings and mornings across the bay; a little to the right of Grange; at least, I used to see it, many a time and oft, afore my sight grew so dark: and I have spent many a quarter of an hour a-gazing at it far away, and thinking of the days I lived there, till the tears came so thick to my eyes, I could gaze no longer. I shall never look upon it again, either far off or near, but you may see it, both ways, and a terrible bonny spot it is. In my young days, when I went to settle there, it was full of as wild a set of young fellows as ever were clapped eyes on; all for fighting, poaching, quarrelling, and suchlike work. I were startled myself when I first found what a set I were among, but soon I began to fall into their ways, and I ended by being as rough a chap as any on 'em. I'd been there a matter of two year, and were reckoned by most the cock of the village, when Gilbert Dawson, as I was speaking of, came to Lindal. He were about as strapping a chap as I was (I used to be six feet high, though now I'm so shrunk and doubled up), and, as we were like in the same trade (both used to prepare osiers and wood for the Liverpool coopers, who get a deal of stuff from the copses round the bay, sir), we were thrown together, and took mightily to each other. I put my best leg foremost to be equal with Gilbert, for I'd had some schooling, though since I'd been at Lindal I'd lost a good part of what I'd learnt; and I kept my rough ways out of sight for a time, I felt so ashamed of his getting to know them. But that did not last long. I began to think he fancied a girl I dearly loved, but who had always held off from me. Eh! but she was a pretty one in those days! There's none like her, now. I think I see her going along the road with her dancing tread, and shaking back her long yellow curls, to give me or any other young fellow a saucy word; no wonder Gilbert was taken with her, for all he was grave, and she so merry and light. But I began to think she liked him again; and then my blood was all afire. I got to hate him for everything he did. Aforetime I had stood by, admiring to see him, how he leapt, and what a quoiter and cricketer he was. And now I ground my teeth with hatred whene're he did a thing which caught my Letty's eye. I could read it in her look that she liked him, for all she held herself just as high with him as with all the rest. Lord God forgive me! how I hated that man.”

He spoke as if the hatred were a thing of yesterday, so clear within his memory were shown the actions and feelings of his youth. And then he dropped his voice and said —

“Well! I began to look out to pick a quarrel with him, for my blood was up to fight him. If I beat him (and I was a rare boxer in those days), I thought Letty would cool towards him. So one evening at quoits (I'm sure I don't know how or why, but large doings grow out of small words) I fell out with him, and challenged him to fight. I could see he were very wroth by his colour coming and going — and, as I said before, he were a fine active young fellow. But all at once he drew in, and said he would not fight. Such a yell as the Lindal lads, who were watching us, set up! I hear it yet. I could na' help but feel sorry for him, to be so scorned, and I thought he'd not rightly taken my meaning, and I'd give him another chance; so I said it again, and dared him, as plain as words could speak, to fight out the quarrel. He told me then, he had no quarrel against me; that he might have said something to put me up; he did not know that he had, but that if he had, he asked pardon; but that he would not fight no-how.

“I was so full of scorn at his cowardliness, that I was vexed I'd given him the second chance, and I joined in the yell that was set up, twice as bad as before. He stood it out, his teeth set, and looking very white, and when we were silent for want of breath, he said out loud, but in a hoarse voice, quite different from his own —

“ ‘I cannot fight, because I think it is wrong to quarrel, and use violence.’

“Then he turned to go away; I were beside myself with scorn and hate, that I called out —

“‘Tell truth, lad, at least; if thou dare not fight, dunnot go and tell a lie about it. Mother's moppet is afraid of a black eye, pretty dear. It shannot be hurt, but it munnot tell lies.’

“Well, they laughed, but I could not laugh. It seemed such a thing for a stout young chap to be a coward, and afraid!

“Before the sun had set, it was talked of all over Lindal, how I had challenged Gilbert to fight, and how he'd denied me; and the folks stood at their doors, and looked at him going up the hill to his home, as if he'd been a monkey or a foreigner — but no one wished him a good e'en. Such a thing as refusing to fight had never been heard of afore at Lindal. Next day, however, they had found voice. The men muttered the word ‘coward’ in his hearing, and kept aloof; the women tittered as he passed, and the little impudent lads and lasses shouted out, ‘How long is it sin' thou turned Quaker?’ ‘Good-bye, Jonathan Broad-brim,’ and suchlike jests.

“That evening I met him, with Letty by his side, coming up from the shore. She was almost crying as I came upon them at the turn of the lane; and looking up in his face, as if begging him something. And so she was, she told me after. For she did really like him; and could not abide to hear him scorned by every one for being a coward; and she, coy as she was, all but told him that very night that she loved him, and begged him not to disgrace himself, but fight me as I'd dared him to. When he still stuck to it he could not, for that was wrong, she was so vexed and mad-like at the way she'd spoken, and the feelings she'd let out to coax him, that she said more stinging things about his being a coward than all the rest put together (according to what she told me, sir, afterwards), and ended by saying she'd never speak to him again, as long as she lived; she did once again, though — her blessing was the last human speech that reached his ear in his wild death-struggle.

“But much happened afore that time. From the day I met them walking, Letty turned towards me; I could see a part of it was to spite Gilbert, for she'd be twice as kind when he was near, or likely to hear of it; but by and by she got to like me for my own sake, and it was all settled for our marriage. Gilbert kept aloof from every one, and fell into a sad, careless way. His very gait was changed; his step used to be brisk and sounding, and now his foot lingered heavily on the ground. I used to try and daunt him with my eye, but he would always meet my look in a steady, quiet way, for all so much about him was altered; the lads would not play with him; and as soon as he found he was to be slighted by them whenever he came to quoiting or cricket, he just left off coming.

“The old clerk was the only one he kept company with; or perhaps, rightly to speak, the only one who would keep company with him. They got so thick at last, that old Jonas would say, Gilbert had gospel on his side, and did no more than gospel told him to do; but we none of us gave much credit to what he said, more by token our vicar had a brother, a colonel in the army; and as we threeped it many a time to Jonas, would he set himself up to know the gospel better than the vicar? that would be putting the cart afore the horse, like the French radicals. And if the vicar had thought quarrelling and fighting wicked, and again the Bible, would he have made so much work about all the victories, that were as plenty as blackberries at that time of day, and kept the little bell of Lindal church for ever ringing; or would he have thought so much of ‘my brother the colonel,’ as he was always talking on?

“After I was married to Letty I left off hating Gilbert. I even kind of pitied him — he was so scorned and slighted; and for all he'd a bold look about him, as if he were not ashamed, he seemed pining and shrunk. It's a wearying thing to be kept at arm's length by one's kind; and so Gilbert found it, poor fellow. The little children took to him, though; they'd be round about him like a swarm of bees — them as was too young to know what a coward was, and only felt that he was ever ready to love and to help them, and was never loud or cross, however naughty they might be. After a while we had our little one, too; such a blessed darling she was, and dearly did we love her; Letty in especial, who seemed to get all the thought I used to think sometimes she wanted, after she had her baby to care for.

“All my kin lived on this side the bay, up above Kellet. Jane (that's her that lies buried near yon white rose-tree) was to be married, and naught would serve her but that Letty and I must come to the wedding; for all my sisters loved Letty, she had such winning ways with her. Letty did not like to leave her baby, nor yet did I want her to take it: so, after a talk, we fixed to leave it with Letty's mother for the afternoon. I could see her heart ached a bit, for she'd never left it till then, and she seemed to fear all manner of evil, even to the French coming and taking it away. Well! we borrowed a shandry, and harnessed my old grey mare, as I used in th' cart, and set off as grand as King George across the sands about three o'clock, for you see it were high-water about twelve, and we'd to go and come back same tide, as Letty could not leave her baby for long. It were a merry afternoon, were that; last time I ever saw Letty laugh heartily; and, for that matter, last time I ever laughed downright hearty myself. The latest crossing-time fell about nine o'clock, and we were late at starting. Clocks were wrong; and we'd a piece of work chasing a pig father had given Letty to take home; we bagged him at last, and he screeched and screeched in the back part o' th' shandry, and we laughed and they laughed; and in the midst of all the merriment the sun set, and that sobered us a bit, for then we knew what time it was. I whipped the old mare, but she was a deal beener than she she was in the morning, and would neither go quick up or down the brows, and they're not a few 'twixt Kellet and the shore. On the sands it were worse. They were very heavy, for the fresh had come down after the rains we'd had. Lord! how I did whip the poor mare, to make the most of the red light as yet lasted. From Bolton side, where we started from, it is better than six mile to Cart Lane, and two channels to cross, let alone holes and quicksands. At the second channel from us the guide waits, all during crossing-time from sunrise to sunset; but for the three hours on each side high-water he's not there, in course. He stays after sunset if he's forespoken, not else. So now you know where we were that awful night. For we'd crossed the first channel about two mile, and it were growing darker and darker above and around us, all but one red line of light above the hills, when we came to a hollow (for all the sands look so flat, there's many a hollow in them where you lose all sight of the shore). We were longer than we should ha' been in crossing the hollow, the sand was so quick; and when we came up again, there, again the blackness, was the white line of the rushing tide coming up the bay! It looked not a mile from us; and when the wind blows up the bay it comes swifter than a galloping horse. ‘Lord help us’ said I; and then I were sorry I'd spoken, to frighten Letty; but the words were crushed out of my heart by the terror. I felt her shiver up by my side, and clutch my coat. And as if the pig (as had screeched himself hoarse some time ago) had found out the danger we were all in, he took to squealing again, enough to bewilder any man. I cursed him between my teeth for his noise; and yet it was God's answer to my prayer, blind sinner as I was. Aye! you may smile, sir, but God can work through many a scornful thing, if need be.

“By this time the mare was all in a lather, and trembling and panting, as if in mortal fright; for though we were on the last bank afore the second channel, the water was gathering up her legs; and she so tired out! When we came close to the channel she stood still, and not all my flogging could get her to stir; she fairly groaned aloud, and shook in a terrible quaking way. Till now Letty had not spoken; only held my coat tightly. I heard her say something, and bent down my head.

“‘I think, John — I think — I shall never see baby again!’

“And then she sent up such a cry — so loud, and shrill, and pitiful! It faily maddened me. I pulled out my knife to spur on the old mare, that it might end one way or the other, for the water was stealing sullenly up to the very axle-tree, let alone the white waves that knew no mercy in their steady advance. That one quarter of an hour, sir, seemed as long as all my life since. Thoughts, and fancies, and dreams, and memory ran into each other. The mist, the heavy mist, that was like a ghastly curtain, shutting us in for death, seemed to bring with it the scents of flowers that grew around our own threshold; it might be, for it was falling on them like blessed dew, though to us it was a shroud. Letty told me at after, she heard her baby crying for her, above the gurgling of the rising waters, as plain as ever she heard anything; but the sea-birds were skirling, and the pig shrieking; I never caught it; it was miles away, at any rate.

“Just as I'd gotten my knife out, another sound was close upon us, blending with the gurgle of the near waters, and the roar of the distant (not so distant though); we could hardly see, but we thought we saw something black against the deep lead colour of wave, and mist, and sky. It neared and neared: with slow, steady motion, it came across the channel right to where we were.

“Oh, God! it was Gilbert Dawson on his strong bay horse.

“Few words did we speak, and little time had we to say them in. I had no knowledge at that moment of past or future — only of one present thought — how to save Letty, and, if I could, myself. I only remembered afterwards that Gilbert said he had been guided by an animal's shriek of terror; I only heard, when all was over, that he had been uneasy about out return, because of the depth of fresh, and borrowed a pillion, and saddled his horse early in the evening, and ridden down to Cart Lane to watch for us. If all had gone well, we should ne'er have heard of it. As it was, old Jonas told it, the tears down-dropping from his withered cheeks.

“We fastened his horse to the shandry. We lifted Letty to the pillion. The waters rose every instant with sullen sound. They were all but in the shandry. Letty clung to the pillion handles, but drooped her head as if she had yet no hope of life. Swifter than thought (and yet he might have had time for thought and for temptation, sir — if he had ridden off with Letty, he would have been saved, not me), Gilbert was in the shandry by my side.

“‘Quick!’ said he, clear and firm. ‘You must ride before her, and keep her up. The horse can swim. By God's mercy I will follow. I can cut the traces, and if the mare is not hampered with the shandry, she'll carry me safely through. At any rate, you are a husband and a father. No one cares for me.’

“Do not hate me, gentlemen. I often wish that night was a dream. It has haunted my sleep ever since like a dream, and yet it was no dream. I took his place on the saddle, and put Letty's arms around me, and felt her head rest on my shoulder. I trust in God I spoke some word of thanks; but I can't remember. I only recollect Letty raising her head, and calling out —

“‘God bless you, Gilbert Dawson, for saving my baby from being an orphan this night.’ And then she fell against me, as if unconscious.

