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    Isabella.

Alas! what poor ability's in me
To do him good?

    Lucia.

Assay the power you have.

    Isabella.

My power! alas! I doubt...

Measure for Measure.

A PREFIX

But facts are different from opinions. They are, or they are not. On that ground any one may challenge them; and, accordingly, I take the present opportunity to speak to certain censures passed on "Paul Ferroll," in the Edinburgh Review for April, 1857. The writer finds fault with the Book, because, says he, "The hero commits a cold-blooded crime," yet "is represented as the mildest, noblest, most humane and amiable of men." This is a question of facts. Is he so represented?

The reader has to answer Yes, or No. Those whose printed examination of the Work can be referred to, have pronounced Paul Ferroll the murderer — to be selfish, hard — a doer of good merely for his own amusement — a man in whom conscience is superseded by intellect. It is the Edinburgh Reviewer only who, in a sentence, not of examination, but of condemnation, says that Paul Ferroll both commits a murder, and is "the most humane and amiable of men." Had the facts been true, the conclusion would have been admirable; the weak part is, the facts are not true.

I have it all my own way at this moment. The Reviewer must be silent, while I talk in my own new book. And I am right to talk; for "would not a man be annoyed to be falsely exhibited to the world would he not publish the truth?" as says the biographer of Charles James Napier.

CHAPTER I.

Thus, one day when my father's illness was known to be fatal, and the labour and watching consequent upon it were at the highest, my nurse, holding me in her arms, and without thinking of me, said confidentially to another servant — "But this may go on for weeks yet;" and the other, lifting her hands with an expression of impatience, cried, "Lord forbid!" No doubt I was accustomed at the time to hear the conventional expressions of the drawing-room; and though I do not remember that I learned to doubt their sincerity, I retain the feeling still which the maids' words gave, how the things spoken in a corner, and those which are said aloud in company, may differ very much from one another.

The other occurrence which I recollect, took place after his death, when the rites of the dead body having been performed, the household were permitted to behold it. I recollect the same nurse asking me if I would not go in and see "poor papa," and her voice directing me by its tone to say "Yes," as something pious and necessary — but some horror overcame me at the door, which was about to be opened with so much ceremony, and I clung to her neck, and refused to enter. I have never quite lost what seems now like an instinctive fear at the sight or near approach to the dead; probably it was turning away from the closed room which stamped the feeling.

My brother at this time was old enough to take a part in the scene, and partly to understand its mournful bearings. I have often heard of him since, walking as a child, as chief mourner behind our father's coffin. When he returned home, he came to look for me, and took me away from the persons who were around, that they might not hear what he said, nor ought they to have heard; but some one had the bad taste and feeling to steal in and listen to the young heir, and then repeat his words.

"Katherine," he said, "I am to be your father and mother, not brother only; you are to obey me, Katherine, but I will never tell you to do anything but what is proper, and for your good; and you are never to go away from me, for I am older and stronger than you are, and there is nobody but me now to take care of you." This was often repeated, and my brother, who had spoken, thinking himself alone, could not endure to hear it. They applauded him, and at the same time laughed at the authority he assumed, and the counsel he gave; and the feeling of having exposed himself to ridicule in any shape, called the blood into his face and the tears into his eyes whenever the anecdote was alluded to. It was fortunate for me that their observations did me no further harm with him; he continued to consider and treat me in the manner he had promised, but there are no more expressions of his good will to be recorded.

I stood in particular need of kindness from the very cause which was likely to prevent me from receiving it, namely, the misfortune of my birth; for Gray's mother was not my mother. His was the honoured wife of our father, who died when he was born; mine had no name or place, and it was through my father's pity that I was taken from her never to know her, and to be brought up in his house, and with his name. While I was a young child I did not know that I was without claim to these privileges. I was as careless and happy as those born to honour; and neither my little companions nor I knew that one was at all more worthy of the world's friendship than the other; but by degrees I came to feel there was something wrong in my fate; chance words of pity, before I knew there was anything in me to be pitied, excited my attention; casual signs of neglect when compared with other children; the tone of equality insensibly assumed upon this or that occasion by persons who seemed beneath me, gave me hard lessons respecting my own station, and before any one had said so much to me, before I could understand the meaning of the thing I was conscious of, I was perfectly aware that I was the child of a mother who must not be named. This disadvantage was not compensated by any shining gifts of nature; she had cast me from her hand with no "silent advocate" to my face, no brilliant talent to win involuntary kindness; whatever treasures she had given me, had to seek for approbation from beneath the weight of a disgraceful situation, and an unamiable exterior.

My brother in the meantime had all the advantages of nature and of fortune which were denied to me. He was of honourable station, beautiful, and rich; and his feelings towards the world were the very opposite to those which I acquired. Confident of welcome, accustomed to ornament society, and to be wished for when he was to come, missed when he stayed away, he took frankly to the world, and if he sometimes treated it as an indulged child will treat those who spoil him, yet, on the whole, he enjoyed life in all its shapes and times, and found and gave pleasure go where he would. But with all this he never forgot me — he did not recollect me out of duty, but out of love; and I was as conscious of the source of his kindness, as I was suspicious and grieved at the reluctant attention of others. He was the only person in the world with whom I felt my confidence expand; the only one to whom I thought myself necessary. He employed me in various services, and forgot, if nobody else did, how little ornamental I was to life. I loved him so well, that heart could not love better; and the longer I lived, and the more knowledge I gained, the more I enjoyed and clung to the pleasure which he diffused over my solitary existence.

I had always the will, not always the power to do him service. When he was a boy of thirteen, and I was a little more than nine, it chanced that a school friend induced him to take an expedition, as both were on their way home for the holidays, which was to have cost, by the most accurate calculation, exactly five pounds; the amount which my brother had in his pocket. The expenses exceeded the original sum, however, four times, and, for the moment, the money was advanced by his companion, who had been intrusted with about that sum to carry home from an old cousin, who laid up her savings in his father's hands. It was to be repaid, however, as soon as they arrived at Buckwell, our old manor-house, by means of Gray's guardian, upon whose liberality my brother confidently depended while at a distance; but it so happened that he was in high anger at the delay which the expedition had caused in returning home, and his admonitions being rather more peremptory than Gray liked, his answers were stormy, and all idea of asking a favour became out of the question. What was to be done, however, without his assistance, was a sufficient perplexity. The friend was very urgent, and dwelt upon the favour he had conferred by the loan, till Gray would have given his right hand to have freed himself from the obligation. Pride made him wild to discharge it; but pride sealed his lips from asking the means from his guardian. He came to me, whenever we could be alone, to pour out all his trouble. I was almost more wretched than himself; I could not sleep for the heartbeating which the thought of his embarrassment excited, and the vain longing for means to relieve him from it. The sum seemed very great to me; for, upon calculation of my revenues, I found that my whole allowance saved for eight hundred weeks would not more than amount to it, and I had nothing so much my own that I could part with it for him. I gave him my whole treasure, consisting of the current week's sixpence, five silver pence, and a half-crown, presented to me last Christmas by my uncle; but the very day this beginning was made, Gray's friend wrote a letter, describing the obligation he had conferred as so great, and the difficulty so pressing, that it drove Gray frantic, and the sum must be had by some means or other.

He took me into his confidence, and told me that he had heard of a Mr. Corn, in a neighbouring town, who was in the habit of advancing money; "and," said Gray, "though I have heard enough of the difficulties one runs into by borrowing; yet, in this case, there's plainly no danger, for, in the first place, he is not a Jew, and in the next, I shall take care to have no more to do with him than what I want at present, and twenty pounds will ruin no man."

I was much too young to see any more danger than Gray did, or to be otherwise than convinced by his opinion; and the only thing to be thought of was, how to put the scheme into execution. I remember, perfectly well, that his guardian was on the point of discovering the affair, and whatever grief it would have cost us both at the time, it would have been very well if he had followed out the secret which he must or ought to have suspected. The danger of discovery we ran was this:—In order to prevent Gray from practising any concealment, his guardian had absolutely forbidden the use of locks and keys; and was in the habit of looking through desks and drawers at uncertain intervals. When a secret really existed, therefore, it was necessary to invent some still more secure retreat; and his friend Roberts' last letter had been carried about by myself the whole of the day and the night since it came. It went in my handkerchief to bed, and in the day time, lay inside my frock, with the danger that the corners and the edge should make themselves conspicuous under the cambric, and, accordingly, what was to be apprehended took place. As we sate at breakfast, one end of it, as I held out my hand for the milk, actually came out of the opening of my frock, and Mr. Mainwaring, who was standing by, pointed at it, nay, had his finger on it, saying, "What's that?" I think I was too frightened to show fear; and the fright invented a story for me on the instant. I thrust my hand under his upon the letter, and said the seam of my frock was rough, and I had put a folded paper between it and my skin. "Poor child!" said he, desisting. He could hardly have been deceived; he, probably, thought it not worth while to explore a mystery of mine. He took no further notice, at all events; and to my unformed conscience, it seemed that, whatever was the wrong of an untruth, yet, that it was quite necessary to tell one, since the secret could not have been kept without. This was mean, but I was a frightened girl, ill brought up.

If this danger had proved real, the next step would have been prevented; as it was, we set about the means of taking it. There was no great difficulty in this, for Gray had the command of a pony and a pony carriage, and in the latter, he had made it a habit lately to take me on various expeditions. It was easy enough, therefore, to visit the little town in question. He had warned Mr. Corn that he was coming, and had been relieved from all anxiety concerning his reception by an answer, dexterously conveyed through a trusty messenger, who contrived, without any ostentation, to deliver it very privately. The days and hours appointed were numerous, lest any one should prove inconvenient, and everything was smoothed for his reception so far as it lay in the power of Mr. Corn. One fine summer's morning, accordingly, we set off; and highly pleased we were, like children, to find ourselves on the road to Norden, and in pursuit of such an important affair. Gray talked of the convenience of having money before the legal time. It was his own, he said, only the law kept it from him; and I listened, and was as perfectly convinced by his arguments, as he had been by the older lips which had used them to him.