“I bore her through; or, rather, the strong horse swam bravely through the gathering waves. We were dripping wet when we reached the banks in-shore; but we could have but one thought —where was Gilbert? Thick mists and heaving waters compassed us round. Where was he? We shouted. Letty, faint as she was, raised her voice and shouted clear and shrill. No answer came, the sea boomed on with ceaseless sullen beat. I rode to the guide's house. He was a-bed, and would not get up, though I offered him more than I was worth. Perhaps he knew it, the cursed old villain! At any rate, I'd have paid it if I'd toiled my life long. He said I might take his horn and welcome. I did, and blew such a blast through the still, black night, the echoes came back upon the heavy air: but no human voice or sound was heard — that wild blast could not awaken the dead!

“I took Letty home to her baby, over whom she wept the livelong night. I rode back to the shore about Cart Lane; and to and fro, with weary march, did I pace along the brink of the waters, now and then shouting out into the silence a vain cry for Gilbert. The waters went back and left no trace. Two days afterwards he was washed ashore near Flukeborough. The shandry and poor old mare were found half-buried in a heap of sand by Arnside Knot. As far as we could guess, he had dropped his knife trying to cut the traces, and so had lost all chance of life. Any rate, the knife was found in a cleft of the shaft.

“His friends came over from Garstang to his funeral. I wanted to go chief mourner, but it was not my right, and I might not; though I've never done mourning him to this day. When his sister packed up his things, I begged hard for something that had been his. She would give me none of his clothes (she was a right-down having woman), as she had boys of her own, who might grow up into them. But she threw me his Bible, as she said they'd gotten one already, and his were but a poor used-up thing. It was his, and so I cared for it. It were a black leather one, with pockets at the sides, old-fashioned-wise; and in one were a bunch of wild flowers, Letty said she could almost be sure were some she had once given him.

“There were many a text in the Gospel, marked broad with his carpenter's pencil, which more than bore him out in his refusal to fight. Of a surety, sir, there's call enough for bravery in the service of God, and to show love to man, without quarrelling and fighting.

“Thank you, gentlemen, for listening to me. Your words called up the thoughts of him, and my heart was full to speaking. But I must make up; I've to dig a grave for a little child, who is to be buried to-morrow morning, just when his playmates are trooping off to school.”

“But tell us of Letty; is she yet alive?” asked Jeremy.

The old man shook his head, and struggled against a choking sigh. After a minute's pause he said —

“She died in less than two year at after that night. She was never like the same again. She would sit thinking, on Gilbert, I guessed: but I could not blame her. We had a boy, and we named it Gilbert Dawson Knipe; he that's stoker on the London railway. Our girl was carried off in teething; and Letty just quietly drooped, and died in less than a six week. They were buried here; so I came to be near them, and away from Lindal, a place and I could never abide after Letty was gone.”

He turned to his work, and we, having rested sufficiently, rose up, and came away.

[Shams]

I will not attempt at once to define what is implied by the heading of this paper, because I really do not think we have any term of identical signification, and because, moreover, I am not able to locate—as the Americans would say—my ideas with such promptitude and exactness as to put the right one in the right place at a moment's notice. My meaning must, therefore, unfold itself as I proceed.

Dr. Johnson remarked once upon a time that “some persons would acquire more knowledge in the Hampstead stage than others by taking the grand tour,” and he was a wise man in this as in all his other sayings. My discoveries in the way of “shams” have merely arisen from making good use of my eyes; for as I only dwell in the country, though a would-be fashionable city, my opportunities are scanty enough. I see the same faces day after day in the streets, either belonging to idlers or to persons going about their several occupations, while the same old rumble-tumbles daily convey the same old dowagers to their accustomed airing in the public drive. The very beggars are quite familiar to me, from the poor widow who has always got her dear departed husband awaiting burial at the hands of charitable passers-by, to the barefooted rosy-cheeked urchin who tells me has not had a morsel to eat, oh! for ever so long, and winks at a companion round the corner as he thinks he takes me in. These mendicants are shams in their way; but we will let them pass this time. When I go to tea-parties I rarely percieve any novelties among the guests who form their nightly quartets at cards, or play and sing airs which have served as stock pieces during the whole of one season. Beaux being at a premium on these occasions, I have not even the agreeable excitement of noting new flirtations by the way of a change; and we all know that variety is charming.

Thus you must allow that unless I make the most of what passes before my eyes day by day and every day, I may as well close them at once and go to sleep, for all the service they would otherwise be to me. But I flatter myself I am one of the passengers by the Hampstead coach, and never let opportunities slip through my fingers when I can help it. I am not so conceited as to fancy myself a second Spectator, nor should I like my fellow towns-people to shun my society for fear of my discoveries, as the men and women of those times must have dreaded the Argus vision of that very observant individual. But as I have a weakness for “shams,” I look out for them diligently, and “when found,” I “make a note” of them.

They are, however, so multifarious that it is not easy to form a choice of examples, and state which are genuine and which are—sham. Really I can find no more expressive word, though I fear nobody will have patience to read on unless I endeavour to chercher mes mots, as the French have it, better. Yet other people as well as I have doubtless before now experienced a difficulty in obtaining duplicates in our language; and hence perhaps the use of French which some elegant folk affect. Only lately I was reading an article on this subject—where, I am ashamed to own, I forget, for I have not the best of memories—in which it was stated that we ordinary English employ no more than one page in four of our native dictionaries, wherefore our common conversation contains an incessant reiteration of the same phrases. And indeed we all know how badly and ungrammatically most of us converse in our own tongue, whilst we are so dreadfully cautious and fearful of perpetrating blunders and solecisms in a foreign one. Thus the over-correct English of strangers, which is often the mark by which to distinguish them, may afford us some inkling of our mode of speech when we exhibit our native talent for languages, except that as a general rule, we may set ourselves down as the worse speakers of the two. We islanders, when not engrossed by commerce, are so devoted to our Anglo-Latin and Greek that we scorn to waste any precious time in the cultivation of French, not to mention Italian. These are generally expected to come in the hour of need by inspiration, like preaching, or even dancing; and yet with regard to the latter Mr. Motley carefully informs us in his United Netherlands,that St. Aldegonde, “a scholar ripe and rare,” who had Latin and Greek at his fingers' ends, and “possessed the modern tongues as a matter of course,” “was even famous for his dancing, and had composed an intelligent and philosophical treatise upon the value of that amusement as an agent of civilization.” I can hardly find a better example in order to persuade Englishmen to dance imprimis, and afterwards to exhibit their proficiency for the public benefit. I have constantly remarked that good dancers pretend to give themselves airs, and to regard the principal object for which they are invited to balls as quite beneath their notice. They present themselves at the latest possible hour, and then lounge in doorways to show off their figures to the best advantage, or range themselves in the background as mere lookers-on, turning up their refined noses at the follies of their neighbours. Surely such conduct must be tantalizing to those distressed damsels who have been sister-anning it the entire evening. Who has not admired the fortitude of these young ladies in standing beside their chaperones for whole hours, fearing to tumble their flounces or lose a chance by sitting, and hoping always to obtain some reward for their patience?

In process of time their wishes may be gratified, but usually in so questionable a shape that one is inclined to doubt the desirableness of the change; for it is a singular fact that the votaries of Terpsichore are most frequently such as appear least designed by Nature to shine in the dance, but who are nevertheless willing and anxious to undertake anything, from a quadrille to a polka-mazurka. They are generally very young and slender or decidedly short and stumpy, and by way of contrast, invariably select the tallest and best-looking girls in the room. Woe to those who entrust themselves to their guidance on the plea that anything is better than nothing at all! These heroes are impudent shams, and know none of the duties expected of them. Either they rotate in a circle about a foot in diameter, while their unhappy partners are kept screwed up like birds ready trussed for table , from which martyrdom, all stiffness and palpitations,they will soon pray to be released; or else, after wandering wildly like erratic stars, running foul of every couple they encounter, and thereby coming ot grief, they suddenly find themselves stretched full length upon the floor, “the observed of all observers.”

The young gentlemen of the present day are really remarkable in their way, and deesrve some credit for the skill they evince in their getting up. Look at their morning costume! Pork-pies much smaller than the feminine type; coloured shirts that save washing-bills, worn very open at the neck, to exhibit the symmetry of their throats and the evidence of Adam's weakness; small paletots with pegtop sleeves and unmentionables, or knickerbockers and gaiters! They may generally be seen indulging in a cigar or short pipe, even when in female society, and this may account for the undeveloped nature of their conversation, which, to be sure, is not too deep at the best of times. It is usually summed up by, “Awful cold to-day;” “Do you know B——? Got a splendid animal!” “Awfully dull, ain't it?”—and so on, their range of words and ideas only embracing about one quarter of every fourth page of the dictionary. They sit, stand, and walk in free-and-easy attitudes that prove they have the full use of their limbs; and at times, when “awfully bored,” they yawn andstretch themselves by way of relief. As to ever undergoing the exertion of saluting ladies according to the old-fashioned style of raising the hat, that would involve such a startling amount of bodily labour as not to be thought of for an instant; a nod, or a stick lifted to the brim, answers every purpose quite as well. Nevertheless, these nondescripts flatter themselves they are gentlemen, though I think they are only shams.

“Oh, indeed!” I can hear them exclaim; “and pray, then, what may you call the young ladies of the present day?”

Some of them are shams likewise, but who made them so? Imagination pictures bright, tender, loving beings, all softness, gentle ways, and flowing drapery, and behold instead thereof fast girls; or bad imitations of the genus homo: shams every whit! They are strong about the subject of horse-flesh, laugh at everything, and forswear blushes as being vulgar and commonplace. I am told they can even talk slang, but I confess I have not heard them do so myself, so I conclude they know how to suit themselves to their company. But I know that they skate—well or ill, matters not; wear very short petticoats in the daytime and very low dresses at night; dance the reverse of quietly, and ogle their partners, who are too bored with life in general to return the compliment; and finally, they sum up their accomplishments by making love to the men, as they cannot talk to them into fulfilling their own duty in this respect.

“Certainly not,” say these; “a fast girl is all very well for an hour or so to amuse a fellow, but she'll never do for a wife!”

Do you, then, most respectable gents, ever encourage the slow ones? (using the term in contradistinction to fast.) Do you feel happy, nay, at ease, in their society, so as to enable you to smoke, or lounge, or address them as you would their opposites? can you dance and flirt with them as freely, and with a clear conscience bring your club-house atmosphere of cards, wine, and betting into their pure presence? Are they not “awfully slow” in your estimation? Even so, you condemn those unlucky damsels whose direst fault consists in a vain endeavour to assimilate themselves to your peculiar tastes—(vain, because just as these heroes are only sham gentlemen, so fast women are no more than sham gents); and yet, content with this state of things, you do not aspire to rise to the level of slow girls, ladies by education as well as by birth.

Thank heaven! the homes of Old England still shelter numbers of these; but so long as fast boys and girls divide society between them, they need not regret, as do the Belgravian mothers, that, like sweet violets and fair lilies of the valley, they are suffered to dwell in the shade, unnoticed and unsought.

all this has a vast deal to do with the present very general lament of “nobody coming to marry me, nobody coming to woo!” The wooers cannot get on easily with slow girls, and yet wont put up with fast ones; there is more truth in this than in the charge of extravagance in tastes and attire which these patterns of economy now bring against the poor ladies. Mr. Punch, in his “Ways and Means,” has recently taken a fairer view of this vexed question. Horses, cigars and clubs are quite as costly, if not more so, than silks and satins; and those who make use of thier eyes as I do, must often have remarked how thrifty the fair creatures have now become in the matter of toilette. Alarmed at the accusation—whether just or unjust they know best—brought against them by those who can find no more cogent excuse for their unwillingness to take to themselves wives, the defendants are racking and taxing their dear little brains to the utmost to find out economical makeshifts. We constantly read such advertisements as “Family Savealls,” and “Inquire within upon Everything,” and these are supposed to refer only to housekeeping and cookery; but they must also contain sundry “valuable hints upon dress,” else how could simple-hearted women be up to the shams they perpetrate?

The other day, while looking about me in the street, I was struck by the appearance of a very fashionably attired lady, whose enormous crinoline didplayes her richly-trimmed and flounced, or double-skirted black gown to the best advantage. Revolving this subject of extravagance in my mind, I followed the unknown, and endeavoured to reckon up how many yards of silk might be walking on in front of me. but such a calculation proved for too intricate for one who could never get beyond the rudiments of multiplication; and I could only therefore determine, in a rough way, that a plain dress would have taken half the quantity of stuff and have saved, moreover, the vast amount of ornamentation I saw employed. As I was thus busily occupied we came to a crossing; and the day being a dirty one, my fair friend made careful preparations against accidents. Ladies are always very anxious on this point; indeed, to such an extexnt as to become totally oblivious that a street is commonly a public thoroughfare traversed by other pedestrians besides themselves. Doubtless they do not care to remark each other's proceedings, but it is different with gentlemen, who, with no petticoats to engross their thoughts and to keep out of harm's way, have full leisure to bestow their attention on other matters. in this age of crinoline, muddy crossings furnish them with a very liberal allowance of ankles on view, some slender and of most bewitching shape; but others, and it must be owned by far the greater number, of very substantial proportions indeed. Being as ready to admire a pretty ankle as any man living, the incognita naturally attracted my notice at this juncture; but in lifting her gown she displayed that which she had not intended to be seen by me, or by any other he or she creature— a very grimy white foundation on which her furbelows were tacked; —so they were only shams, after all! The world was not expected to look beyond the surface, and this, consequently, was alone attended to; but if ladies, intent on making the most of things, decide on wearing shams, I vote for clean ones having the preference, for they would be nearly as economical in the long run, I should say.

Even some of their crinolines are shams, wooden instead of steel hoops being used, as I have painfully discovered by having my unlucky shins bruised black and blue while quietly proceeding about my business out of doors. Not to mention the martyrdom one endures in churches, where eighteen inches or less, in a narrow pew made to hold six, are allotted to each individual. It being supposed, as a mere matter of course, that the said individual has ample space during a couple of hours, in which to stand or sit (flanked by wooden crinolines!) or kneel, and what is more, say his prayers with a mind totally abstracted from the cares and worries of this life. Truly if under these circumstances a man appear to be devout, I number him forthwith among my shams, whatever he may say to the contrary. I don't see why clergymen should not turn an honest penny by their pews as well as other folk, especially as they are more favoured than most professions, as a rule, with olive branches, but I do think that they should do as they would be done by more than others, and while comfortably stretching their own limbs in a pulpit or reading-desk, or within the altar rails, they ought to compassionate the bodily sufferings endured by their congregations, who are severally “cribbed, cabined, and confined,” crinolines, hats and all, in about eighteen inches square!

But whilst enumerating the shams to which the ladies resort in their toilette, I must in fairness point out a novel device adopted by the nobler sex. We have already seen that coloured shirts are often patronized on economical grounds, which some men improve upon by not showing even a line of white above their black stocks. This is always strongly suggestive to me of their being guiltless of linen anywhere, and now, as proof positive in evidence thereof, an individual possessing strong inventive powers, has started an ingenious substitute. The shopwoman at a stationer's who was packing up some envelopes I had purchased, saw my eye attracted by what I took to be linen shirt-collars, marvelling not a little at their being sold at such an establishment.

“Shirt-collars, sir, in paper; first-rate article, sir.”

“Paper collars! Nonsense! Wo would wear them?”

“Oh! lots of Gentlemen, sir. They are very saving; only cost sixpence a dozen, sir.”

“And last, perhaps, for half-an-hour. You must drive a thriving trade at that rate.”

“Oh! not at all, sir; one a day would answer quite well. That would be less than sixpence a week, while the washing of several linen collars—”

“I never wear shams,” rather testily.

“I beg pardon, sir, I am sure, but so many gentlemen do now-a-days. The washing of several shirts a week must be much more expensive, not to speak of the wear and tear, and original outlay in buying and making up.”

There was truth in that, certainly. But imagine the feel of a paper collar; a soldier's stock would be nothing compared to it!

“Can't I tempt you, sir? Many gentlemen—”

I left the shop in a huff at being thought capable of such a thing; sham callars, whether of linen or paper, are an abomination to me, and in consequence my washing bills form a large item in my expenditure. But does anybody actually wear these paper curiosities? Fancy collars intended for ladies' use lay on the counter beside them, and it is natural to suppose that when any article is manufactured in a tolerable quantity, there must be a demand for it. But my ignorance was to be still further enlightened on this subject, for a day or two afterwards I read the following advertisement in the Times:—“Newbury's patent enamel cloth collars and cuffs; reversible, and ladies' collars, from fourpence a dozen.” Truly this may be styled the inventive age!

Shams of all sorts stand high in the public estimation. Alack! for our old reputation for honesty. Sham lace half a yard deep is paraded with unblushing effrontery, and sham gold chains, bracelets, and pins are worn by everybody; “they look so well, and are so cheap.” That fatal monosyllable has to answer for a vast amount of extravagance. I even think it would be well if the ancient sumptuary laws could be reimposed, notwithstanding that the spirit of the times is all for liberty and equality. There would then be some chance of being able to distinguish genuine ladies and gentlemen from the sham article, which it is now very difficult to do, so long as people—wisely— keep their mouths closed. It were a better feeling if the “gentlefolk” would only patronize ornaments of a certain value, or none at all, but I suppose such a stretch of self-denial would be quite beyond the powers of resistance pertaining to human, or rather woman's nature. Particularly when shop windows contain so much temptation, prices are so low, and when “everybody does it,” and fancies that nobody is the wiser.

It may be considered a distinguishing mark when people are simply styled men and women, leaving the ladies and gentlemen to enjoy their newly acquired brevet rank in their own circles. This is a very good test, and almost the only one by which to discern “who's who.” Dress counts for nothing; accomplishments are shared in common, music and dancing being thought more useful to ladies than the good old art of making a shirt. The ladies, also, always write a pretty Italian hand; while the women, in this as in everything else, endeavour to step into man's province, and adopt bold round characters. Ladies contrive to spell very tolerably, but invariably break down in conversation when they have to deal with the letter h; and here the women are strong, and turn up their noses ever so little in scorn at their humbled opponents. I am by no means of opinion that the old times were better than the present in everything, but I do think it must have been a comfort to have no sham ladies and gentlemen, and not to have one's cook stipulate for two evenings in the week in which to learn the guitar. When I asked an ironmonger's little girl if she had a doll and worked for it, the mother bridled up and made quick response, that her daughter learnt crochet and knitting, not plain work. Much better have her taught to sew, and cook, and go to market for her mother, and leave crochet, and dancing, an the like, to those who have mere idle time to spend upon them. Even bona fide ladies might with advantage, I think, devote a little more attention to household matters, learn to order a good dinner, and understand how it should be served, nay, cooked. They would then, I can answer for it, know less about nerves or faintings,and would be too busy and sensible to indulge in rough gallops and skating, sham dress or undress, flirtings, jiggetings, and fast manners. At the same time, I advise young gents to become young men and gentlemen, as being decidedly better style; to shun pegtop trousers, and turn up their collars; to favour pipes and cigars less, and politeness more; and, finally, to sacrifice a larger portion of their idle hours to reading, study, and profitable thought.

One of the amusements of this dolce far niente city, is to attend all the weddings that take place, and as one must start early in order to secure good seats, there is ample time before the ceremony begins to discuss the bride and bridegroom's belongings, the courtship, trousseau, fortune, and prospects of the happy pair. Thus matter for chit-chat is provided for twenty-four hours, a great boon in a place where conversation and idling form the hardest portion of the day's labours. The last wedding I saw appeared to me to be a very smart affair, there being four bridesmaids in a livery, seven carriages with postillions, and the bride herself wearing a wreath and veil. But evidently I was no judge of these things, for we were no sooner outside the church doors, than my party (all ladies) set up a sharp cross-fire of criticisms and fault-finding. “What a shabby turn-out!” “The bride wore only a scanty tulle veil!” “Did you remark what a common material the bridesmaids' dresses were made of?” and so on, till they had to stop to take breath. I profited by the pause to suggest, most deferentially, however, that granting these grave errors in etiquette, I thought the arrangements were somewhat grand, unnecessarily so, indeed, for people who were not over rich, and had not even “great expectations.” But, oh dear, no! such ideas were quite antediluvian and wrong. Everybody had a gay wedding now-a-days; besides, most people only married once in their lives, and some (here a little sigh) were denied that solitary chance. So I was silenced if not convinced, for I regard such displays as shams. When there is hardly wherewithal to buy bread and butter and bring up a family, why begin married life with lace veils, carriages, and breakfasts?

Formerly, ordinary folks who were to live respectably on a few hundreds a year, would have gone very quietly to the next church with their nearest relations. The bride would have contented herself with a pretty white bonnet instead of an orange wreath, perhaps even— I am almost afraid to write it—have worn a coloured silk gown in which she could afterwards travel, in lieu of the customary white moire antique which would necessitate a second toilette. One bridesmaid, or two at the most, would likewise have answered every purpose; and yet I doubt whether love was more deficient under those circumstances, or whether young people were less impressed with the sacredness of their vows, and the obligations of the married state, because they did not care to produce an effect which their neighbours would have known to be a sham.

Nous avons change tout cela, is the universal cry. Common sense is out of date, and science, art, poetry, and the rights of women, all very good things in their way, bear rule instead, and unluckily are too exalted in their views to condescend to trifles.

The evil rarely ends here, for those who make a sham their starting-point in life, feel called upon to keep up appearances for the rest of their days. Those who marry in silks and satins, with wedding favours, and all the customary paraphernalia, must in due time entertain their friends, which signifies—not eau sucree and conversazione, with which foreigners are well content in their scantily-furnished marble palaces, but—giving them dinners. Now, a good dinner costs a very sensible sum of money, one, too, which might often be spent in a much more satisfactory manner; for however great may be the honour of giving and receiving these ponderous feasts, the pleasure to most of us is doubtful. The host and hostess have been at “agony point” ever since the first invitation was issued:—Who shall be invited? who will accept? and who must replace vacancies? If the scene be laid in the country, there will be fears lest the fish fail to arrive in time; arrangememts have to be made for the carriages, horses, and servants of the guests, and a second table provided. Then, on the eventful night the lady, “who sweats under the fatigue of doing the honours of her house” (to quote the world of 1753), has to converse and smile with as easy a countenance as she can assume while the dishing up is keeping everyone waiting; and probably, on entering the dining-room she discovers some dire mischance at the first glance. As to the guests, nine times out [...] often they have not been well selected, and therefore show no sympathy for they meet as strangers to each other; and have only the weather to talk about. Perhaps those who would have liked to sit together find themselves sent to opposite ends of a large table; and thus low spirits grow in spite of resistance, and yawns struggle obstinately for liberty of action, though one tries to imagine oneself very happy. Is not this the worst sham, “the unkindest cut of all,” for it involves so many sufferers?

I am always reminded of the words of a very clever friend, who possessed the art of entertaining her guests to perfection, but who detested dinner-parties, as all women do in their hearts—“I like to make my guests happy, but I wish I might send them a guinea a-piece instead of an invitation to dinner!” Yes, I fancy we should most of us prefer making a free gift of the guineas which the fish, and the strawberries, and the early peas cost us, rather than endure the martyrdom of a state affair, particularly when we are keeping up appearances. Alas! for the merrie days of Old England before this system of sham found an entrance into the land. Where are now the friendliness and hospitality which once prevailed amongst us? We have morning calls, when we converse earnestly about the state of the weather; and we leave cards, after watching our dear friends out of their own houses. We recieve invitations, but only to a stiff dinner, or to a crowded evening party, because people always wish to make one expense of servants and lights pay off as many debts as possible. I know I must not present myself at a friend's house except at the fashionable hours appointed for visiting, and if by chance I venture earlier I am not asked to stay to luncheon. I am never pressed to join a friendly family meal under a week's notice; and while the husband is doing the civil thing, I percieve a small cloud gathering on his lady's brow, which surely foretells the storm that will follow on my departure. And so even hospitality has become a sham amongst us. The system is universally condemned, and yet every individual contributes his mite towards its maintenenance, so easy it is to lay the blame anywhere but on the right shoulders, and so very difficult to get at people's real selves. Gentlemen affect the tastes and manners of grooms; delicate girls try hard to be as masculine as possible; shopwomen and valets are, in their own and in newspaper estimation, ladies and gentlemen; and the daughters of petty farmers leave their plainer mothers to carry the butter to market, while they remain at home to practise the piano. Brown, Esq., whose establishment boasts of a boy in buttons, feels something akin to contempt for his neighbour, Green, Esq., who only keeps a parlourmaid; but meanwhile he is nigh bursting with envy and uncharitableness on remarking a footman in plush unmentionables standing at the door of Robinson, Esq. Thenceforward he strives to keep up the same appearances on his few hundreds per annum that the other does upon as many thousands. He entertains, because “everyone does it;” because all the requisite things can be hired when they are not actually owned, as only one style of dinners is tolerated in good society, no matter its cost. The feast itself is a mere sham, according to Dr. Wynter, who has helped to show us how the old-fashioned notion that “an Englishman's word is his bond,” no longer holds good in these days of adulterations.

We feed upon poisons, and are nevertheless surprised at the increase of strange and dire diseases in the land! We are clad in sham goods, for pure silk and wool are almost numbered with the past; and cotton reigns paramount instead. Wherefore, as “it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good,” it is to be hoped that if American squabbles produce a scarcity in the cotton market, those persons who are able and willing to pay high prices may have a chance of obtaining genuine articles for their money. We are thus made to purchase various shams nolentes volentes, but where the volens prevails afterwards in the making up, and sham ornaments are superadded, I denounce the guilty parties without mercy. I even believe that to a certain extent our very manners are shams, particularly when we come in contact with our superiors in the social scale, and attempt to cut a dash in the eyes of our less favoured every-day companions. Also when we are most studiously polite in our behaviour and speech, I greatly fear that sham is too often lurking in the background; but who would have the moral courage to confess the sad fact? Yet if there were a little more simplicity and honesty, right feeling and thinking, in the world, how much more happily affairs in general would progress!