Mr. Corn came in as soon as we had reached his drawing-room, and welcomed us to his house with every expression of pleasure at making our acquaintance. The business which we came upon seemed forgotten in the more pressing calls of friendship. He propitiated us with cake and wine, for we were quite young enough for that, and when we were supplied, he began to inquire, in the most accommodating voice, what he could do for the young baronet. I can still see, as plainly as if it were before me now, Gray's noble young face and figure, with his open collar and his hat in his hand, standing beside the chimney-place, and looking Mr. Corn full in the face while he declared his errand.

"The sum that I want is no great deal," said Gray. "It is for a particular purpose, but it does not matter what that is."

"Not at all," said Mr. Corn.

"And I must have it immediately."

"Of course," said Mr. Corn, "though you know it is not always easy, without considerable sacrifice, to command at a moment any sum of importance. We men of business are obliged to be doing something with our money; and cannot realize at a moment's notice without loss — nevertheless it is always so be had, always."

"Oh," said Gray, "this is no sum of importance. It is only twenty pounds."

"Oh! indeed," said Mr. Corn.

"You can let me have it?" asked Gray. "I mean upon proper terms."

"You may rely upon it," said Mr. Corn, "you have put yourself into very safe hands, and may depend upon being treated with upon the very properest of terms."

"Oh, I did not mean that," said Gray, colouring, in his haste to prevent Mr. Corn from supposing that he could have the least suspicion of his integrity. "I meant that I was ready to give the security which they tell me gentlemen do give on these occasions."

"Nay, nay, don't let's talk of that," said Mr. Corn, "a mere trifle; a thing I'm too happy to accommodate you with. You can put your name, if you please, to the loan, but that's all I should think of requiring."

"Very well," said Gray; "I'll do whatever you like."

"Your word is as good as your bond, you know," said Mr. Corn, with a tone of hilarity.

"To be sure," said Gray; "but you are to understand that I shall not be able to repay you perhaps till I come of age, which will be eleven years, as I don't come of age till twenty-four, and I was thirteen, only, last month."

"Thirteen! bless me, you don't say so," said Mr. Corn; "I should have guessed you sixteen, only I remember, Sir Gray, I remember so well the day when it was announced there was an heir to Buckwell. Your poor father, I recollect his calling at our door, not a week after." Gray had nothing particular to answer.

"And this pretty lady," said Mr. Corn, turning to me, "how old are we?"

I never remembered being called pretty before, and I thought Mr. Corn very civil. I told him, with some emphasis on the fraction, that "I was nine and a-half,"

"Ha, ha!" said Mr. Corn, as if this was exemplary conduct on my part, "then we are not so far from our brother — none but you two, I think, Sir Gray, to be heirs to all that fine property?"

"None but us," said Gray.

"Exactly, exactly, as you were saying" (and all the time Mr. Corn was writing on a sheet of paper something which Gray was to sign); " you first, and then the lady. Sir George, I think, was able to dispose of his estate, was not he? and nobody can blame him if he did choose his own daughter."

Gray answered nothing; and I, young as I was, felt the blood mount in my cheeks. "Is it not so?" said Mr. Corn, applying the blotting paper to his work, and selecting a good pen.

Gray asked, "What is so?" and took the pen, but before he set it on the paper, cast his eye over the writing he was to sign.

"Yes, just read it first," said Mr. Corn, stooping over him, and running his finger along the lines, while he read aloud, very rapidly, the contents of the paper:— "In consideration of the sum of twenty pounds advanced to me by John Corn, &c., I, Gray Buckwell, Bart., promise to pay that sum, and other sums hereto and hereafter joined, with interest upon them, at the rate of ten per cent., upon attaining my majority."

"This, you see," said Mr. Corn, commenting after he had read, "is to cover any difficulty there might be in case of my death, before it becomes quite convenient to you to repay this sum; because, should I die, as we all may, nobody would understand what the transaction was — for I keep all these things secret — there is no use in talking about them."

"No, that's true," said Gray.

"On the other hand," said Mr. Corn, "should anything so unfortunate occur as your death ...... but there's no chance of that ......"

"I can't tell that," said Gray; "suppose I were to die, what then?"

"Oh, I take my chance that you won't," said Mr. Corn, cheerily. "If you should — I say, in case you should, this paper's good for nothing: but I run the risk of that. In the mere possibility, I'm obliged, for form's sake, for the sake of those that come after me, to make the interest rather high, just to set against the risk — but, to accommodate you, I'll run the risk with pleasure."

"I don't like that," said Gray, very seriously; "is there no way of warranting you against it?"

"Oh, don't think of it," said Mr. Corn; "though, if it gives you any uneasiness, you shall double the security. If you and this young lady please, she shall put her name along with yours; and it would be only fair, if she ever came by such a windfall as your estate; that she should discharge these little debts."

"Do you mean if Gray died?" said I, all a child's passion rushing into my face.

"Nay, nay," said Mr. Corn, "my dear young lady, I'm only speaking of what might be, and, indeed, what is, without the smallest injury done to Sir Gray, for, as his heiress, you can be so useful to him, you can accommodate him and everybody else so much, that I'm sure you must be pleased at it — that's all I meant."

The idea of being useful to Gray, of accommodating people, was so new and flattering that I looked at Mr. Corn, and received his respectful address with delight. I would have done anything for such pleasure; but when he offered me the pen Gray interposed. "No, no," said he, "you must not do that. I don't know whether or not Katherine can do it; but, at all events, she shall not, for me; and if there's no other way to have the money, why I'm afraid I must go without it."

"Oh, nothing easier, nothing so easy, nothing so unnecessary," cried Mr. Corn, very hurriedly. "I merely suggested the thing. I was not sure what her situation might be — and if it ......"

"Never mind it," said Gray, peremptorily; "can you let me have the money or not?"

"It is your own, my dear sir; on your own terms and any future sum you may find it convenient to require. I've provided for it, as you will observe, by the terms of our little agreement. You have only to send to me."

"Well, if you are satisfied," said Gray, "let me sign, and I am very much obliged to you."

"Oh, I'm always most happy to accommodate my friends," said Mr. Corn, resuming his more deliberate tone. He set a chair for Gray, dipped the pen in ink, and gave it to him. Gray sat down, as he used to do at school, and, with some pains about the shape of the letters, subscribed his name — Gray Buckwell.

CHAPTER II.

Not long after our memorable expedition to Norden, this uncle came to Buckwell to see Gray and me. We both of us looked forward to the visit with some anxiety, as the occasion on which to resolve the questions which Mr. Corn's suggestion about the estate had raised in our minds. We had talked over it without coming to a conclusion, but the expression used on the occasion with regard to my importance had very much haunted us. I was wonderfully pleased with the idea, and when we were busy arranging our childish plans, we often came to a point, where I said, "And you know, Gray, my name can help you in these things, Mr. Corn said."

Gray was equally interested, but we were puzzled when we came to realize our notions; and we determined to apply to our uncle the first time we saw him.

He had his own reasons for the visit, independently of the genuine pleasure which he took in seeing us; but these were not immediately manifested, at least to us. He had a long conversation with Gray's guardian, who came over to Buckwell that morning by appointment, to examine the steward's accounts after the rent-day, but Gray and I were not admitted to these mysteries, only when they came out of the library, and were taking leave of each other at the hall door, we heard from Mr. Mainwaring, the guardian, a few such words as "Impossible," "out of my power. When your nephew becomes his own master, it will be another thing" — and from our uncle this final expression; "I asked it, because in your place I would have done it;" and so they parted, Mr. Mainwaring to go home, Mr. Buckwell remaining with us.

The disappointment which it seemed had taken place in his one object, did not put my uncle out of conceit with the other, which was the satisfaction to be derived from visiting his native place, and talking to us.

"I'm always glad to find myself here," said he, as we sate together after dinner, he and Gray and I, before a large open window looking on the garden and the woods. "It is a noble place, Gray, and you are very happy. I'm very glad you are so happy as to possess it." Then my uncle sighed deeply, and went on. "It seems but a year or two ago, when your poor father and I were boys here together, and both as near of an equality as boys could be; except, perhaps, that our father gave me a little the advantage of the two, 'For,' said he, 'the eldest's time will come soon enough.'"

"Well, uncle, you could not both be eldest, you know," said Gray.

"No, my dear lad, and I'm sure I would not if your father must have been youngest, a fine noble creature as he always was; so superior to me in every respect."

"I remember him," said Gray, thoughtfully.

"Remember him? yes, I should think so; it does not seem to me possible to forget him here. He got the estate young, you know, and I well recollect when the time came for him to take possession, and for me to go away. That was very hard."

"But why did you not stay, as Katherine stays with me?" said Gray.

"Oh! Katherine must go some day," said my uncle, taking my hand compassionately.

"No, that she never shall," cried Gray, "while I'm alive at least, and if I should die, uncle, it would be her own, would not it?"

On this I began to cry, as children always do when they hear any one talk about dying, for, as far as I recollect, they feel as if to mention it were to bring it to pass.

"She's crying, a foolish child," said Gray, lifting up my face from his shoulder where, not to show my tears, I had hidden it when he spoke; "just as if I meant to die," said he, rubbing my hand between his, and patting it.

"Good girl," said my uncle, "you would not have Gray die if you might have twice even Buckwell, would you?"

Children do not recover their voices in a moment, so I said nothing, but I wondered my uncle could have the heart to ask such a question. "But," said he, after a moment's pause, "you know, children, that if you, Gray, were not in the way, it is I should have the place. It was entailed on the heirs male, which Katherine could not be at any rate, because she is a girl, poor thing, not to mention any other accident; and, therefore, though I was younger than my brother, I should have come next after him, but for you."

"I did not know it," said Gray.

"It is very odd they should not tell you things of that sort," said my uncle, a little pettishly; "not that my brother was in the wrong, in the least, when he had an heir; but only, you see, so it is."

"But if I'm in your way, you are in Katherine's," said Gray, "so it comes round."

"Yes, as it happens; though no doubt had my brother lived till you were of age, you and he would have joined to cut off the entail, and destroyed my poor chance."

Gray laughed: "Not so very poor a one neither, uncle," said he, "there's no knowing what may become of me yet."

"God forbid, my dear nephew!" cried Mr. Buckwell. "It is a thing just as impossible as to bring back the days before I was a born creature. What, I, an old man, within a year of seventy, compare myself with a young strong creature like you, Gray? I never dreamed of it."

"And after you, uncle," said Gray, "who is heir male then?"