One thing, however, is certain, and it is, that I have written with an honest purpose, in the endeavour to expose shams, and induce others to avoid them as I do myself. Who, then, will say that this paper does not contain truth?

[Uncle Peter, Part 1]

“I was saying, sir, that I had passed the day at Elsmore.”

“Yes, I heard you, and if anything could add to the pain which your continual visits there give me, Charles, it would be the necessity that we should talk about them together.”

A long silence succeeded; Mr. Peter Merton looked into the fire with contracted brows, his nephew's cheek flushed for a moment; he moved nervously and uneasily upon his chair; and eventually subsided into the same occupation which engrossed his uncle.

It was a small room in a very large house in which they sat; the evening was chilly and damp though it was yet but August, and the blazing fire upon the hearth, and the bright decanters upon the table, were the only genial-looking objects in the apartment; the chairs (there were but three of them) looked uneasy enough; the walls, covered with a faded paper, were bare and unadorned; there was scarcely any carpet, and very little furniture in the room. A large old-fashioned clock ticked with a loud and monotonous sound in the corner, filling up but not relieving the pause in the conversation.

“I saw you speaking to Thompson at the lodge to-day; what does he say about the birds this season?” said the elder of the two gentlemen at length, with a kindly voice, as if he wished the discourse to flow easily into its ordinary channels.

Now, there is nothing more troublesome and disconcerting when you have something on your mind which must be spoken, and have determined to speak it, and brought round the conversation to the point at which it might naturally be spoken, than for your companion to decline all communication upon the one to you absorbing subject, and to diverge into the commonplace interests of daily life.

Captain Merton was precisely in this uncomfortable and perplexing position; his task was made the more difficult undoubtedly from the way in which his last observation had been recieved, but it must be performed notwithstanding, and no amount of delay would make it much easier than it was that moment.

“I don't know anything about the game,” he replied therefore, “it was about something else, dear uncle, I wished to speak to you.” He paused, and his voice faltered slightly, and his colour came, though his brow grew fixed and determined as he went on,—“it was about Elsmore.”

His uncle's face darkened visibly again, but he did not speak.

“It was about Elsmore, sir,” the young man proceeded, “that i wished to speak to you, and about one of its inhabitants; had I seen one shadow of reason for the unaccountable prejudice which you entertain against the family, I could never have continued an intimacy with it, which, as you know, was commenced involuntarily; on the contrary, however, each succeeding day has shown me in it some fresh trait of simplicity and goodness, and such true nobility as had you, dear uncle, accepted Lord Elsmore's overtures to your acquaintance, you would long since yourself have been the first to acknowledge.”

“To what is all this long preamble leading, Charles; has your young friend, Lord Bertrand, condescended to borrow a cool hundred or two, and cannot you transact the business without your rich uncle's intervention,” said the old man, with a bitter smile, “for this,” he added, “is the common end and object of such intimaces as yours and his, the son of a London merchant with the son of an English earl.”

“My mother's family was as noble as his own,” exclaimed the young man.

Uncle Peter trembled and turned pale, and grasped rigidly the arms of his cushionless chair. Captain Merton saw at once the impropriety of an exclamation addressed to his paternal uncle; but it was no moment for apologies, his tale must be told, and it was not even, as he had hoped it would have been, guessed in part ere he told it.

“It was not about Lord Bertrand that I wished to speak,” he continued, “but about his sister, Lady Helena.”

He paused. His uncle might surely now have relieved him from any further disclosures; there is but one cause which commonly induces a young man like Captain Merton to speak thus formally to an elderly uncle and his guardian, about a young lady of his acquaintance; but Uncle Peter sat pale and motionless; nothing could be more discouraging than that grim expression which came over and settled upon his countenance, from which even the red gleam of the firelight which fell upon it could not remove its present white unusual hue.

“About Lady Helena, for whose hand I wish to make proposals to Lord Elsmore, but before I do so, wish for your advice and approval of the step.”

“Advice and approval! Me advise you to marry, or approve of your marrying any Lady Helena in the land,” broke out the old man at length; “no, Charles; come to me, and tell me you wish to marry the daughter of my gamekeeper, my bailiff, the poorest cottager on my estates, anything but a daughter of that proud false class to which Lady Helena belongs. But no,” he continued, after an interval, during which he had risen from his chair, and paced the room in an agitated manner; “no, no, all this excitement is unnecessary; make your proposals, my boy, and see if your high friends will listen to them when you tell them that by making them you forfeit the countenance of your rich uncle, and lose all hope of becoming his heir.”

“I will tell them so,” exclaimed the young man, “and by their recieving such proposals shall they be judged.”

He stood up as he spoke in the grace of his tall firm figure, his head thrown back, a deep settled resolution stamped upon every line of his handsome, high-bred features; but a gentleness stole over them as he gazed upon the aged trembling figure that confronted him; there came back such memories of ancient kindness, and anxious tender care for him since his childhood; there passed before him the vision of such a dreary desolate old age for himself should the consummation which the old man threatened really take place, that he could make but one effort to induce him to relent.

“Uncle,” he said, “you know me, and you know that I have not, that I never had one mercenary thought about your wealth; you know that my fault is to look forward too little in such matters rather than too much, and therfore I dare beg you to reconsider the words which you have uttered; it was idle I know to ask your advice and approval when my own determination was already made. I felt that it would be thus, or I should have consulted you before, as now it is impossible for me to draw back.”

“Impossible to draw back! You have not surely proposed, sir, and been accepted on the strength of expectations which you have no right to entertain.”

“I have said no word to Lord Elsmore, but I have said to his daughter that which a man cannot unsay. Oh, uncle, could you but see her, so good, so gentle, so beautiful, so true; go to the cottages on their estates, and see if she is that which you conceive the women of her class to be.”

The old man walked slowly to an old bureau, which stood between the two windows of the room; he unlocked it, extracted from it a large flat case of purple morocco; he touched a spring, the lid flew open; he did not glance at what it contained himself, but offered it at arm's length to his nephew.

“Is she as beautiful as that?” he said.

Captain Merton recieved the case: there was within it the miniature of a most lovely woman. It was a full length figure of exquisite proportions; the dress was of dark velvet, on which sparkled diamonds, which were seen too in the rich masses of her deep brown hair; a young child played at her feet, but seemed out of keeping with the principal figure, whose excess of beauty, eastern, regal, and voluptuous, suggested no one association of the calm joy of domestic affections and maternal love; the lady's eye glanced not downwards on the tiny figure beside her, but full upon you, with a certain tremulous passion which the painter had well depicted in its dark depths.

Charles Merton gazed upon it, fascinated as he gazed; was it a real or a fancied reminiscence which seemed to associate that proud brow and glowing cheek with some faint far off distance in his own life?

“Who is she?” he asked at length,“tell me, uncle, who is this?”

“I will tell you what, and then tell you who. She, too, was an earl's daughter—the daughter of a poor, proud, English nobleman; she married a rich commoner, one sprung from the people; she married him for his fortune—it was princely; she spent it, or most of it, and then left him, choosing for the partner of her guilt one of that class of ‘true nobility,’ as you called it, from which she had condescended to descend. It was your mother, Charles. Go to Lord Elsmore now with your proposal, but beware of the misery and the sorrow which spring from such missorted marriages.”

Captain Merton gazed still upon the picture.

“Where is she now?” he asked, faintly, at length.

“She is dead,” replied his uncle, breifly.

The young man still kept his eyes fastened on the lovely face; it seemed, as he looked, that the brightness faded from the tints, that the face grew pale and sorrowful, and the eyes dim; his own indeed were wet with tears. It was a history for which he was already in some degree prepared by the half hints and half concealments with which all mention of his mother's name had been always surrounded.

There came back fully now the memory of that face; it was the same which once, long years ago, had bent over his little bed, and when he raised his own to meet it, had left a tear instead of a kiss upon his infant cheek.

When Captain Merton found himself in his own apartment that night, he contemplated his position should his uncle persist in his lately avowed intentions; but the contemplation made no difference in the decision which he had already come to. He would make proposals on the day following to Lord Elsmore for his daughter's hand; he had nearly two thousand a year of his own, the income resulting from the remains of his father's once enormous fortune, carefully nursed during his minority, which had but lately expired, by the careful hand of his uncle; he had his commission, too, and he thought still that Lord Elsmore would not be unfavorable to his suit; as for Lady Helena, he never dreamed for one moment that any change of worldly prospect would alter the feeling which she had owned herself as entertaining towards him, when he parted from her the preceding day upon the terraces of Elsmore. The room in which the young man indulged in such reflections was vast and well lighted, and furnished with all the appliances of modern luxury, amidst which his valet moved noiselessly as he made such arrangements as were necessary before leaving his master for the night.

But there was another chamber, rude, scarcely furnished at all,in a corner of that vast mansion, into which the gilded visions entered not which soon filled the brain of the young man. Dark shadows hung over the spirit of Peter Merton that night, shadows which never had been quite absent from his life, but which came to him now deepened and intensified as they had not been for years. The words which his nephew had uttered had seemed to shut out all light from that future to which he had seldom been prone to look for any very great accesion of enjoyment. And the past rose before him; scenes never forgotten, morbidly brooded over in his solitary life, once more were spread before his eye. Charles Merton had been his only brother, and he had loved him with more than fraternal affection—an affection the almost passion of which manhood and succeeding years had only deepened; it had withstood the jeering remarks of his fellow-schoolboys (no light test) in early days, and in later ones, the hard, cold, separating influences of that business life in which many of his own succeeding years had passed. When Charles Merton married the high-born and beautiful Lady Augusta Trevor there came indeed a break in the intercourse which had subsisted between the brothers, but in the breast of one of them at all events the old feeling was never eradicated or diminished. Surrounded by a gay and dissipated circle of the then fashionable society of the day, Lady Augusta discouraged indeed the frequent visits of Mr. Peter Merton as far as lay in her power, and her husband, weak in character, and acting entirely under her own influence, made no effort to draw his brother into a phase of society which he saw plainly was repugnant to his tastes and uncongenial to his habits. There, however, in the drawing-room of his sister-in-law, during his brief visits, had Peter Merton imbibed those prejudices against the class to which Lady Augusta belonged, from conduct which might well have justified him in disapproving of certain individuals who composed it. He had seen his brother laughed at behind his back, and himself to his face, by individuals inferior to them in both in everything but the mere accident of birth. All this might have been forgotten, but the events which succeeded, Lady Augusta's reckless extravagance, her flight with Lord Marchdale, his brother's blighted life, which was not protracted long after the occurrence, the bitter sense of his own errors which had led to so dreadful a result that haunted Charles Merton at the last, his almost dying request that his son might, if possible, be spared such a career as his own, had confirmed every prejudice in his mind, and made him determine that the young child left to his charge should be shielded from all contact with that class of society which had wrought his family such grevious wrong and misery. He kept aloof from all the noble families in his neighbourhood, and brought up the boy in the strictest seclusion—a seclusion which was made vain and useless, however, by the ardent and unceasing wish conceived in early boyhood, and confirmed by advancing years in the young Charles for a military life. In vain had his uncle attempted to dissuade; a life of idleness was distasteful to him, and no other profession but that of arms tolerable. At last a sort of compromise was effected; his name was put down for a commission, but he consented meanwhile to go to college, his uncle hoping that the new associations of the place would succeed in diverting him from his boyish purpose. But it was not so; he passed creditably through Oxford indeed, took his degree there, and then claimed the fulfilment of his uncle's promise; that if his desire after that continued unchanged it should be gratified.

A commission was without difficulty proc exactitude of his life by a sleepless night and an unforseen emotion; he took his usual walk, therefore, on the morning following the conversation we have related, confirming himself, with each step he took, in the decision at which he had arrived. As he approached the house on his return he saw Captain Merton's dog cart and servant at the door, and entering the hall found his nephew pulling on his gloves preparatory to issuing forth from the house.

“Good morning, uncle.”

“Good morning, Charles. May I ask where you are going so early?”

“To Lord Elsmore's, sir; I wish to find him at home; and am most certain to do so by going at this time.”

“Can you let me say one word with you before you go?”

“As many as you please, sir; but I fear they will not alter my purpose.”

They walked together into the room in which they had sat the preceding evening; both were perfectly calm with the calmness of a settled determination which the words of neither should alter.

“Charles,” said the old man, “you will tell Lord Elsmore simply and truthfully what your own fortune is, I am sure; and you will tell him that after taking this step you have nothing to hope for from me; but you are bound to tell him more, I think—the nature of the last engagements which I satisfied for you before attaining your majority.”

The young man's brow grew crimson.

“I shall say, sir, all that is necessary for a man of honour to tell him who aspires to his daughter's hand—no less, no more.”

They parted; the light wheels of the young man's carriage glided swiftly over the smooth road that led towards Elsmore, but his heart yet more swiftly traversed the distance, and had acted and reacted the interview which awaited him long ere he arrived at the gates of the old mansion.

And the old man—he sat all the morning long in that small, bare study, bowing beneath the burthen of that desolate existence which henceforth he felt awaited him to his grave. Did his purpose falter? No, it gained strength by the very misery which he foresaw would attend its execution.

Lord Elsmore recieved the young man kindly, and his suit not unfavorably. He had, indeed, perceived for some time the affection which had grown up between Charles Merton and Lady Helena; and had he felt that their union was undesirable, or impossible, he would have long ere this put an end to their intimacy. The change in the young man's prospects was related to him. Lord Elsmore looked grave, for he was not a rich man, and having a large family, could give little to his daughters; but it was too late, he felt, to commence an opposition to what, if opposed at all, should have been opposed long since; and his consent was finally obtained. Captain Merton, it was arranged, should still continue in the army, exchanging only into the household troops to avoid the chance of foreign service. And did he make the disclosure to Lord Elsmore that his uncle had so seriously urged him to make? No; he thought it useless and unnecessary. He thought, as he drove along through the clear air, that it was as superfluous as it would be undesirable to confess to Lord Elsmore every foible of his boyhood, from which he felt that he had now emerged and emancipated himself for ever. Had he known how deep a shade the offences of the past throw over the present, he might not have felt so light and careless as he did; or had he reflected how entirely the circumstances of temptation amongst which he had before fallen had been removed from his path, he might have doubted whether he were himself so changed that, should he again be placed amidst such, he might not fall again precisely as before. But he felt and reflected not thus that day: the present was enough. He had no regret for the past— no misgiving for the future. The hours flew on rapidly and unmarked, as he sat by the side of his betrothed in the stately saloons of Elsmore, or roamed with Lady Helena through the park and woods, which had not yet lost one tint of their summer beauty.

And she, with her quiet grace and beauty, and more than all, with the freshness of her almost girlish love, had you seen her, you would not have marvelled that in her presence he forgot all beside.

The evening came, and he returned to Hursleigh, the abode of his uncle. It was late when he arrived, and his uncle had retired to rest.

On the following day he was to rejoin his regiment. He rose early, and met his uncle at the breakfast table. After which, he briefly communicated to him the result of his visit to Elsmore on the preceding day. The communication was received in silence; and, unsolicited to protract or repeat his visit, he left Hursleigh early in the day for the county town, in which his regiment was quartered. His heart was full of such a bounding sense of happiness, that he could scarcely appreciate as it deserved the change that had just taken place in his prospects, nor feel the sorrow at parting thus with his uncle, and what had hitherto been his home, which under other circumstances he would have doubtless felt. The unreasonableness of the prejudices against Lady Helena so aggravated him that he could not feel much regret at bidding his uncle farewell. There was, too, such a golden cloud of hope floating over the future in his mind, that he felt his uncle's objections must eventually give way, and the only obstacle to his happiness be in time, at all events, removed. But chiefly, there was a certain careless facility of putting from him troublesome thoughts about Charles Merton, which made any sorrow, especially such a one as this, sit more easily on him than on another.

“Are there any letters, Thomas?” asked Mr. Peter Merton, as he returned from an abnormal walk at an unusual pace, in which he had indulged immediately after the departure of his nephew.

“There are two, sir. They are in the study,” was the answer.

Uncle Peter hurried thither at once. He was not usually very excited about his correspondence; but this morning he wished for business of some sort, and the receiving and answering letters was the chief one of his present life.

The two letters lay upon the study table. He knew the handwriting of one of them, and that he laid aside; the other proved to be an application for a subscription to some charity. He had many such, and answered then nobly. This however, was an unfortunate moment for such an aplication to arrive. He was flinging it aside impatiently without entering into the merits of the case, when he seemed to reconsider the matter, refolded it, and put it in the breast pocket of his coat, from whence he would probably take it out as he walked about the grounds, and weigh carefully its claims.

He now turned his attention to the first letter, which he did not seem to regard with much interest. It was written in a clear, large, bold Italian hand, and consisted of three sheets of “superfine cream-laid.” The first was filled with inquiries about his own health, and flowing sentences of affectionate solicitude about himself and “dear Hursleigh;” the second, with an abbreviated account of the yearly history of the lady's family and herself; the third congratulated him on his nephew's approaching nuptuals with Lady Helena, and concluded with the intimation, that certain jars of wine sours, the preserving of which had been superintended by the dear girls themselves, would follow this letter, which the lady begged that he would accept, and hoped that he would like.

The writer was a Mrs. Howard, a cousin, of whom Mr. Peter Merton had seen little, but sufficient to suspect that she was in every way antipathetic to himself. Their brief intercourse seemed to have produced a diametrically opposite impression on the lady, who overpowered him with presents of hams, turkeys, preserves, and letters expressive of the highest esteem and most affectionate regard. The presents were handed over to the housekeeper; and the letters were answered in a hard, curt style, which contrasted singularly with their own. Mrs. Howard was a widow, with two daughters. Her husband had been a physician, and had left her in affluent circumstances. But she lived in the county town, where it was the main object of the lives of many persons, unfortunately without any other occupation, to be esteemed of greater consideration than their neighbours. She had, accordingly, been endeavouring continually, but hitherto ineffectually, to lessen the distance between Hursleigh and Laurel Lodge, and convince the little world around her of the reality of her relationship to the rich but eccentric Mr. Merton; a fact which, from the little intercourse subsisting between them, persons less skilled in genealogy, than were the inhabitants of B—— might have reasonably doubted.

Peter Merton read the letter to the end. A grim smile passed over his face at times as he perused it; but he still held it in his hand after reading it; and the thoughts which passed through his mind as he sat thus were certainly less unfavourable to Mrs Howard than any which had succeeded the perusal of any of her former letters.

Yes, they might be interested and venal, all those expressions of solicitude and regard; but they somehow did not look at that moment so fulsome or so contemptible as they used to look. There is a silence and solitude of the heart in which we weigh not too nicely the truth or falsehood of those tones which break upon its dreariness and gloom. He sat down at once and answered the letter. He had generally left such letters for many days without reply; but now he wanted employment, and his heart was softened towards the writer. His reply was so different from all which she had hitherto recieved from him, that Mrs. Howard made a point of reading it aloud to all her morning visitors for the succeeding fortnight; and, as she altered all the positive into the superlative degrees throughout, as she read, and made one or two other extempore alterations, or rather exaggerations, with considerable address, it really did sound as cousinly and affectionate as could be desired, and much more so than could be expected.

Captain Merton saw little more of his uncle before his marriage; and after it, nothing. He was so happy in that early married life of his, that all which had preceded it seemed like some dark dream, from which he had emerged. His marriage with Lady Helena introduced him at once into a new and large circle of acquantance; and he entered eagerly into the attractive pleasures of London society, of which he had before seen little. His house was small; but exquisitely appointed. His establishment was pronounced faultless, and his wife also, by a large circle of admirers, whose admiration he perhaps esteemed and courted more than it was worth. Every one protested that he was a lucky fellow; and there is nothing which more effectually convinces a man that he is a lucky fellow than the circumstance that he is pronounced so by everybody.

Two years flowed on—years of unanxious happiness to them both; of which there is nothing to tell, but that they were happy. And then came little clouds, darkening faintly the edge of the horizon, gathering slowly in the blackness and volume till they hung over their heads; and the storm fell, of which one of them had long forseen the approach, but for which the other was totally unprepared.

It is to the close of the third year of their married life that we must transport our readers. The London season was at its height, and though the evening was drawing to a close, Captain Merton and Lady Helena were in their own drawing-room, and alone—a circumstance unusual at such a time.

It was a lovely room, hung with exquisite drawings by the first artists of the day. One or two statues of white marble rose between the windows, which were all open; but not a breath of air stirred the curtains of delicate lace with which they were shadowed. The day had been intolerably hot, and now there was an oppression in the air which was almost overpowering. Captain Merton was lying upon a sofa; Lady Helena was at the piano. She was an admirable musician; but now, as her hands glided over the keys, they were calling forth from the instrument those old simple airs, which come over the heart sometimes like dreams of the far past with a power and tenderness often less felt in more elaborate compositions. She lent them, as she played, something of the charm which the human voice is alone able completely to impart; the clear notes rang out distinct and articulate. One who knew the words of what she played would have said that they had never been felt by him more vividly than now, as she played the air only. A sudden vivid flash of blue and forked lightning illuminated the apartment. Lady Helena rose from the instrument, and sat down upon a low seat beside the sofa where her husband lay.

He had been tossing uneasily about for some time among the cushions, not exactly listening to her music, for his thoughts here far-away; but it soothed him; and whenever she had paused before, and seemed about to cease playing, he had said “Go on;” and she had gone on accordingly, bringing out air after air, long unplayed and unheard, some only remembered from her childhood, but all fraught with the same tender melancholy which gathers about such music.

When the lightning came, he did not ask her to continue playing any more, and she came and sat beside him, leaning her brow for a moment upon his hand, that hung over one of the cushions. He did not speak nor did she; and flash after flash succeeded of the blue lightning, and the pealing thunder crashed over their heads almost without intermission. A servant entered with candles; but they ordered them to be taken out again, and sat thus watching the storm together. At last it subsided; and the clear blue summer evening sky appeared, marked here and there by a silver star; and the sweet smell of the flowers in the balcony, freshened by the rain, was wafted into the room.

Lady Helena had sat rapt in intense awe and admiration, absorbed in the sight before her. She had forgotten all else. Not so Captain Merton. No change in the aspect of the external world could give him then even a moment's entire intermission from the anxiety which at that moment, and for long, had been struggling in his breast.

And yet, softened by the influence of the scene and hour, he did look up into the sky; and as the last dark confused masses of cloud were hurrying out of sight, he did long that some such favouring breeze as then passed over the world of nature would pass over that of his own life, bearing before it those clouds of trouble and desolation which seemed to weigh so heavy on his head.

He was not given to entertain such thoughts, much less to express them; but at this moment he did both. His tone was fretful and complaining; it was that, indeed, of a man who was endeavouring to blame circumstances where he was himself alone to blame, and who looked to circumstances for that relief for which he could only look safely to himself.

“There is no trouble,” said Lady Helena, calmly, “so hard to bear one's self, or which I feel, dear Charles, so hard, as that which is indefinite; or if there be a worse trouble, it is to see another, whom one loves, bearing such indefinite sorrow, in which one is not permitted to participate.”

“There is a worse trial,” replied Captain Merton, bitterly: “to have to conceal from the being that one loves what it would be only misery to know.”

“And this we have both been bearing and doing,” said Lady Helena, in her soft, low voice.

And again they were silent; and she looked forth into the clear, calm heavens, and into the shining stars; and her spirit gathered strength, and she said at last—

“Charles, I can bear anything you have to tell—anything but to hear,” she added, gently, “that your silence has been because you loved me too little to let me sympathize with your grief; and that,” she added, “I feel that I shall not hear.”

“It is idle,” he said, “to call it ‘my grief,’ or ‘my sorrow.’ It is your grief — your sorrow, Helena. It is my shame!”

Lady Helena grew pale; but she answered, and at once—

“Then it is mine.”

The footman entered again with candles, which he placed upon the tables. He drew together the dark folds of the satin curtains, and disappeared. It was, as we have said, a lovely room. Cabinets were there inlaid with the costliest sevres; tables of marquetrie, of malachite, of Florentine mosaic; tall pier glasses, soft carpets, rich hangings, and more than all, gems of modern art—each dear, as such things grow to be, to those who, with a refined taste, have gathered them together, and grown to love them day by day.

Captain Merton rose from the sofa, and walked up and down the apartment.

“This is a beautiful room!” he said, at length. “It is a beautiful house!” he said. “Could you leave it, Helena?”

“Yes,” she said. “I could leave it. I could give up all, everything, if we were only to be, Charles, what we were to one another, and not to live on with this dark secret horror ever rising up between us, and separating us from each other. Only tell me all. Let us consult together, and, if it must be, suffer together. It will be lighter to us both.”

And he went to her and threw himself on a low cushion at her feet. He told her all, as a penitent before his confessor. He went back into the first beginnings of his sin. He laid bare his own motives to himself and her. He told her why, before his marriage, he had not made this confession: because he had then thought himself free for ever from the vice of his almost boyhood. How again, in the society in which he had been thrown in London, the old temptation had recurred, and he had sunk beneath it. He did not dwell on the fascinations of gambling, and say that it had been impossible to resist them; for he knew that this would have been a lie. He knew and recollected that there had been a point at which he could have resisted: that he did not, and was lost.