"Why then the females come in," said Mr. Buckwell; "because there are no more then of our name in the world. My own poor girl would be my heir if she had lived. Ah me! my poor darling child; to think what a hard destiny there is for some people, and what a fine one for others:
'How happy some o'er other some can be,' as poor Shakespeare says — no doubt he knew what trouble was. My brother was a prosperous man up to his last week in life, when he fell sick of his first sickness, and died; and behind him he leaves a noble creature like you, Gray, to carry on his name and his estate; while I bear my child's head to the grave myself, and have none left to inherit from me except her two poor little girls, and one so weakly, so likely to die."

"Oh! I hope not," said Gray; "and, after all, it seems they are better off than most people, for they are reckoned as good as boys, though poor Katherine is not."

"What good can that ever do them," said Mr. Buckwell, "except to vex them with vain hopes, poor dears? Katherine, to be sure, could not expect anything of the sort; but even she is better off than my own girl's girls. Your father left her two thousand pounds, and it will be four by the time she is of age, while they, with all their fights, will have nothing at all on coming of age, if I live so long ...... well, it is hard!"

Gray laughed again. "I ought to get out of the way, should not I, uncle?" said he.

"You, Gray! How you do vex me, child, when you talk in that way. There might be a little morsel of light, surely, for me, and not take as much as would burn a candle from you, my boy."

"I hope so, I'm sure," said Gray.

"Yes, I know you do; and if it were only you, there would be no difficulty. But, to tell you the truth, though I don't know why I should ......"

"Oh, yes, tell us," cried we both together.

"Oh, it is nothing entertaining, but I came to speak to your guardian about it."

"Well, tell us; tell us," said we both again.

"Nay, it's not worth while; but, if you set your minds on it ..... Well, you must know that my son-in-law says, if I could raise at this moment only five hundred pounds, he could complete an investment, which he says he has an opportunity of making for his two dear girls, and which, for my own child's children, it is not very strange that I should be helped to, out of the estate; but your guardian says that I have already had the younger brother's portion; that's true — but it was not my fault that I was not the eldest."

"And you would have given me some money if you had been eldest, I'm sure," said Gray.

"I'm sure I should," answered my uncle.

"I think I can get it," said Gray, musing.

"No, I think you can't; your guardian is quite peremptory."

"But it is just, and, therefore, I think I can, and will," and as he said this, I very well knew where Gray meant to apply.

My uncle had no such knowledge, and only shook his head. The subject was dropped, and not discussed again during the remainder of Mr. Buckwell's stay. But Gray's second visit to Mr. Corn was to obtain, and he succeeded in doing so, the means of supplying the desired sum, very carefully concealing from my uncle the source whence he had drawn it. From what he said, I believe he thought Gray had persuaded his guardian to advance it.

CHAPTER III.

"I shall be quite satisfied with the income, Katherine," said he, "and I don't want to make the purchases they talk of; so, I shall have plenty of money to pay Mr. Corn over and over, and I need not be afraid any longer."

I was growing older now, and was rather a better counsellor than at our first visit to Norden; but I saw the danger only because I was a looker-on; if I had been a principal in it, I should have done as Gray did.

Gray was now twenty, and there remained four years before he would be of age, according to the will of our father. His guardian took interest in nothing about him and his estate, except accumulating a certain sum before his majority; and with this object he restricted all the expenses of the place as much as he possibly could. Still, the absolutely necessary outlay was so great that his savings were less than he had intended, and he began to contemplate the end of his regency with his project defeated, unless he could further reduce the outlay and increase the savings. Now, there were at Buckwell many old customs observed, which are not, perhaps, wise or useful, but which grow up about old houses; and these, by my father's will, were retained, until Gray should be old enough to decide on their continuance or not. There were periodical distributions of money to the great content and discontent of the poor. There were clothes and food wasted, and partly misapplied, though, indeed, I don't believe they much harm; but these and other practices, Mr. Mainwaring thought, might be safely retrenched, and the consequent saving added to his accumulations. He laid all this before Gray, with excellent reasoning to back it, and the report got abroad that reforms were going to take place. Of course, there was violent opposition.

"You must not let them turn us out, sir," said Rooke, a superannuated game-keeper, "for it's your own land and house, though you have been put back of being twenty-one longer than other people. And, as to leaving my cottage, it is you that can be between that and me; and I have said all along, I'll trust Sir Gray to do as his forefathers have done."

"Indeed you may," said Gray, thoughtfully, "but if such a thing were to be, my guardian tells me that he proposed you should go to live with your daughter, and that he thought you would be all the more comfortable."

"Lord love you! Sir Gray, what should I do with my daughter? She lives inside the town, with her husband and all the grandchildren, and you might just as well, nay, a good deal better, set me in the four walls of your father's vault, lying at his feet like the old falconer on the monument."

"No, no, Rooke," said Gray, "we have not done with you yet; we can't spare you for the churchyard these many years."

"It will be a short path to it, though," said Rooke, "if you do bid me leave my house. I'll not go further than the churchyard. I'll turn out of the path and lie down there."

"But you shan't go" said Gray, "if you take it in that way. I have a right to have my own way in these things, and I will see that you are not injured, Rooke."

"And poor Miss Katherine, too," said the old man, pursuing his advantage, "she's to go away too, I learn — Buckwell to be shut up; the son a wandering and the daughter a stranger. Oh, Sir Gray, think better of that."

"I have — I do!" cried Gray, impatiently; "I'm going to do nothing unbecoming; don't be afraid."

"No, no, I'm not," said the old man, correcting the tone he had taken, when, he saw that he had gone a trifle too far. "If I mistrusted you, whom should I have to trust; I and all the helpless, useless souls that have got to the windward of your house; you'll be our shelter, Sir Gray." So saying, he moved off, slouching a little in his gait, but looking still, in his velvet coat, and his old domestic bearing, like a fixed charge on a great house.

These and similar appeals wrought their full effect on the mind of my brother, and the end of it was, that he absolutely refused to allow that any changes should be made in the domestic arrangements. Mr. Mainwaring was very stiff and obstinate also, and there would have been a quarrel had it not occurred to Gray to propose that the allowance for the expenses of Buckwell should be put into his hands, to do the best he could by it, and that as he had now left college, the sums allotted to him there, should be merged with the other, which he should spend as he pleased, and the rest be treated as it pleased the guardian. There were temptations on both sides to make this acceptable; and though it was nearly obvious that the task would be a heavy one for the young possessor, the old guardian saw in it too agreeable a prospect to resist long; and, to the joy of us both, he put Gray into decided possession at the end of the year, and we sat down together joint independent housekeepers at Buckwell.

It was Gray's great desire, upon undertaking the responsibilities of housekeeping, to justify the confidence he had expressed in his own powers, and therefore he entered eagerly into the details for which he had otherwise no inclination. He and I consulted every book upon domestic economy which we could hear of, and drew up a list of household expenses upon their authority, which left us, on paper, a magnificent surplus upon our income. We found that a cow would yield weekly ten pounds of butter, if well managed. "We will still have four, and they shall all be well managed," said Gray. Then they were to live in the deer park, where they would eat nothing but what the deer did not like; so we should keep the deer for nothing — "except just hay and beans in the winter," said Gray, "but we can eat the venison instead of other meat; and then a haunch of venison is always a good dinner if anybody comes, without anything else; so that, in fact, we shall save by the deer."

To the extreme discontent of the housekeeper I, with my own hand, set down the order for the butcher, upon a scale calculated by the "Housewife's Companion," and the consequence was, that in the middle of the week she came to ask, "What I pleased to have for dinner, as there was nothing in the larder?" and we were obliged to send off man and horse for a fresh supply.

"That's only an accident," said Gray, when we came to see that the bill was just twice as much as we had proposed; "another week, when we begin straight-forward, it will go right."

However, the next week it was just the same, and we called the housekeeper to counsel.

"Why, sir, I'm sure I lose nothing, and let nothing waste whatever, that comes through my hands. It's always my principle, sir, and so everybody will tell you that ever knew me."

"Well, Mrs. Jolly, I'm not going to ask everybody. I only ask you, what's the reason we spend so much?"

"Why, sir, was not it only yesterday, when I had got the cold meat out for the men's supper, that Mr. Simcox and Mr. Ruffin both were waiting in the housekeeper's room to speak to you when you came in; you would not, certainly, sir, have me let them sit and eat nothing."

"Oh, no, of course," said Gray, "they are tenants."

"Well, sir, then Miss Katherine bade me send soup to the Suttons; and the Castray family came to ask for a little meat; poor creatures, I don't like to turn them away."

"No, no, certainly; they are poor people," said Gray.

"And when Dr. Monkton came unexpectedly, sir, I was obliged to send for a little fillet of veal, because he's so particular, and he will have one white meat."

"Yes, yes; it's all very well for Dr. Monkton," answered Gray, "because he is an old friend."

"So you see it's only your own wish, sir, and there's nothing the least extravagant on my part. On the contrary, I'm sure I get ill-will very often for taking your part, sir, against the servants. But you will find it out yourself when you see other housekeepers."

With this she put her apron to her eye and went out of the room; we laughed, and did not give in ostensibly; but, by degrees, she worked her will, and we came to — "Well, after all, I suppose Jolly must manage it."

Other things ran much the same course, and, upon sending the banking-book one sad day to be settled, and breaking the green seal and tearing the whity-brown thick paper in which it was wrapped, we found that the balance against us was #150. Here was a dead pause in our proceedings; I was amazed at the greatness of the sum; and quarter-day weeks off yet. Gray thought slightly of the amount, but very much of the discredit; and the last possible alternative in his mind was to go to Mr. Mainwaring and confess that the sneers of that ungracious gentleman had a solid foundation. On the contrary, he went to Mr. Corn, and got as much money as he wished and more, but when he came back, he told me that he had been making resolutions, and no time was to be lost in putting them in practice, What these were he proceeded to declare to me over the fire where we sat after dinner.

He said that upon due consideration, it had appeared to him that people for whom he did not care benefitted by his fortune more than they had any right to do. He thought that what Izaac Walton said was very true, "that the rich man's park was for him who looked at it, his house for the guests, who had no trouble or expense, and enjoyed it."

"Why, now, for instance, Katherine," said he, "don't you, and don't I, sleep in two of the smallest rooms in the house, that the others may be the company rooms; and the garden and the deer-park, why, you know, if ever a pine or a buck is finer than the rest, they say, 'Oh, don't eat it to-day, sir, because there's only you and Miss Katherine.' Now, I'll not treat the world; I'll treat you and myself, and then we shall see if we have not plenty of money."