“And yet, I almost fancy sometimes that I could have stayed in my headlong career had it not been for my love for you, dear Helena. I could have stayed when half was lost, I think, but for the agony of submitting you to anything like privation; and so, in the hope of winning all back, I risked all and lost all. Oh Helena,” he went on, “It is now all for you I suffer. For me, what poverty, what degradation were not too good? But for you and our child! It seems to me now, sometimes, that I could wish you to go back to your father—that I would rather lose you from my sight than see you suffer.”

“You shall not see it,” she said. “How could think, Charles, such a thought—that even you could make me leave you at such a time, when by my presence I could aid—perhaps save you, now I know your danger? But what is to be done? That we must consider. Have we absolutely nothing?”

She had that clear, practical mind which is sometimes, though rarely, met with in persons of extreme sensibility. She could meet any trouble, if she only saw it; and she had the strength to wrestle with it when seen. She had, too, that almost unlimited capacity for suffering which exists in the heart of some women.

“I have lost all I could lose,” he replied; “I have nothing. You have what your father gave you; I should have lost that also if I could have staked it,” he added, bitterly.

“And our child?” she asked.

“Has a provision from my property which I could not touch.”

“We shall have, then, three hundred a-year, Charles; we are not ruined at all,” she said, smiling. “We can live on that.”

“How?—where?” he asked, bitterly.

“Oh, in numberless ways, and numberless places,” she answered. “There are lovely spots by the English coast, where we might have some cottage, and live happy and retired. We shall not want to see the gay world again; I am wearied of it already, and have been ever since I can remember it. We can part with all these things,” she said, looking round the room, with a light heart. “They have not brought us peace.”

“No,” he answered, thoughtfully. “If it be possible for us, for you, to live on the sum, Helena, it is not possible to live on it here in England; we must go abroad.”

“We will go abroad,” she answered, gaily; “we will go into some cheap Belgian town, with its broad market-places, and gabled houses, and splendid churches, and quaint costumes. I shall be sketching all day long, Charles; we shall be very happy wherever we go— is it not so?” she said, “if we go together.”

“Helena, you are an angel—you are my angel,” he murmered; “my good angel.” And he looked into her face, the banded soft brown hair,the calm, holy quiet of her beauty, the sorrow, and the tenderness, and the love seemed so little like this earth, that a strange thought shot with a pang across his heart, that he should lose her, that she had so little of this world about her that she could not rest upon it long. It was a morbid thought, but it was some moments ere he could shake it from him. At last he mastered it, and turned again to review their situation.

“And your father,” he said next, “what will he think—what will he say, Helena? I have deceived him cruelly, as well as you.”

“I will write to him,” she answered, calmly; “he is at Florence, you know, with Alicia, by this time, so you will not see him, if that would be painful, just at present.”

It was all arranged that night; his commission was to be sold, everything they had was to be sold, his engagements were all to be cleared off, and they were to go into Belgium, that refuge for poverty like his, which shrinks from the hard eye that falls on it in England.

There was only one resource which had presented itself to him again and again in his difficulties, and had been again and again rejected, and that was, to write to his uncle Peter, and tell him all, and ask for his assistance. His pride revolted from the task, the more so as he had made no overtures to a reconciliation before; but that night, after his wife left him, he felt that he ought to shrink from no personal humiliation, if it were yet possible, to shield her from the future which he feared she would find so far more bitter than in her inexperience of the world she expected that it would be. He sat down, therefore, and wrote a letter, which he had a strong hopeful conviction would soften the old man's heart towards them; his uncle had no other relations but himself, he knew, for whom he cared, and it seemed to him impossible but that he would come forward in some way to assist him in his distress. The letter was sent by the first post; he carried it himself; anured, and all the care himself and the boy secluded from the e by the circumstance being in ng his wed in his rude and lonesome chamber, ermination—that should this marriage thought take place, it should close all his part in his concerns. n time for his uncle's early walk across the park, orning treading the short tout shoes, and dealing destruction to the thistles, be found, with “the spud,” which he invariably only formidable implement he had been ever known to man. It was quite true that Mr. Peter Merton was fond of music; he had an admirable ear, and considerable natural taste, but yet he winced considerably under the proposal; he had heard already more than one of Miss Julia's songs, and ever since the first had been devising with himself some course by which he might silence the young lady's singing without wounding her feelings. There was no escape, however, at least no immediate escape, so he leaned back resigned, and the young lady sat down, and running her hand over the keys, was about to commence her performance, when Mrs. Howard rose from her chair, advanced to the piano, and laid her hand on her daughter's shoulder.

“A moment, my dear; you have not asked your dear uncle what he would like. What style of music do you prefer, sir? my daughter sings all— French, German, Italian, Scotch, Irish, or English; which shall it be?”

Mrs. Howard was not often mistaken in her knowledge of people's tastes; she confidently expected, when she gave this imposing announcement, that Mr. Peter Merton's choice would be for an English ballad, and she was prepared to exclaim on the superiority of English ballads to every other style of music; but she was disappointed— he said, shortly, “German, then, if you please.”

Miss Julia Howard blushed, and looked from one end of the book of songs to another, and then back again. “I fear I have not a German song for you, uncle,” she said.

“Not got a German song!” said Mrs. Howard, with the slightest approach to acrimony in her benignant tones. “Where are all your German songs?”

“I never had but one, you know, mamma,” said Miss Julia, simply—“the one, you know, that I learned from my singing master.”

“Surprising!” muttered Mrs. Howard. She was endeavouring to represent her daughter at Hursleigh as a highly accomplished young lady, which Miss Julia had neither the good fortune to be, nor the deception to pretend to be. “Sing whatever you have, then, my dear,” she said.

Miss Howard commenced “Annie Laurie,” which she sang throughout a semitone too low. Mr Peter Merton rose at the conclusion; he had letters to write, and was going to his study. A servant entered as he was leaving the room, with letters by the second post.

“Any letters for me, Thomas?” he said.

“No, sir; I think they are all for Mrs. Howard.”

Mr. Peter Merton left the room. Mrs. Howard took the letters; there were three. She was indefatigable in writing and receiving letters. She laid these aside for one moment, while she gave a short, sharp reprimand to her daughter, for what she called “the disgraceful exposure she had just made of her ignorance.” Miss Julia left the room to digest the maternal reproof. Mrs. Howard was left alone —alone with her letters; no, not her letters—there was one of the three directed, not to herself but to Peter Merton, Esq. She was about to ring the bell, and tell a servant to take it to Mr. Merton's study, when her eye was arrested by the handwriting; it was the same, a very remarkable one, which she had noticed in a manuscript book the day before, and been told that it was Captain Merton's. Her hand was half-way to the bell-rope, but she arrested it, and gathering up the three letters, retired to her own room.

Her first proceeding, when she found herself there, was to lock the door; her next, to sit down and examine the exterior of the letter; but, thanks to the patent adhesive envelope, its contents were impenetrable even to her skilful manipulation. She felt an intuitive conviction that they must be important: Peter Merton had confided to her much of what the reader already knows; she knew that no communication had taken place between them since his marriage, and it by no means suited the plans now maturing in her brain that any should now be commenced. But it was a dangerous thing to withold a letter, and it might not, after all, be worth incurring the risk; it might be perfectly innocuous. “What did it contain?” if she only knew that, she might give it or withold it. She sat some moments in profound thought, and then rang the bell.

It was answered by her maid.

“Hannah, will you bring me a jug of hot water?” was her order. “I want it very hot, for I have a headache, and wish to take some salvolatile.”

The mandate was soon obeyed.

“Shall I mix it for you, ma'am?” asked Hannah, standing in the middle of the apartment.

“No, thank you, Hannah,” said Mrs. Howard, blandly; “if you will only give me the bottle from my dressing-case there, that will do.”

Hannah again departed, and the door was again locked. Mrs. Howard took the letter in her hands, and laid it upon the narrow aperture of the jug, over the boiling water. In a few moments the cement upon the envelope gave way, and she was able to extract the contents without fear of detection, should she deem it desirable to replace them, and present the letter to uncle Peter.

She read it throughout: the touching decription of his own misery and his wife's heroism, the affectionate appeal to his uncle's kindness, the full, unextenuated confession of his own guilt and folly; not a word of it was lost; Mrs. Howard read it all. She refolded it, and then laid it in the bottom drawer of her dressing-case, which she locked carefully. She ran through her other letters, and descended to the saloon to make tea for Mr. Peter Merton, with a calm face and her usual imperturbable smile; she was a little more loquacious than was her wont, but that was all; Mr Peter Merton thought, as the day closed that with all her little faults, some of which he saw with singular penetration, she was a very agreeable, well disposed sort of woman.

We must again pass onward some years in our story; four have elapsed since the events last related; each year Mrs. Howard has paid a longer visit than the last to Hursleigh, and yet, strange to say, much as the above fact may militate against the assertion, she has not grown upon the affections of Peter Merton. Deception never answers in the long run; it may succeed on any one particular occasion, as at the time did the suppression of Captain Merton's letter; but the daily, hourly, little falsehoods and concealments of a woman like Mrs. Howard must destroy every feeling of regard and respect in an honest, truthful mind like that of uncle Peter.

She erred, too, in protracting her visits to such a length as she did; she was more fitted to stay a week than a month in a house; for one week you might have been charmed with her, in a month you were disgusted. Why, then, did Mr. Merton invite her? Because he was a lonely man, and needed, he felt,as he grew older, kindness of some sort to make life more supportable. He saw the worth of hers, but he thought bought kindess better than none at all; and the vast echoing rooms of the old mansion, untenanted the whole year through, had become dreary and distressing to him in the extreme.

Mrs. Howard has been now nearly three months at Hursleigh, and shows the symptoms of an intention of taking up her quarters there altogether. Mr. Merton has become intensely weary this year of her society, and is vainly seeking for a pretext for getting rid of his visitor, who, on her part, is occupied in seeking for one to remain in her present quarters. It is somewhat odd that they should each choose the same pretext for such various designs.

The health of Mr. Peter Merton had been visibly declining; he looked much older than he really was, for in truth he could scarcely yet in years be called an old man; he was nervous and irritable; he had neither sleep nor appetite; indeed he was becoming anything but an agreeable host for visitors less pertinacious than Mrs. Howard and her daughters. How could they leave him—“the dear old man”—in such a state? It was impossible. They had many engagements for the summer, but all must give way to the paramount duty of remaining at Hursleigh. This Mrs. Howard was continually saying or implying. Uncle Peter, on his part, was the last man to turn people violently out of his house who were bent on staying in it. At last he hit upon an expedient. He was really growing unwell—worse and worse; he was wearied, not only of Mrs. Howard and the Misses Howard, but of Hursleigh—of life altogether. There was something decidedly wrong somewhere. Mrs. Howard begged him to see Mr. Evans, the medical man of the neighbourhood, but he had no confidence in Mr. Evans, and would not see him. He determined at last to go to town, and consult Dr. A——, whose advice he had found of great use in an earlier period of his life.

[Uncle Peter, Part 2]

Mr. Merton had not been in London for years; it must have been a strong motive power that could move him from Hursleigh. Soon after breakfast, however, one morning, to Mrs. Howard's astonishment, the carriage drove round to the door. Mr. Merton had not signified his intentions to her, lest she should insist upon accompanying him. The carriage had not waited many moments when he appeared in the morning room, equipped for his journey.

“Well, ladies,” he said, “you will be able to amuse yourselves, I hope, for a day or two without your host. I am going to town, Mrs Howard, to consult Dr A——. I have long thought of it, and determined upon it at last.”

“To town, sir, and alone!” exclaimed Mrs. Howard. “Julia, Eleanor, my dears, we must not permit it; we will go with you, my dear sir— one or all of us. If you had given us notice of your intention, we should have been ready at this moment.”

“And now it is too late. Dear me!”—looking at his watch, he exclaimed, “I shall but just have time to save the train, if that. Goodbye, Mrs. Howard; goodbye, girls.” And he hurried away before it was possible to arrest him, to promise an impossible promptitude in getting ready to accompany him, or to suggest waiting for the next train, or anything of the sort. Mrs. Howard saw the carriage wheel round and sweep along the avenue, with a dark anticipation of some impending calamity, from this singular exception to all the ordinary habits of his life.

The train proceeded on rapid wings to London; it was almost the first Mr. Merton had travelled by, and the clear morning and the rapid motion already made him forget for an hour that there was anything the matter with him. He was soon in London, and a cab conveyed him from the station to the house of Dr. A——, with whom he had made an appointment.

Dr. A—— received him with courtesy; they were old friends, and he expressed much regret at seeing him look so thin and ill. After hearing all the symptoms of his case, he promised to write a prescription for him. “But,” he said, “what I should chiefly recommend to you is to get as soon as possible change of air, change of scene, change of society, change of everything.”

“That is precisely what I wish to get,” said Uncle Peter, “and find impossible to procure.”

“Impossible!—my dear sir, to whom is it possible, if not to you?”

A sudden accession of communicativeness came over Uncle Peter, and he related his present situation to the kind physician.

It is extraordinary what singular communications physicians do recive from their patients. Dr. A—— received more than most others. He had an immense practice, and unlimited sympathies. This did not surprise him at all. He smiled, and paused for a few moments.

“If you will take my advice, my dear friend, you will not go back to Hursleigh at all; you will sit down, and write from here to say that I wish to have you for a few days under my eye, after which it is probable that you will go to some watering-place for a few weeks for change of air. If you will be guided by me, you will go on the continent; to Spa, in Belgium, for instance, the air and waters of which would, I am sure, set you up in no time.”

Mr Merton sat transfixed; he could scarcely take in the notion of leavying Hursleigh, and going on the continent; but Dr. A—— made light of all difficulties. There were but two hours of sea passage; he knew that he was a good sailor, and that he talked French; everything now was so easy to the traveller, that he would be as comfortable, he assured him, as at an English watering place; while he would have a change of life more complete than he could procure in England, and enjoy the advantage of the iron waters, from which Dr. A—— anticipated much benefit in his case.

“I am going out myself,” said Dr. A——, “but I leave you all implements of letter-writing, and you will find Mrs A—— above, in the drawing-room. Where is your carpet bag?”

“My servant has taken it to the Clarendon.”

“I will call there as I pass,” said Dr. A—— in a decisive tone which admitted of no denial, “and send him here with it.”

He was out of his room and into his carriage before Uncle Peter had well time, if he had been disposed to do so, to object to the arrangement.

It was an awkward letter to write; but Uncle Peter did write it, and sent it to Hursleigh by his servant, with orders to pack up and get all in readiness for an absence of some weeks.

When the letter was written, he sat in Dr. A——'s study with a continental Bradshaw in his hand, over and over again following with his eye the line of the Belgian railways: he could not make out that Brussels was exactly in the necessary route to Spa, but he had never seen Brussels, and he wished to see it, and by a very slight detour he might see it. But then Captain Merton and Lady Helena were residing there, and he did not wish to see them; no, certainly he did not wish to see them; they had shown no great wish for his society—why should he manifest any for theirs? No, he certainly would not see them, but he might see Brussels notwithstanding; everybody went to Brussels—why not he?

He had heard from public rumour something of his nephew's history since his marriage; but public rumour had not got quite hold of the right story; there was the patent fact that Captain Merton was done up, that he had sold his commission, and his furniture, and pictures, and gone to economise abroad. So far the world could see, but the world is never content with seeing such simple, straightforward results, without knowing, or pretending to know, the cause or causes which led to them. Now it had seen in this case the expensive elegance of Lady Helena Merton's furiture, carriages, dresses, jewels, and entertainments— all certainty above their means; and the current account of poor Merton's misfortunes was mixed up for the most part with blame of the extravagance of Lady Helena. The world judged from what it saw; how could it see or know that it was Captain Merton who was thoughtless and extravagant; that his wife had been ever shrinking from a display which his less refined taste was continually forcing upon her? Mrs Howard, from certain information which she possessed, might have corrected the history which came to the ears of Uncle Peter of his nephew's disasters; but, for obvious reasons, she forebore to do so, and exaggerated, on the contrary, the slight floating reports she had heard against the worldly prudence of Lady Helena.

“The first act is over,” Uncle Peter had been continually saying to himself since the news reached him. He had made up his mind from the first that Charles Merton would run precisely the same career as his father had done, and he had determined that if ever, wiht blighted hopes and ruined fortune, as his father, he should seek his assistance and society, Hursliegh should then be his home. His own experience of society had been very limited, and his obstinate prepossessions against a class had so blinded him to what might be the varying character of the individuals which composed it, that he was considerably astonished that Lady Helena, after ruining his nephew, had not proceeded at once to leave him.

But years now had passed on since “the first act” of the drama Uncle Peter had long since played out in his own mind had terminated, and there seemed no prospect of the second being accomplished. He heard that the Mertons were living at Brussels, that they had one child, and that they were not very well off, and that was all. He had been all along disappointed that his nephew had not applied to him for assistance; he did not think that he should have helped him, but he should have liked to have been asked to do so. And now he felt a sort of curiosity, blended, doubtless, with more of lingering affection than he chose to acknowledge to himself to take advantage of the coincidence of having been himself ordered to Belgium, and his nephew's residing there, to reconnoitre their proceedings without introducing himself to them, and judging somewhat more by his own observation than by the reports of others.

Great was the consternation at Hursleigh when Mr. Merton's note arrived. Mrs. Howard read it and re-read it, but she could extract no comfort from it; it was very kind and very polite—it begged her, indeed, not to hurry her departure, but gave it, at the same time, no encouragement for that indefinite prologation of her visit which she had contemplated, still less did it give her a clue to Mr. Merton's destination, or a pretext for offering to accompany him on his travels.

As Mrs Howard had, in point of fact, no engagements at all, and as she had intimated to all her correspondents of the town where she resided, that it would be probably some considerable time before she should be able to return to her “sweet home,” and relinquish “the dear but arduous duty which she had undertaken,” she thought it best, to save appearances, to take her daughters for a month to the seaside, after which she could return to Laurel Lodge with tolerable propriety. This she accordingly did; and explaining to her friends that this change in her plans had been caused by her own health having broken down by under the charge which she had too rashly undertaken, she recived the due commiseration which such an announcement was calculated to produce.

Late one summer evening, when the darkness had begun to descend upon the town, and the lights long since to appear in the shops, an elderly gentleman might have been seen walking about in a purposeless kind of way in the streets of Brussels; whilst the daylight lasted, he had confined his perambulations chiefly to the neighbourhood of the church of St. Gudule; he had walked round and round it, and wandered for some time inside it, and yet the peculiar beauty of its exterior and interior had been much lost upon him, for his mind was full the while of other thoughts, from which the new scenes wherein he now found himself could not at that time divert it. At last, when it grew darker, he walked slowly to quite another quarter of the town, and might have been seen for some time pacing backwards and forwards before a row of tall white houses on the opposite side of the street. He looked anxiously into the upper windows of one of these, but no light appeared in them, nor any sign of human habitation in the house, except in the lower part of it, which was fitted up as a shop.

At last, having gazed earnestly upwards, as he walked, for some time, he seemed to come to a sudden determination, stopped short, crossed the road, and entered the shop.

When he had done this, he stood transfixed for a few moments in the presence of a tall, elegantly dressed-woman, who looked at him, without rising, from the opposite side of the counter.

The lady evidently imagined that his silence and confusion resulted from inability to express his wants in a language which she would understand. She therefore, with a good-natured smile, but very indifferent English, made a suggestion about “gloves,” which were the usual purchase made in her shop by her male customers.

Peter Merton recollected himself and his French in a moment, “Yes, he wished for some gloves certainly, the choice of which he protracted for some time, and then asked casually, if there were not an English gentleman and lady lodging in the house.”

Her face brightened as she replied—“Yes, there had been certain such persons in the house; did Monsieur wish to see them? Ah, how unfortunate! what a loss! they had left Brussels but the day before, with their charming little girl, who was not very well, for the change of air.” She grew more and more voluble, having evidently embarked on a congenial strain. “Ah, how sorry they would be to miss seeing their friend—they had so few friends—would he leave his card, his name, that she might tell them what they had lost?”

No, he would not.

The lady was not at all disconcerted; she proceeded to expatiate on the beauty of Miladi and on that of Monsieur; on all the various agreiesble qualitea which she had discovered in them since they had been logders in her house; they seemed to have all the virtues under the sun, but, added the lady, when she had exhausted her panegyric,

“Alas, they were poor, very poor.”

“And how does Miladi bear that?” inquired Uncle Peter.

The shopwoman looked surprised at his question, but proceeded at once to answer it. “Ah, it was not Miladi who had borne it worst, it was Monsieur; when they had first come, she had been quite saddened to see the extent of Madame's self-denial that Monsieur might enjoy little luxuries which she had denied herself; but Madame was so good, so religious, she had not thought before that a Protestant could be so religious as she was.”

Mr. Merton was somewhat astonished and a good deal disappointed at what he heard; he took off his hat and bade the lady good bye, and sallied out again into the streets; he regained his hotel, went to his bedroom, where he lay awake, revolving many things, until the next morning, at an early hour of which he set off by the first train that would conduct him on his way to Spa.

It was a rainy day, and the country through which he passed was very uninteresting. His sprits were much depressed—he kept asking himself now, again and again, why he had left Hursleigh? or if he must have left Hursleigh to leave Mrs. Howard, why he had left England? The rain had ceased, but it was still damp and uncomfortable, when he found himself ensconced in the coupe of great awkward diligence, that was to convey him from the railway station to his destination, which lay some distance from it.

He might have observed ere this that the character of the scenery had much changed; that instead of the, flat, uninteresting country through which his journey lay at first, wild wooded hills, and streams, and chateaux, and cottages, lying pleasingly interspersed amongst them, had now succeeded on all sides. But he had sat back in his carriage absorbed in his own melancholy reflections, and quite unheedful of the aspect of the external world. now, at length,as the vast, slow old machine rumbled uncomfortably along, he looked through its shaky windows, and with every disposition to find fault, could not but be struck and pleased by the very picturesque road through which they drove. In spite of the rain that had fallen, there seemed here a strange lightness in the air, through which, as the shades of night began to fall, he saw tiny fireflies floating in all directions beneath the woods that skirted the roadside.

A foreign watering-place is somewhat dull to a solitary Englishman, particularly if he be not inclined to enter into the amusements of the place, as was the case with Uncle Peter. He did not play billiards, nor rouge-et-noir, nor cricket—facilites for all of which he might have found there; he saw no one that he knew, and therefore was not invited to join any of the picnics, riding, and other parties got up by his countrymen whom the search after health or amusement had congregated on the same spot. And yet he was not dull exactly; though he avoided all the usual places of public resort, he spent his days pleasantly enough, going long distances into the beautiful surrounding neighbourhood upon the back of one of the stout ponies of the Ardennes, or short ones upon his own legs(which, to say the truth, he preferred). The table-d'hotes amused him, with all the ever-varying food which they present, not only to the bodily but the mental appetite of one so observing as himself. He had the English papers, too, which took up here, as at Hursleigh, no inconsiderable portion of his time. He fell, in a few days, into a sort of routine, which, if it were not enjoyment, was certainly more like it than the life he had been leading lately at Hursleigh with Mrs. Howard for his guest.

One morning of peculiar beauty he had walked out of a mile or so into the country, following a route which he had not before taken; it conducted him, through wild and winding paths, along the brink of a mountain-stream which chafed and whitened beneath his feet. The scene was somewhat artificial—the hand of art had evidently assisted there the hand of nature; but it was pleasant enough, in the heavy heat of the noonday, to find yourself sheltered by tall, graceful beech-trees that rose on either side of you, and listen to the fall of running water. Uncle Peter found it so; he had brought a book out with him, and an umberella, which, when abroad, invariably replaced the spud which was his ordinary companion at Hursleigh. He sat down upon a picturesque fragment of brown rock on which he first carefully laid his pocket-handkerchief. He opened his book, but did not read much; he fell into a reverie, more agreeable by far than any he had for a long time past indulged in. The hard frost, that years of solitude and prejudice had gathered about his heart, melted away before the genial influences of the scene and hour. His thoughts went back to his earlier days, the days of his boyhood, which were the only ones that had been brightened by anything like a strong affection in his life. No shadow of bitterness or brooding melancholy lay upon his heart; all was sunshine around him and within. I think, had his nephew—nay, even his niece—stood before him at that moment, he would not have hesitated to forgive every error of the former and forego every prejudice against the latter.

But the two figures which at last did disturb him from the agreeable state of mental serenity were not his nephew nor his niece, but a young, bright-looking Belgian servant-girl, in a buff sort of jacket, a black petticoat, no bonnet, but the cleanest of white caps over her rosy features, and soft, braided, brown hair, by the side of whom walked a little girl of singular beauty, and no less remarkable intelligence and liveliness of manner. Her ringing laugh and voice had resounded throughthe pathway long before they came in sight; now that they had turned the corner formed by a mass of rock covered with underwood and wild flowers, he could hear distinctly what they said.

“Here is the old place,” said the little girl; “let us sit down; I will give you another lesson in English.”

The nursemaid laughed, looked round, and the eyes of both fell on Uncle Peter, who was sitting close beside them, his figure at first concealed by the rocks and overhanging branches of the trees.

He rose at once, took up his umbrella, and walked abruptly onward in an opposite direction; not annnoyed by having his solitary musings interrupted exactly—he was in too genial a mood for that just then— but anxious rather to leave them in possession of a spot which for some reason they preferred.

He walked on some little way, and again sat down, where he was quite out of reach of their voices, nor was in any danger of interrupting them. He had not sat many moments, however, when the two figures he had before seen crossed the wooden bridge which hung high over the stream that he had just traversed himself, and advanced straight towards him, the little girl holding in her hand a pocket-handkerchief that he had left behind him in his somewhat precipitate retreat.