The practical part of this discourse was, that he meant to renounce every article of expense which, upon calculation, he found was spent to make other people possess his fortune instead of himself. He knew it was not a usual mode of proceeding; but he intended never to accept as a reason for doing anything, "Oh, but everybody does so; oh, but what will the neighbours say?" I cried out with admiration that he was quite right; for, being still younger than he, these well-ordered words, in the first place, sounded to me perfectly reasonable; and in the next, whatever Gray did I thought well done; therefore, he got no good counsel from me, and, without opposition, went on to lay down his plans.

I remember the evening perfectly. It was a rainy dark night without, and the curtains were drawn close about the windows; the fire on the hearth-stone was made of wood, and close beside it we sate; the dessert neglected on the further table, and our little table drawn between us, with a long sheet of paper, and Gray's pencil to make out his scheme of renunciation of the world. There we were alone, and together, as much as it was possible for two human creatures to be. None of the past generation was left to call us to account to them ; none of the present possessed the least natural authority over us. Gray might do what he liked; the crude, strange fancies which haunt everybody's youth, were as able as they were willing, in this case, to change themselves into actions.

"So what can we give up which is absolutely useless for us two," said Gray, after he had made a list of everything of which we were at present in possession. "First comes Mrs. Jolly, at forty pounds a-year; what good does she do, except stew gooseberries into jam, and keep the jam in her cupboards till it is mouldy?"

"None at all, that I know of, except that she bought a large gold brooch the other day, because she said the housekeeper at Buckwell should have one bigger than Mr. Pierson's housekeeper."

"Cut her off, cut her off," said Gray, striking her name from the list; "I can't afford to keep gold brooches. Then, next to Mrs. Jolly," said he, going on, "is the butcher; why should a dinner consist of several more dishes than anybody eats? and why, again, should it always be necessary to say to one's friends, 'Come and dine with me?' Would not it be more reasonable to say, 'Come and talk with me; and if you are hungry or the time comes for eating while we are talking, you shall have a piece of meat and a piece of bread, and then we will talk again.'"

"I am sure I should think so," I answered.

"So be it, then," said Gray, crossing out great columns of housekeeping; "we will try our friends and ourselves by that test. Whom we have not courage to invite on those terms, we will account not worth inviting; and if any are disgusted at them upon trial, we will not think it worth while to regret them."

"Then the stable, Gray," said I; "you should not keep your horses in such a condition that they must be worked before they are at to ride; why not have them fit to ride at first?"

Gray hesitated a little at this, and said it was exercise, not work, they wanted; but for consistency's sake was forced to agree.

"Then," said he, attacking a less interesting part of the establishment, "why, again, are we to keep the grass mown for two miles along the walks, when we can both wear thick shoes, and walk through it with just as good a view of the woods and river as if the sward were shaven brown."

"But, if you don't do that, you will want fewer labourers, and the poor people will be without employment."

"Oh, no, by no means; I shall have more power to give them something useful to do. I will increase the number even; nobody who is willing to work shall be idle for me; nobody who is idle shall be supported me."

"What! old Rooke, for instance?"

"Ah! indeed, old Rooke; but you know that's quite another thing. He has always been accustomed to idleness, and shall enjoy it even if he double the allowance."

"And the sick people with their broths and porridges?"

"Oh, double the broths and porridges, too, if you like, and the flannel, and the port wine, and all that. It is only things which do nobody any good that I shall cut off."

Accordingly, he proceeded to put his establishment upon such a footing as he thought exclusive of everything but utility. He resolved to dare the world, wear a shooting-jacket, ride a rough horse, and give neither soup nor fish for dinner; and not only absolutely fixed this plan, but proceeded to act upon it.

It took some little time to effect these changes, but at last we found ourselves reduced to two servants, to two horses, shut by our own will from society, and beginning such lives as brother and sister may have led in the fifteenth century, when there happened to be only sulky, not bloody, feuds between them and the neighbouring barons. We never met any one in the sphere of our own rank; all whom we saw beside were inferiors, finding their social pleasures among each other, and only communicating with us in the way of services, or of casual and passing intercourse. All we had to say for which we wanted sympathy, all we wanted somebody to understand, we must say to each other. Gray would come in search of me to laugh at his conceits, read his books, feel interest his plans. I must look to Gray whatever I wanted, or liked, or did not comprehend, or fancied. No doubt it was very bad for him to live thus away from his natural companions; but for me it was great gain, and I never was so happy either before that time or since. We were always walking and talking together.

It was fine summer weather; the finest weather in the world, and we were out in it all day; we visited the cottagers, and I am afraid sometimes thought ourselves Fénélons because we sat down there eating potatoes with them, gossipping with the man when he was working in his garden, or carrying wine and jelly to the sick beds. They all asked Gray for some improvement, and he granted it to all; and then we would busy ourselves by going to overlook the workmen, and please our zeal by drawing plans, which the builders praised, and for which they substituted their own. We took walks over the hills, which were at a few miles' distance; and Gray carried a book in his pocket, and enthusiasm unspoiled as yet by other pleasures, animated by his present mode of existence, read, and made me partake in the stores of his college leaning. We often came back late, and though the moonlight shone on the long avenue, and the light, with solemn splendour, rested on the varied front of the old house, yet it was but seldom we were touched with any sacred awe; and far oftener the avenue rang through its silence as we went down it, with our frequent peals of laughter.

"Poor Miss Katherine," said Rooke, one day, when he and an old lady of the parkhouse were standing talking before the rails of her garden; "Poor Miss Katherine, just hear how she does laugh! Bless her, poor thing! I'm sure something bad's going to happen to her, she is so fool-happy!"

One of these expeditions took us a little further than usual, to the highest point of the neighbouring line of hills, which here consisted of a wide unenclosed ridge, affording pasture for sheep; and in a sheltered gully, here and there, was space for a little cottage or two, where the garden fence was made with stones, and a few willows grew near the door. The hot summer's sun burned in the valleys below, but here the elevation of the ground tempered its rays to a delicious fresh warmth, while the still mountain breezes were coming at intervals over the wide extent. Neither was there any want of the brightness of flowers to ornament the mountain green. This part of the hill was covered with the wild heartsease, so that as far as the eye reached, to the next swell of the ground, there was a light yellow glow mingled with the short grass, above which the flowers did not rise more than a half inch. They were not indiscriminately scattered over the entire surface, but that surface was raised into an infinite number of small mounds; probably these were the great stones of the hill, covered gradually by mosses and turf; and on these mounds the heartsease grew. It was a silent wide scene of quiet beauty, spreading out for no reason, except the overflowing loveliness of nature. Gray and I walked quietly along it.

"There has been somebody so happy here, Gray, that nothing will grow since his days, but ease-of-heart," I said.

"Oh, you think so? and what kind of man should one encourage to haunt about the onion beds and to bring up a good crop of tarragon?" said Gray.

"Such a fellow as that, I should think," said I, suddenly observing at a distance a young man reposing on the heartsease, but without much sign that his heart profited by the ease. He sat there, his eyes hidden in his hands, and a book upon his knees, out of which he was not reading, for he seemed to us to be doing nothing better than weeping.

We drew near, and finding that it was really so, Gray, without further ceremony, went up, and, touching him on the shoulder, asked him what could be done for him. The young man, ashamed of his emotion, got up, and turned away; he would not speak to us, and, notwithstanding Gray's repeated invitation, was departing, when I perceived his book left behind him, and ran after him, at Gray's suggestion, to give it to him. He could not avoid stopping to take it, and thank me, and finding us so courteous, and willing, if he would let us, to do him some service, he seemed to make an effort on himself, and holding the book out to Gray, said, —

"That's the thing that has made me such a fool, sir; if I had thought anybody was near, I should not have been so, and therefore I'm not to blame as much as if this place were not generally solitary."

Gray took it, and of all the books to make a man cry, what should it be but old Alison on Taste. Gray turned it over and over, doubting how to take this explanation, and the young man seemed equally to doubt if he should go on and make clear what he had begun; but at last he turned over the pages, the book being still in Gray's hand, and fixed upon a passage towards the end, of which the import is that no costly pleasure approaches that which is attainable by everybody, namely, the pleasure of conversation and the communication ideas.

"Sir," said the young man, "I had been trying to fancy myself happy, sitting here alone in such a fine scene, and reading an excellent book; but when I came to this place, I found it was of no use to deceive myself, for I am miserable by the want of that very blessing which is here said to be common to all the human race, I never knew anybody to talk to, sir."

Gray could not help smiling, but spoke so kindly that our new companion, if he perceived it, was discouraged. "You mean nobody who will talk about books, do you?" said Gray; "for on other matters you have companions, I suppose, like the rest of us."

"Oh, sir, don't say the rest of us. I am one who am alone as to all such things as interest me in the world. I am too poor to be educated, and too ignorant to be of any use; and what little I do know, sir, gives me, I think, much more pain than if I were as brutal as the stone I stand upon."

He turned away again to hide his emotion, but Gray laid his hand kindly on his arm and got him by degrees to tell him what was his history. He said it was one he knew but imperfectly himself. His name was Wolfe, and his mother was his only living parent; she was the widow of a soldier in the ranks, who had died when he himself was a mere child. His mother it should seem had been of higher degree, and though suffering great poverty had still imparted to her son tastes and habits which belonged to a better order of circumstances than those in which he found himself. He said that she had a few books of her own, out of which she had taught him to read; but he implied that much further than that she did not go; so that when he came to perceive their merits and enjoy their views, he found he had outstripped his instructress; and was as much alone in his enjoyment as though the words themselves were unattainable to her. His heart was very full, and he told us everything. He said he never heard any comment, except, "That's all very good, and all very right, and all very true:" and when he began to expatiate himself upon the passages which excited him, all the answer he got was, "Don't now, child, I've got a headache; now, don't be tiresome, Jonathan." Beyond the society of his mother there was nobody for him but peasants and farmers; the former were nearest the level of his circumstances, for though he did not work like them, he lived like them on not more than what they earned, namely, about twenty-five pounds a-year. The latter thought it was very kind they ever admitted his mother and him to tea, and Jonathan, on the contrary, seemed to offend them all by sometimes urging his learning upon them, and sometimes sitting despairingly silent for want of any in their discourse.

In short, he was a martyr to the want of talk, and Gray was amused by so new a complaint, and at the same time struck with the reality of it. It would be not very difficult to relieve it by placing him in some employment where his situation would give him society, but upon very little inquiry it was evident that his knowledge was far from adequate to such a change at present. He knew nothing beyond the few books which chance had preserved in his mother's library, and none, of course, furnished very desultory reading. He had got an old book of chemistry, which taught him that Phlogiston was the universal principle of nature. He thought nobody ever had, or could ever dispute his friend Alison's explanation of the beautiful; but even to know that there was any necessity to account for it at all, was step a long way in advance of his knowledge of other subjects. The bare rudiments of astronomy, for instance, were quite unknown to him. His mother, it seemed, had once assured him that she had been told the sun stood still, but he innocently gave us this as an example of her prejudices and want of information; and it seemed that he had withstood her doctrine upon the ground of plain reason and evidence of eyesight, until he had converted her to a stout Cartesian.

In the meantime she had given him a good hand-writing, and a knowledge of arithmetic as far as the rule of three, and such were his attainments when he now made our acquaintance. It suited Gray's new views of things very well to propose himself as tutor to the young man. At length he offered to give him occasional instruction, and promised books for his solitary studies, as well as comments from his own living voice, and the happiness which this prospect offered was a reward to Gray already. The time for the first lesson was quickly arranged, and we bade him farewell for to-day.

"How many ways there are in the world of being unhappy," said Gray, laughing, as he reflected on this interview. "To think of the poor lad actually weeping because he could get no talk."

The last month of the year was very severe weather. All the neighbours were gathering together for Christmas, and there was abundance of country festivities. Buckwell alone continued solitary; there were no furrows of carriage-wheels along the park, no smoke from the chimneys; the principal rooms were warmed by nothing but charcoal stoves to keep out the damp, but we were living all the while in a way to please our own vanity much more than the common rule of living could have done. Especially would it have this effect on Gray; for to me it was merely natural and agreeable to keep quiet and out of the way, but with Gray it was different; he was the very person to adorn and be welcome in society. Therefore, it looked like virtue; it looked like something more philosophical than his neighbours to live alone. Certainly there was something lovely and quiet in our life, which, if it could have been pursued quite without comparison, was worthy to be dearly loved. The worst of it, but I did not feel that even at the time, was that we were degenerating from the nice and perfect habits of high English life — it is impossible "to make one the work of five" — and when "the girl" came to put our mutton and potatoes on the table, it was a sight at which a few months ago we should have been shocked, but to which, now, it was yet more shocking that we were growing insensible.

However, though the parlour was bare, the kitchen was full and busy with Christmas preparations for our poorer neighbours. It was the eve of the festival, and that morning we had walked a long way over the snow to see that in every house where it had been ordered, the provisions for to-morrow's dinner, and fuel against the severe season, had been received.

When we came home we found young Wolfe in the little oaken parlour, waiting for Gray to explain a problem to him. Gray invited him to stay for dinner, and he, poor lad, dined between us, and had his talk with such evident satisfaction, that it was pleasant to see a human creature's face so much brightened and changed for the better. When he was gone, Gray and I drew our chairs close to the fire. It was a severe winter's frost, and everything was white and silent without, but within all was warm and cheerful, though quiet; we were both in sober home dresses; we had our books on the table to read when we should have done conversing. It was the night of a great party at Castle —; the invitation to Gray was lying on the chimney-piece; but he put his arm round my waist, and said, "It is a great deal better to be here, Katherine; I can feel Christmas-day coming on, and that they have neither time to do, nor courage to say, even if they did; but I don't mean to speak ill of them. Let every one enjoy his own way of spending his time."

"And ours is such a comfortable way," said I. "I am just enough tired to like sitting here, and to feel too comfortable to move; and if anybody said, Katherine, choose, for the 24th of December, out of all the world what you would like best, I should say, To be sitting with Gray in the parlour at Buckwell, with the fire just that high, and my chair just in this place."

Gray smiled, and then sighed. "Yes," said he, "one does not find the world keep all its promises; the best thing it gives, after all its fine prospects, is a quiet life
'From cities far, and haunts of men,
By mountain tarn or gray oak tree.'"

"You have not tried much yet, Gray."

"Yes, I have. I am young enough, it is very true, but it is not necessary to live many years to find how little truth there is among our fellow-creatures, and what a deceitful, cold-hearted world ours is."

"Nay, I can't tell. I can judge only by what I know; and I know nobody but you, and you are true, kind, and clear as crystal."

"Is crystal kind?" said Gray, smiling again; "but even if it were, I don't know that I have much right to the praise."

"What makes me so happy then? what makes all the poor people sing for joy? what has turned poor Jonathan Wolfe's days into prosperity?" said I, feeling no end to the pleasure I had in thinking him the best, the first, the only really good man in the world.

"Nay, that's nothing at all," said Gray; "I wish there were more in it. But it is mere instinct which prefers giving ease to pain. And this is a time of year, this is a night, too, which might make one feel some kindness; it would be a hard heart not to do so."

As he said so, Gray had risen and drawn aside the curtain from the window. The window looked from a terrace down a steep slope to a wide view over the park and distant country. The night was splendid. There was a moon lately up, solemnly rising over the lower part of the sky, and though she shed a wide, rich light far round her, the upper part of the heavens was in darkness, and made a deep back-ground to the innumerable stars. They were forth in myriads; and there was throughout that multitude a motion and a seeming life, seen as they were through the cold winter air, which spoke of some mysterious mode of existence, something common to all that infinity of worlds, which made one's frame thrill with sublime curiosity.

"There are worlds enough to be happy in," said Gray, after we had looked long without speaking. "Even though we should pass a whole life of sorrow here, there is such an abundance of space, such an eternity there, that we could afford to give up this one."

"The only difficulty," said I, "is to remember those feelings when we come to every-day trouble. So small a trouble puts everything but itself out of your head."

"Yet it ought not," said Gray; "that's a thing to make one ashamed of oneself! Do but think under that magnificent sky what littleness, what vanity, what paltry ambition is going on; how the stars pass over one for hours, and nobody to look upon them; a dozen wax candles are better thought of." — Castle was in Gray's mind I imagined; he was half-pleased, half-melancholy, not to be there. But as he was moralizing at this high flight, a sublunary incident broke in on the train of his misanthropy. On Christmas-eve it was the custom of the country to sing carols, and suddenly two voices, close under the window, struck up in a nasal, countrified tone, one of the common Christmas ballads, the whole matter of which is to adapt the greatest of works to the lowest of minds:—

"This night the Lord of earth and heaven
    Was in a manger born,
And news to all mankind was given
    They should no longer mourn.

"The angels did not scorn to come
    And tell us there was peace,
And that the Lord would bring us home
    When earthly things should cease.

"So God He blesses rich and poor,
    And shows His pity thus;
May He increase the master's store,
    And bow His heart to us!"

No sooner was this verse ended, than both the voices which had been singing, struck out together in prose, and as fast as they could repeat, "A merry Christmas to you, Sir Gray, and a happy new year when it comes, and many of them;" and then they paused to see what would ensue.

"Poor souls!" said Gray; "they have got the sublimest thoughts in their mouths, mixed up with nothing higher than ale and cheese; for that's the meaning of 'blessing the master's store, and bow his heart to us.' We will call them in."

So saying, he opened the window, and heartily returned their greeting, summoning them into the room, and bidding them sit down at the fire. We never thought of sending away the dessert; it always stood on the further table, which we quitted for the arm-chairs and the fire; so there was wine ready, and Gray poured out two great glasses for them. He drank one to their good health himself, made them sing their carol again, and drank a second time, making amends, as it were, to himself for having spoken ill of human nature, and slightingly of the petty pleasures and cares of the world, and on that account entered more jovially and cordially into their ways of thinking than he would otherwise have done. The men were delighted. I recognised them as not the very best characters in Buckwell, but said nothing about it to Gray; for what was the use of spoiling the pleasure he had taken in their greeting? So they sat, and sang, and drank, till they were none the better Christians; and then Gray turned them gently out, not willing to allow to himself that they had rather spoiled the romance of the scene by abusing his liberality, and preferring to think that both he and they had been greeting the season with mere old English heartiness.

There was something Of the same mixture next day, though, on the whole, it seemed to me to be a model day. Old customs, never broken as yet, become delightful superstitions. And so it was this Christmas. There was the huge log on the hall fire, which in our county it is the custom to cut and keep all the year against this festival.

"It burns well, does not it, Gray? It will be a bright year," said I.

There were the long tables being spread for the villagers, while we stood enjoying the blaze and the warmth, and the church bells were ringing their lustiest peal in the cold, clear air.

The whole peasantry came to church. It was never so full throughout the year as on this day, and it was stuck round with holly-branches and their bright red berries. It was no superstition here, certainly, but a genuine and a reasonable joy, to meet together and miss no familiar face in the house of prayer, and know that not any friendly voice was absent in seeking a common blessing. And when that was over, there was an old custom to be observed between Gray and me which I would not have missed on any account. I pulled off a red berry from a branch on the pew-door and held it concealed in my hand, to see if he also would remember it. We were just going away, and I was afraid. But he had not forgotten. He pulled one too, and, smiling, gave it to me. So we exchanged our church holly-berries, as we had done every Christmas since we were children.

Then came the jovial dinner in the hall, at which we were present, and carved for our guests. There were old and young women in their cloaks and their clean gowns, the men making every step along the stone floor doubly audible with their thick nailed shoes. The silence at first; then the gradual clatter of knives and plates; then a few voices, by degrees; and, after dinner, a general rising and Christmas greeting and health drinking; and we, in our turns, received a cup apiece, and heartily returned their salutations and their good wishes. This was the loudest moment, the most patriarchal of all. But at its highest pitch there mixed another sound — a very unusual one lately at Buckwell — no other than the great entrance-bell. The room we were in opened at once upon the outer air, and when the summons was answered, the whole scene of peasants, covered tables, and ourselves, was set full before the eyes of the new comer.