She came forward with a certain childlike grace and innate politeness, so different from the grace and politeness of a French child, that he at once discovered she was English, although it was in French that she addressed him, as she explained that she had found his pocket-handkerchief upon the rock upon which he had been sitting.

“Thank you,” he said to her in English, with a more thorough smile than had illuminated his face for years.

The child's face brightened—it was bright enough before, but the ray of unexpected delight which broke over it now added strangely to its lustre and its beauty.

“You are English,” she said; “mamma is English, too, and papa; but I have never been in England; never, at least, since I can remember. I was in England once, but that was years ago. Will you tell me all about it?—how long is it since you were there?”

Uncle Peter had been said by those who knew him best not to be fond of children; the assertion was untrue; he liked them, and often wished to get on with them, but could not do so; he had been, over and over again, so mortified by the ill success of his rough overtures to them, that he had for years ceased to make any. But here was a child who seemed to take to him at once; there was not a dash of forwardness in her manner, but she was not afraid of a certain hardness in him which had deterred other children; perhaps it was that he had so much less of it this morning than usual; however this might have been, she sat down at his side without hesitation, and talked to him with an ease and grace which captivated him at once, and apparently the Belgian nursemaid too, who stood by gazing from time to time admiringly upon her young charge.

“I think papa and mamma would like you,” said the little girl, musingly, after she had conversed with him for some time; “they do not see many persons, scarcely any English; but I think they would like you. Will you tell me your name, that I may tell them all about you?”

“My name is Merton,” said Uncle Peter.

“That is very strange; it is their name and mine,” said the little girl; “I am called Merton, Helena Merton.”

Uncle Peter started, and looked fixedly upon his young companion; the truth flashed upon him at once; there was no great resemblance of feature to his nephew, but there were tones in her voice which had already reminded him of something, he knew not what, which he had heard before. The voice was like Charles Merton's but still more it seemed to him like his brother's.

“Can you tell me your father's Christian name,” he said, quietly, “my little girl?”

“Yes; it is Charles.”

He sat for some moments in silence and indecision as to what should be his future movements. If his nephew and his niece were at Spa, he must certainly leave it, was his first thought. Need he do so? was his second—need he doom himself again by prejudices, the folly of which he was beginning to see more clearly, to a desolate old age, cheered only by the venal society of a woman like Mrs. Howard? Why not be reconciled to his nephew at once, and, with this child, whom he already felt that he could love, go back and fill the old house at Hursleigh with gaiety and delight? But how be reconciled? Who was to make the first overtures? Not he; and would his nephew? If he had not made them before, was it likely that he would now? And then, again, the thought of Lady Helena recurred, whom he had so long been accustomed to picture to himself as haughty, disdainful, and extravagant, that even the different picture conveyed of her character by their landlady at Brussels had not succeeded in conveying a thoroughly different impression of her to his mind.

“Charles is papa's Christian name,” repeated the little girl, “and now will you tell me yours?”

“It is of no consequence,” said Uncle Peter gravely. Another silence succeeded, broken again by the little girl.

“It is raining,” she said; “look what large drops!”

They were large indeed—the first of a heavy shower: they lay black and broad upon the stones beside them. Thicker and faster they came, till the trees became no shelter, and at length the best thing seemed, to be reconciled to a thorough wetting, and reach home as soon as possible.

“We do not live far from here,” said the little girl, “and there are trees the whole way.”

They gained the high road, shaded by a long avenue of limes—they hurried rapidly along, Unlce Peter protecting his little friend with his large umbrella, but deriving little benefit from it himself, until they came to a small white house, separated from the road, with a garden in front of it.

“This is our house,” said the little girl, “wont you come in?”

“No, thank you,” said Uncle Peter. He saw her safely sheltered from the shower in the projecting porch of the old house, and hastened quickly away.

He was almost sorry that he had done so afterwards: it seeded like declining to avail himself, on his part, of any opportunity for a reconciliation that might occur. He never doubted that the little girl would tell her story, and that it would at once be discovered who he was; and every footstep that he heard for the rest of the day, about the door of his apartment, he imagined to be his nephew's.

[A Visit to Eton]

“I have a great curiosity to see Eton,” said my friend F——, as we sat at breakfast one morning in “the old University Club;” “you are always praising the system of public schools, and telling stories of the days when you were at Eton yourself. I confess there are some parts of that system of education which I do not altogether approve of; but perhaps a visit to the College, with you at my side to explain all we see, may remove my prejudices.”

“I will accompany you, with all my heart,” said I; “I have not been to Eton for some years past, and I hear that many improvements have taken place of late.”

“Well, why should we not go to-day? It is a bright morning, and we have nothing else to do.”

“Agreed,” said I; and before half an hour was over we were making our way to the station.

During the journey we both remained silent. I was thinking of old associations and old friends. Gradually I recalled the whole of my schoolboy life my first departure from home, amidst the prayers and blessings of my parents—my feelings of loneliness as I found myself among strange faces—the bitter tears I shed on the first night of my arrival, as I thought of home—the fagging and hardship I underwent, young and delicate as I was. My thoughts passed on to the period when I had risen in the school, when I had formed friendships such as are formed only in boyhood. I was roused from my reverie by the guard shouting “Windsor;” so after waking F——, we walked down towards the College together.

We entered the schoolyard; not a soul was to be seen, not a sound to be heard.

“I suppose the boys are in chapel,” I said. “We will wait till the service is over before we go in. In the meantime come with me into Weston's yard; I wonder if I can find my name on the old chestnut tree; I remember carving it soon after I went to Eton. Yes! here it is; but it is hardly visible. The buildings before us were erected a few years ago for the accommodation of those on the foundation; they appear very comfortable. From this spot you can just get a peep of the fine old elms in the playing-fields, with the noble Thames flowing at a little distance. Ah, I see the boys are out of chapel; let us make haste, and go in before the doors are shut.”

The old clerk, whom we met with the keys in his hand, was not a bit changed from what he had been ten years before. He wore the same everlasting velveteen breeches and blue stockings, and he shuffled along with apparently the same old shoes, about three sizes too large for him. At my request, he unlocked the door again, and walked into the chapel before us, with his hat on. He seemed to think the ediface was entirely his own, and that he had more right there than all the members of the College put together. I had heard of the improvements which had been made in the chapel, but I was not prepared for such a striking effect as now presented itself. The choir had been greatly enlarged, and new stalls and canopies erected; several of the windows were filled with stained glass; that in the east window had been put up entirely at the expense of Eton Boys. Not the least interesting of the “admonitus locorum” was the monument of Wellesley, who lies here, having been consigned, at his own request, to the earth he had loved so well in life.

We passed from the chapel into the upper school—a handsome room, adorned with the busts of Eton's most illustrious sons. As I gazed upon these, I called to mind the following words from one of the addresses of the excellent head-master of my day, delivered during Lent in the College chapel:—“You who have pursued the same studies, have walked by the same river, have sported under the same trees with Boyle and Pearson, with Chatham and with Grenville—who have drawn eloquence and poetry from the same sources, and in the same air, with Fox, with Wellesley, and with Canning, with Waller and with Gray, must feel that to the mother of such sons no common debt is due.” And surely, from these considerations, ought we not to regard our second parent with feelings almost akin to those which unite us with home and all its associations?

“And now,” said I to my companion, “having lionized the chief objects of interest, we will, if you please, stroll about, and take note of men and manners in this small world. There are one or two ‘characters’ I want to show you. Do you see that man yonder, encased in a brown great-coat, with a jolly, smirking, good-humoured face? Well, he is the Oracle of the place. You see him, at the same time that he is keeping his eye upon the basket of fruit which is resting on the wall, telling his various news to a group of youthful listeners, or answering their numerous questions without the slightest hesitation, whether the subject be politics, or cricket-matches, or the history of any Etonian, past or present. You may depend upon it he recollects me; I'll go and ask him.”

“Well, S——, how are you? I suppose you remember me?”

“Oh yes, sir; to be sure, sir. I was just telling this young gentleman, sir, of the great hit you made in the cricket-match at Lord's, some years ago, sir. By-the-bye, sir, don't you owe me a small—Oh no; I beg your pardon, sir; I was thinking of another gentleman, sir—”

“Come here!” said a gruff voice from behind, to a little boy who was listening, all mouth and eyes, to the Oracle—“Come here, Smith, and take these books up to my room. Look sharp.”

“Now,” said my friend, “that is a specimen of your fagging system. Why should not that fellow take his books up to his room himself?”

“Your objections to fagging, my dear F——, arise from your not clearly understanding the aim and object of the system. It is one of the wholesome regulations of a public school that those who have raised themselves to a certain position should have authority over others inferior to them—not in age or bodily strength, but in mental qualifications. This authority, of which there are various grades, and to which all rise in their turn, is very instrumental in upholding the discipline, which would otherwise require the exercise of a stricter surveillance on the part of the masters.”

“But are there not many who abuse this power by employing it in a capricious and unjust manner? I have heard, moreover, that those who have suffered most as fags, have become, as soon as they possess authority themselves, the most tyrannical towards their inferiors, pleading as their excuse the example of their former masters!”

“Of course there are exceptions to every rule; doubtless there are some who have no feeling of personal responsibility towards those set over them; but this is not often the case. With regard to your last objection, I think bullying has a tendency to bring out a boy's character in a true light; if he be well disposed, the recollection of his own sufferings will make him kind to his inferiors; if, on the contrary, he be of a rougher and harder temper, the remembrance of what he has himself undergone will embitter him towards others. After all, I have not mentioned the most conclusive argument in favour of fagging; it is a fact established on long experience, that in those schools in which no legitimate authority is acknowledged, bodily strength exercises a tyranny far more oppressive.”

“Well, I dare say you are right. I never viewed the matter in that light before,—and now what do you propose to do?”

“Let us attend the afternoon service in the chapel and then go to hear the debate in ‘The Eton Society.’”

“What is the nature of ‘The Eton Society?’”

“It very much resembles ‘The Union’ at Cambridge and Oxford, consisting of about twenty-five members, who are elected by ballot from the upper part of the school. They meet once a week for the purpose of holding debates on historical or political subjects. You will find a tolerable library there, and most of the daily papers. I think the society was founded about forty years ago; since which time its list of former members can show the names of several eminent statesmen. I am an honorary member, and I will ask the President to admit you to the debate.”

Accordingly, at the appointed time F—— and I presented ourselves at “The House” (for it is a miniature House of Commons), and sat down to listen to the proceedings. I forget what was the subject for discussion: but three or four gentlemen rose and spoke very well, and were followed by five or six who “perfectly agreed with the honourable member who had opened the debate,” etc. etc. I was very much amused by one short stumpy fellow, who advanced with a broad grin on his face, and was encouraged by cries of “Here! here!” from all sides. He was evidently the wag of the House. There was a pale-faced youth, who contradicted everybody, and lastly himself. Altogether it was a very animated scene, and when the order was given for strangers to withdraw, I felt sorry it was so soon over.

“What do you think of Eton orators?” I inquired of F——, as we walked down stairs together.

“I think most of them spoke very well. One or two of them, however, appear great Radicals.”

“Oh, never mind that. They will change their opinions in the course of a few years. But I see it is time for us to be off. Have you seen enough of Eton?”

“I have seen enough to give me very favourable impressions both of Eton and Eton boys. The sight of those noble elms, those time-honoured towers, in a word, the whole scenery, calculated as it is to awaken the poetical parts of one's nature, has made me cease to wonder at the well known elegance of Eton scholarship. But what has struck me particularly is, that the boys appear so gentlemanlike—”

“You are right, my dear F—— It has often been remarked, both at the Universities and elsewhere, that there ia a je ne sais quoi in an Eton man which distinguishes him whereever he goes, and stamps him as a gentleman at once. This accounts, in some measure, for the sort of freemasonry which exists among all Etonians, past or present, as children of one common mother. It is natural, certainly, that every man should feel an interest in the place of his education; but I think the feeling is particularly strong in the breast of one brought up at this school. Those who have long since entered on life, whose hearts have been seared with the cares and trials of the world, still view with pleasure and sympathy their youthful brethren engaged in the same studies and pursuits as were once that their own; still consider the honours gained from time to time by present Etonians reflect credit on themselves, as members of the same household. ‘All of us’ (I quote the words of one who has himself contributed in no small degree to the common treasury of Eton wealth), ‘all of us, young and old, rejoice at the reports which reach us from the distant East, of the wise and brave deeds of those who are one with us in the name of Etonians. We fondly trace the steps of the Missionary Bishop surrounded by the savages whom he has Christianized, thankful that God's kingdom has been so extended, but thankful too that it is by one of us that the holy work is accomplishing. The righteous administratione of justice from the lips of on of our own brethren, sounds more familiar to our ears than those of any other, however distinguished. The noble sentiments that fall in the senate from the lips of one of our own statesmen, strike a responsive chord in our hearts, and are cherished there as no other words however eloquent, no other thoughts, however forcible and true. We are indeed, and long may we be, a strongly-united brotherhood.’”