"Who is it?" said Gray. "Jonathan Wolfe, I warrant." And he just turned his head to greet him when he should come in, sitting still in his place at the head of the table, the cup in his hand. But it was somebody very different from Jonathan Wolfe. It was a gentleman, a stranger to me at the first moment, who, after a little parley with the servant, to whom it was a great puzzle how both to take care of the horse and show the rider into the room, came in alone, and unannounced, and stared a little at the scene upon which he had fallen, but in another moment came forward, holding his hand very frankly to Gray, with a cordial, "Here I am at last. And how is all with you, my dear Gray?"

"Ha, Carey!" cried Gray, the moment he came in sight, going gladly to meet him; "when did you come? I had not heard you were arrived."

And now I, too, recognised an old friend of my brother (if they could be old friends who were both so young), who had been abroad for several years, and whose return we had heard of as about to take place, though we were not aware that he was come.

"And this is Katherine, too," said Mr. Carey. "You scarcely remember me, do you? for three years make more difference to you than to us. But Gray, Gray, you are the same, I hope."

"Ay, that I am, and heartily glad to see you."

"But what are you doing here?" said Mr. Carey, glancing at the tables. "Are you acting Sir Roger de Coverley? Or what is the matter?"

"No," said Gray, "no," and he coloured a little; "it is only a Christmas dinner for my poor neighbours."

"Oh, Christmas dinner, and welcome. But what is the good of eating it, too? Is that a squire's duty?"

"Duty, perhaps not; but pleasure it is," said Gray, a little philosophically.

"Oh, pshaw! What pleasure can it be to sit in this musty atmosphere of greasy cloaks and heads?" said Mr. Carey, speaking very low, so as to be heard by us only. "There's a dinner at my house, too; but I preferred leaving them to the gardener, and coming to see you."

"I am very glad you did," said Gray, "because I should not have gone to you to-day, even if I had known you were come home. I don't think it is enough to feed one's fellow-creatures scornfully, like dogs. I think the kindness one shows them oneself goes further still."

"Yes, yes; I would be as kind to them as you like — that is, I would greet them all by name, as far as I knew, and drink their health, if you think it desirable; but as for any further companionship, I really, Gray, don't believe they think nearly so highly of receiving the honour as we do of conferring it."

"I don't mean to say it is an honour worth thinking of," said Gray, getting up from the table, a very little vexed at Mr. Carey's view of his proceedings.

"Ay, do get up and come with me into the drawing-room," said Mr. Carey, "and let us have a little talk free from these numerous gaping spectators. They will be as glad to have their own discourse as we to avoid it. Come, Katherine; I suppose I may still call you Katherine, may not I?"

So saying, he pushed aside the chairs, and the whole assembly, seeing we were going, rose, and scraped and bowed a return to our salutation. The drawing-room had no fire, and we passed through it. Our own little room had been somewhat neglected in the cares of the great hall, and had not altogether the appearance of the greatest degree of comfort in the world—but Mr. Carey took no audible notice; only his eye glanced round, plainly observing it all; and he mended the fire and pushed the table into its place before he sat down.

"So you did not hear of my arrival, did you?" said he. "How came that about, for I have been at home these six weeks?"

"Nay, then, why did you not let me know before?" said Gray.

"To tell you the truth, everybody but you has been so kind in their greetings that I thought you had some reason for not coming near me, and I waited to see what you were going to do."

"No, I never heard of it; I never hear anything," said Gray. "I am not much interested in the proceedings of my ordinary neighbours, and no one, I suppose, thought it worth while to give me intelligence which they must be sure I should be glad to receive."

"I think you are more to blame for not inquiring in general, than they are for not describing in particular," said Mr. Carey; "but, indeed, they told me you were letting your beard grow and declining into misanthropy, and, when I heard that, I determined to come and look after you."

"But it is not true," said Gray; "see, I shaved myself this morning, and you did not find me in a misanthropic scene, did you?"

"Oh, among the poor people? no; but why not be kind to the rich also?"

"Why, Carey, to tell you the truth, I began my present system from motives of economy; but I find so many good reasons for congratulating myself upon my choice of retired habits that it is scarcely probable I shall now ever alter them."

"What good reasons?" said Mr. Carey; "for instance, what good reason can you give for not having been at — Castle yesterday? People were talking about you. It is not good to make oneself talked about at your age."

"Why, what harm could they say of me? May not a man take his own way?"

"No; the general world has found the one which is right on the whole; and if, without reason, any one prefers the by-paths, he will excite surprise and regret."

"Regret, oh no! I am sure no one regretted me; and, as to reasons, I was busy in the morning."

"So was I, but that did not make me idle in the evening. Now what were you doing, Gray?"

"Doing? oh, I had a great deal to do."

"You were shooting?"

"No, no."

"You were receiving rents?"

"No; in fact I was busy among the poor people; and was not it better," said Gray, waxing bolder as he spoke, "to take care they all had their Christmas comforts than to spend my day in killing, and my night in eating pheasants?"

"Pshaw, Gray; half the people who were at — Castle at night, had been busy in the same way as you in the morning. You don't mean to tell me that because you had a village or two to ride over, you could not come to dinner at seven o'clock. No, no; a better reason if you please."

While he thus attacked Gray, I could see that there was, at the same time, an anxious degree of observation in his eyes, and that he listened to the answers he got less gaily than he addressed the questions. He seemed bent upon breaking through the habits which Gray was forming; and, notwithstanding the mortification he could not but perceive that he inflicted, he went on resolutely; yet, at the same time, with a careless good humour and a kindliness to Gray which made it seem as if he did not know he was saying any but the simplest thing in the world. He told us about himself since he had been abroad: we knew he had married, but he talked of Mrs. Carey and took it for granted that his friend was to visit her, and receive them both, and join in all the sociable plans in which he himself seemed involved.

Gray drew back — "No," he said; "his resolution was taken; his establishment was reduced to his own standard of comfort; but that of the world was different. If any friend liked him well enough to visit him on his own terms he should be delighted to see them; but he would not receive what he was resolved not to give, and therefore he was determined to remain at home."

"Then I'll try this very day," said Mr. Carey. "I will dine with you and see what is your standard of comfort; I will at least try if my friendship can stand it; and if it positively cannot—then, Gray, you must alter."

So saying, he settled himself by the fire, and when they got again into discourse, I went out of the room to see what chance there was for a decent dinner, but Gray was true enough to his resolutions to follow me, and desire that nothing might be altered from our regular way of proceeding.

The cook, however, was of a different opinion; from the moment she heard that a gentleman dined with us her peace of mind was lost. Instead of devoting her faculties as usual to roast meat and boil potatoes they went astray upon side dishes, and nothing could bring them back to their original destination. Dinner time came but not dinner, and, an hour after Mr. Carey's arrival, she was coming in search of me to know whether they should put laurustinus round the salad bowl.

We waited in the oak parlour while these processes went on. Gray looked uneasy; Mr. Carey did not at all seek to diminish the awkwardness of the pause, he rather exaggerated it by affecting to believe we had disguised our mode of living, and that something pompous was in preparation; "and, in fact," said he, "it will a great deal better suit this stately old place than habits which belong to a cottage, Gray."

However, in course of time, the groom opened the door and said dinner was ready, and then he shut it again. Gray reopened it, saying, "Our custom was to dine in our little parlour, and this awkwardness was one of the consequences of changing our usual place."

"And a very bad custom it is," said Mr. Carey, shivering as we entered the dining-room, where the fire only half burned, and there was a feeling that it had not been inhabited for days. "This is the consequence of living alone. Katherine lets you have your own way, and your way is to degenerate into an uncomfortable old bachelor."

"No, it is not; but when there are few servants one must spare them."

"Why not get more?" said Mr. Carey. "Surely, dear Gray, the income of these estates entitles you to the common comforts at least of a gentleman."

"No doubt," said Gray, "but there are other reasons."

"And what are they?" said Mr. Carey, gently. "If you mean charitable calls upon you, they may all be answered, yet leave ......"

"I don't mean that at all," said Gray, laughing. "I have no fancy of the kind. Indeed, I don't think I have any fancy about it, or not much of one, but for the present I am very poor, and I'll tell you how it is." And he then proceeded to give him a statement of the whole condition of affairs between him and his guardian.

Mr. Carey listened attentively. "I am very glad I understand it," said he. "Things are very differently represented in the neighbourhood; and it is a relief to me to know why you have acted thus."

"Do they trouble themselves so much about our concerns?" said Gray. "What is it they say of me?"

"Oh, all sort of things. I'll tell you some day, perhaps, but for the present let me advise you to stop them by resuming an evening coat in the evening, and order- ing your mutton to be sent up roasted, not raw, when a friend dines with you."

This interview with his old friend gave the first stroke to Gray's ascetism. He did not, indeed, acknowledge it at the time; on the contrary, he said he was sorry that so good a fellow as Carey should not be able to take things as he found them, and feel, with himself, a due contempt for outer circumstances. He even went resolutely to return the visit on his rough pony; but I suppose felt something wrong practically, for a day or two after he discovered that he must have one more horse, and that horse, when bought, was so good that it was necessary to have another groom. Mr. Carey managed very skilfully; he never argued with him; he never made him feel himself a persecuted hero; but rather a persecuting one, who used his power to do ridiculous and disagreeable things. All the time he showed how much he liked Gray's society, and how proper he was to mix, and be mixed, with the world.

It was only a fancy after all, grafted upon circumstances the necessity of which he exaggerated. It was against Gray's nature; and opposition and love of novelty had been its chief supports. Therefore gently, and one thing after another, he returned into society, reformed his house again, and began himself first to laugh at our past year, and then to wish to hear of it no more. His friend assisted him in resuming old habits, and in furnishing such an establishment as suited the moderate income he received from Mr. Mainwaring; and when summer was come he was again much what he had been a twelvemonth ago, except that expenses were better regulated, and that young Wolfe continued to be an ob- ject of interest and attention, though he had other instructors than Gray.

I myself, selfishly speaking, was not much obliged to Mr. Carey. Gray did not go out a great deal, but as I went not at all, every absence from home was one from me too. I suddenly learned that it was possible something should separate us, and having never formed any wish, or contemplated any prospect but what had Gray for its corner stone, this idea was one which gave me as much alarm as pain. I used to sit fancying to myself, "Where is he now? What is he doing to-day? Whom is he talking to?" and I never heard the name of some first acquaintance, if it was a woman and young, but what she seemed destined to be the being fatal to my happiness. "Will he forget me?" thought I; "shall I become nothing better than a third person in his society — one who is not to hear, not understand his thoughts, which I have known till now all my life long — shall not it be I to write for him, talk to him, laugh with him — do his errands, keep his counsels — am I to lose all this?"

But then, again, when Gray came home heart-whole, I used to quarrel with myself, and laugh at myself; and in the joy of seeing and being safe of him, at least for that time, rise into such high spirits, and increase and multiply my gladness in his society so greatly, that he would grow even kinder than ever; and all this, while it added to my present pleasure, did but increase the future susceptibility to pain.

Gray's acquaintance as yet was not very numerous; of intimate friends he had but Mr. Carey and Dr. Monkton. This latter was a gentleman three times his own age, who had been a friend of our father's, and who had transmitted his affection in undiminished quantity, though of a different kind, to the son; including me also under a portion of it. He was a physician; and was so far advanced in fortune and reputation as to be able to retire for four months every year into the country, and leave his practice and his patients to be ready for his return. There was a very romantic story attached to him, which, looking at his red face and considering his precise, old bachelor habits, one would not have suspected. But there was something when one knew him better, which seemed to intimate that he might have gone through trying scenes and hours. It might be fancy, however, for he never said one word on the subject, and, intimate as I have been with him, I never dared inquire how much of the things reported was true and how much false.

The tale was this:— When he was quite a young man, and only beginning to make some little progress and money in his profession, it was said that the strange chance had happened to him to revive the apparently dead body of a subject brought to him, he knew not whence, for dissection. Whether this part of the story was really true, or had been adopted to account for subsequent circumstances, I cannot tell. Certain it is, that the knowledge and belief of the story grew up with me, and it was very long before I thought of doubting it. What further is certain, is, that all the few friends he had at that time remembered a most beautiful woman who lived with him, and whom he declared to be his wife, but few believed her to be so. A profound mystery hung over her, none ever hearing of father or mother, or former friend of any kind. It was not many, indeed, who had the opportunity of inquiring, for not above two or three persons were ever admitted intimately to their house. The name by which he called her was Umbra. Whether it was a fictitious name or a real one, he would not say. The report which these persons made of her was, that she was exquisitely lovely; but as far as intercourse went, little better than some warm marble, to which Dr. Monkton had given a dose of the elixir of life. The story goes, that, like those Athenians who recovered from the plague, all trace of her former existence had been erased from her memory, by the illness which had consigned her to the grave, and that she retained neither any recollection of past events, nor, except the use of language, any trace of what knowledge she might formerly have acquired. However that might be, Monkton loved her better than every clever and learned creature of the earth, and during the years of their connexion, he gave his friends the idea of a man who has one sole interest for ever present to his imagination.

It was about two years after it first became known that this beautiful shadow inhabited his house, that a merchant, who had a tolerably intimate acquaintance with Dr. Monkton, returned from abroad, and chanced to be admitted to the presence of his shadowy inmate. He seemed wonderfully struck by her, and afterwards told Dr. Monkton that if he had not seen his own wife in the tomb, he could not but have believed that she and this beautiful creature were the same. Monkton repelled the idea with an indignation for which there seemed to his friend no cause; but the cause, I suppose, was the frightful fear that it was true. She, however, was wholly unmoved at sight of the stranger, and this comforted Dr. Monkton a little, and prevented him from taking any steps for the absolute exclusion of Provost, for so was the young merchant named. Provost, for his part, desired nothing more than to come frequently to the house, and indulge the pleasure he felt in looking at the image of one whom he had lost in the height of love and youth; and at last, unlike any other of their acquaintance, came alone, and in the morning, and succeeded in getting admitted to the presence of the mistress of the house, even when the master was absent. Dr. Monkton learned this with some displeasure, and forbade the continuance of his visits. Umbra was willing, nay, seemed glad to concur in the prohibition, and Monkton informed his friend that the arrangements of his very small and secluded establishment prevented him from receiving guests, except when invited.

His friend thought him jealous, and acquiesced: but it excited rather than discouraged him, and he sought every occasion to elude the prohibition. A few days after it had been given, he made some pretext for calling in the evening, and succeeded in establishing himself in the little drawing-room. Here he endeavoured to talk to the lovely shadow more than was the custom of Monkton's guests. It was necessary for him to bear the chief burden of the conversation, for he got few words from her, and almost fewer looks; and, in order to keep conversation alive, he told anecdotes and described scenes, to which she gave a mere passive attention.

"I was walking," said he, "with only one person along the edge of the cliff I have described to you. The sea was many hundred feet below us; the precipice went sheer down to its brink. On a sudden a great layer of the rock seemed to unjoint itself from the rest, and a rent yawned between the ledge we stood on and the main mass of the mountain. My companion sprang into my arms. I feel her now."

"Oh, no, no!" cried Umbra. "That is a dream. I know it is a dream. Don't speak: but is not it a dream?"

At Umbra's voice, at her most unusual manner, Dr. Monkton started up, and then ran to her, and received her in his arms.

"Oh, Monkton, I cannot bear to hear anybody else talk of that dream. It seems to become real again. His foot slipped just on the very edge!"

"Oh, God! who told you that?" cried Provost, in the most vehement agitation.

She looked up, and full at him, when she heard these tones of his voice, screamed aloud, and shrank into Monkton's bosom, pressing her hands on her forehead. Provost was no less agitated. He would have seized her hands; but she turned away from him with such agony of fear that life seemed unable to support it, and, gathering herself closer into Monkton's bosom, she fainted like one dead.

He carried her from the room, and would suffer no one to hear the words of receiving consciousness from her lips. But from this moment he could no longer repress the idea that Umbra had been the wife of this man. Yet he did not allow it to separate her interest from his. The grave itself had given her to him. He had devoted all the affections of his soul to her. Any right to claim her by another he cast off as a weak pretence, which, if she should urge, would be mere proof that she loved another better than she did him. This was the idea that people said haunted him, and, in the fury of his jealousy and his love, he made it the sole question between himself and Umbra. She, in the meantime, with purer instincts, saw the same idea very differently. With her it was a wandering notion, which terrified her like some dreadful phantom. Her love for Monkton had absorbed every faculty that remained to her, and whatever interfered with it was terrible to her imagination. When a dark and doubtful sense of duty, then, came between her and him, it was repelled by all the efforts of her will. And yet at times it seemed to overshadow her in a shape which she was not able to drive away. She was frightened at herself when happiest in his presence, and he was vehement with her in proportion to his adoration and his jealousy.

Provost, in the meantime, became aware of the misery which had grown up in the house of his friend, and knew that he himself was the cause. The extreme beauty of Umbra, and her resemblance to his wife, moved him strongly to compassion and interest; and, firmly believing that she was not the wife of Monkton, he felt but little scruple, when he learned how she was now treated, in endeavouring to induce her voluntarily to quit her present home for his. A horrible wavering notion seems to have possessed her that Provost had a right to command her to do so. Then, again, she lost sight of it, and only a vague idea that she was to be cast off by Monkton darkened her imagination.

When Monkton learned from her own lips the struggle she was enduring, the last hold upon his passions gave way. They broke that hour over their boundaries, and spread their own ruin around them. In his madness he himself hurried her from the house, and led her to Provost's door. There he furiously rang, and, hearing some one running to open it, he started away like the wind, and, rushing into his own desolate house, locked himself in his room, and neither answered nor summoned the frightened servant who beheld his return.

It was a winter night of tempest, but there was no fire nor light in Monkton's room. He was not heard to stir from the moment he entered it; and the servant who watched a little while at his chamber-door, and once or twice knocked timidly, was fain to retire at last, and conceal her fears for her master in her still greater awe of him. Morning came, and she once more tried to obtain an answer; but all was silent within his room. After a few moments, however, she had forgotten her awe of him, on beholding an object of yet greater terror. She screamed his name in a voice which prevailed over his passions. It made him spring up, unbolt the lock, and the door was thrust open as he did so by the trembling servant. She dragged him to the step of the entrance, and there lay the dead Umbra, frozen to death. No doubt she had followed him in his flight, and had not attempted to enter, since he had driven her away, and had sat down and died on the step. Monkton took her up in his arms, and for three days he never loosed the dead body, not though the dreadful taint of corruption spread over it. At the end of that time his brain reeled, and his strength wavered. His arms, in spite of himself, gave way to force; she was taken from him, and he sank into a stupor from which it was long before he recovered.

A short outbreak of remorse followed, and then he shut up her name in silence as profound as the grave which a second time held her. He made no confidant; he gave no detail. One journey he took as soon as he was released from the restraint to which his temporary alienation of reason had reduced him, and at that time he was too much absorbed in his own feelings to care whether he was observed or not. They thought he intended to open the tomb of Umbra, and see her with his own eyes in the last resting-place. They watched him, but he did not go there. He went to the vault where the wife of Provost was recorded on the marble to lie, and caused the lid of the coffin to be lifted which bore her name. The lid was lifted, and the coffin was an empty one.

Years had passed since the date of this story of Dr. Monkton. Whatever part was true or false, at all events time enough had gone by to make him a very different person from what he had been then. It should seem by the story that he had erred on the side of imagination; now, however, there was not a man in the world more on his guard against all indulgence of that faculty. Nobody could treat more contemptuously all the race of sensibilities; all emotions; all fine feelings: he required one to be satisfied with anything for which a reason could be given, and considered it quite enough objection to be able to say, "That is of no use." This was his theory; but when he was under influence himself, his practice was less severe; and in Gray, for example, he could perceive the propriety of tastes, and even love and laugh at those fancies and eagerness of youth and high spirits, which he condemned in me. Gray led, Dr. Monkton involuntarily followed; but with me it was different. I was neither splendid, nor independent, nor very brave on my own account; and he seized on me as the proper object for his tuition, while I obeyed him as the lawful holder of authority.

It was very evident that philosophy was made on purpose for me. I was ugly, and philosophy says beauty is of no sort of consequence; I held to happiness by one only tie, and that was my connexion with Gray, which the natural progress of life and its events threatened almost visibly to weaken. Philosophy said that self-dependence was the finest state of mental existence, and that solitude had charms of the first order for those who knew how to enjoy it. To impart philosophy to me, therefore, was a favourite aim of Dr. Monkton; and I was a very docile pupil — only in my heart I never either understood nor allowed that it would not be better to be rich, admirable, and happy, than to be poor, plain, and philosophical.

Many a time at Buckwell he and Mr. Carey, Gray and I, made up a sociable four-cornered party. Mr. Carey came frequently, but not his wife, for ours was still a bachelor establishment, and Gray was afraid of inviting so fine a lady as Mrs. Carey. She also liked better to have Gray on a visit to her than to hazard one to him during the shooting season, when the whole long morning he and his companions would be out of her way, and I should be in it: so her husband came alone. Dr. Monkton was an accustomed guest, and I was just so much mistress as a woman always must be who is the only woman in the house, and yet so little of one as was natural, considering that all my three companions had not done looking upon me as a child.

"Carey, shall we go wider a-field this morning; shall we try after a blackcock?" said Gray, one fine autumn day at breakfast.

"With all my heart," said Mr. Carey. "Is there a good breed this year?"

But while Gray began to answer this question, Dr. Monkton interposed. "A blackcock," said he, "there can't be such a thing within five miles. Do you mean to walk five miles before you begin your sport?"

"Yes," said Gray, "I am very willing; though we will take the ponies to the foot of the hill if you like, Carey."

"Oh, no!" said Mr. Carey; "they may meet us to come home; but we will go over the ground where I want you to plant, and settle that matter on the way."

"Another mile or two," said Dr. Monkton. "Now, when I was a young man, and set off in life with forty pounds a-year, I used to walk, it may be, five miles in a morning, and add two for the sake of some patient worth a guinea; but I always said to myself, 'When you are a rich man, John Monkton, you shall ride all day in a chariot.'"

Gray laughed. "But," said he, "would you have us make war on the game, like the ancient Britons, out of our chariot windows?"

"I did not know the Britons used windows," said Dr. Monkton, smiling; "and also I do not see the necessity of making war on the game at all."

"What! not for our health's sake?" said Gray; "not for the useful object of invigorating our bodily activity?"

"Which is our sole purpose in the pursuit of game," said Mr. Carey.

"I know a man," said Dr. Monkton, "who secured his health, and obtained fourteen hours of study a-day, by taking rhubarb pills instead of exercise."

Gray and Mr. Carey looked at each other and burst out laughing. Dr. Monkton chuckled also.

"The only objection I have to that plan, dear Doctor," said Gray, "is, that I consider it the duty of the master of a house to provide for the sustenance of his household. I am obliged to kill game that the pundit and the squaw may have a dinner; otherwise, I had much rather remain at home improving my mind with study and conversation — had not you, Carey?"

"Oh, much rather," said Mr. Carey; "but suppose, as our duty carries us a-field, we prevail on the pundit to accompany us, and enlighten our intellect as we go along? Now, do, Dr. Monkton," said he, changing his tone. "You shall ride, and we will walk with you!"

"What shall I ride, pray?" said Dr. Monkton, in a tone that suited either an assent or a dissent as things might turn out.

"The new pony — the cob," said Gray. "Ring the bell, Katherine, and order him." I jumped up as eager as Gray.

"Stop, Katherine," said Dr. Monkton; "another word or two on that matter. Do you mean by the new pony that great fierce beast with a ruffian tail, and eyes like a devil?"

"Oh, he is the quietest creature," said Gray; "is not he, Katherine? You rode him with me, you know, on Wednesday."

"Quite quiet," said I.

"She would ride an earthquake after you," said Dr. Monkton; "but so won't I. He would very likely throw me, and if there is a man on earth whom I despise, it is the man who is thrown from horseback."

"I should not have thought," said Mr. Carey, "you had so much respect for horsemanship."

"I have none," answered Dr. Monkton. "I despise a man for giving a brute the opportunity of getting such power over him."

"Well, then," said Gray, "you shall have the old silver-tail, that was mine in former days, and Katherine shall come too and ride the pony with devil's eyes." And so, at last, to my delight it was arranged, and away we all went together.

The day and the country were beautiful, and enjoying both, we reached in due time the ground where they were to shoot — a wood of birch and fir, rather high on the hill, where the black game was wont to frequent. Here Dr. Monkton and I dismounted; and the Doctor, quite forgetting all his philosophy, went with the shooters; eager to see the birds killed, careful to keep in the appointed line, as though he knew all about it, and remarking on the qualities of the dogs, in which he was sometimes mistaken. I heard the shots sometimes further, sometimes nearer, and enjoyed the delicious smell and look of the wood, animated as the scene was by the sound of amusement and pleasure. I sat down under a fir tree, and indulged in folly. "How good this is," I thought; "how much better than philosophy; well says the rhyme:—
'When house and lands are gone and spent,
Then learning is most excellent;' but only then. This is best while it last — free air, health, exercise, companions. Oh, if I may choose, I'll have all these, and hang philosophy ......"

And so I was going on, when, close to my ear, a shot rattled by. I started up as the second barrel was fired, and the charge went through my bonnet. "Hold hard!" I cried; "why, Gray, you've spoiled my bonnet!" for I was not at all frightened, the danger being past.

He was, however, when he saw how near he had been to killing me. He became quite pale, and I felt him tremble as I caught hold of his arm.

"Nay, Gray, I'm not hurt; I am not touched even. But what made you shoot me?"

"If I had, my sister," he said, catching me in his arms, "I would have put my gun to my head, and killed myself too."

"Why, Miss Katherine," said old Rooke, who was here, on his own old pony, "Sir Gray was nigh putting you out of your misery."

I laughed, and Gray, when he saw we were observed, instantly changed his tone. "Ay, but a miss is as good as a mile. So we are all safe, except the blackcock, I hope. Ah, there he is, still struggling! Put an end to him."

"He can't be no deader," said Rooke, holding up the bird, which had now fluttered its last.

Dr. Monkton and Mr. Carey came up hastily, for they had heard that something had happened, and the reporter made the worst of it; so they were glad to find nothing dead but the bird.

"That is as you might have been," said Dr. Monkton, looking at the blackcock and at me.

"Nonsense," cried Gray, turning away.

"Only," continued Dr. Monkton, "nobody would have had the charity to wring your neck. On the contrary, Gray would have been on his knees to me to torment you with vain remedies."

"Oh, don't think that," said Gray, resolved not to be outdone by me in valour; "I should only have bade 'em bring the largest bag for my game."

The men who attended grinned, yet seemed doubtful how I should take it. Mr. Carey did not like the tone in which Gray spoke before people who could not understand him, and tried to recall him to their sport. But, under all his affected carelessness, Gray still trembled, and could not certainly have fired a straight shot.

"No," said he, "let us first sit down and eat our luncheon; it must be time, I think; and Katherine shall have some off my own plate, and drink out of my own cup, and sit close — close to me," he added, drawing me down on the grass beside him, and tenderly pressing my waist with his arm, when nobody could observe the action.

We all wished to talk; but after the luncheon was produced, and our places taken at the foot of the fir tree, there was a silence; for it had been a great escape, and put other trains of thought out of sight for a little while. Dr. Monkton spoke first. "It makes us grave to think what might have been," said he. "Nothing is so practical as Nature in its teaching. It is true that Reason says there is no such thing for us as to undo — no power in the supremest man to bring back the event of a single instant. Yet we never believe it till some such instant is passed as we would give our all to recall."

"True enough," said Mr. Carey. "And how many times we say it was just touch and go with such a catastrophe, or such a one's life, and soon forget it, because it was go, and not touch."

"A doctor sees the fatal side oftener than another," said Dr. Monkton, "and thinks as little of it. I saw it once, when it struck me dumb; though I was a fool for my pains, for it was only the exciting circumstances which made it more pungent than many a similar ease."

"What was it?" I asked; for I loved Dr. Monkton's stories, and he was not often in the mood to tell them.

"It was a thing you may read in a book," said he; "but as a living witness is better than a dumb book, I'll tell you. I was in Paris in '42, and my friend Dr. Banny and I had been walking, and turned into the Rue de la Révolte, from the Bois de Boulogne. There was a crowd by the door of a grocer, about half-way up the street, and when we came near, they told us the Duke of Orleans lay within, dying. You remember, his carriage was run away with, and, jumping out, he pitched on his head, and was killed. We both thought we might be of use, and went in. We were the first doctors that came; but nothing could be done. Prince or peasant, it was the same to him, for he never knew the world again. There lay the heir of France on the mean and dirty sofa of the shopman's back room; and the might of France, the power of a king, was as powerless to help him as the poverty of a beggar would have been. Help there was enough — too much help; but the spirit was breaking up the frame-work, and returning it to earth. Very soon came his father and mother, and his sister Clémentine. We doctors stayed in the room, and there was a priest. I remember the Queen had got flowers in her bonnet. I have never forgotten those flowers. They went to my heart by their disagreement with her sorrow more than if her grey hair had been streaming over her shoulders. Last of all, when it was but day that lay there — no son, no prince, merely princely clay — it was put upon a bier, and carried forth and down the street, to be laid in a chapel. The King and Queen, and the sister and two of the brothers, walked beside. It was a piteous sight. Yes, that was a piteous sight! Their grief was the cause that they went on foot beside their dead. Their rank would have set them in the carriages that waited there. But royalty was all behind, sunk and out of comparison with their grief. There were soldiers guarding them — escorting them, as it is termed; but nothing seemed belonging to them except their dead son and their misery — helpless, hopeless misery."

The tears came into Dr. Monkton's eyes as he told this story, and none of us made any comment for the moment. He first spoke again.

"Ay, ay," said he; "the first-class accidents are fewer than the third-class. But history can still tell sad stories of the death of kings. Froissart's very words for Charles VIII. apply to this fine young fellow:—'Ainsi départit si puissant et si grand roi, et en si miserable lieu, qui avait tant de belles maisons, et si ne sut à ce besoin finir d'une pauvre chambre.' But, for my part, I believe that most people, let them be where and who they will, die alone. They are alone, however they are surrounded. God knows what may be the thoughts passing in that head which the tenderest bosom supports. It may be as solitary as the wretch who dies on the bare rock. It is the habits of the mind, the old customs and uses, that come in then, something as they do in a sleeping man. You may see sometimes the greatness, and sometimes the meanness and the oddity, that have been hid in a man's heart. The friends cry at everything, of course; but the doctor does not. I remember when I was a young doctor, and had time to spare, that I was requested to sit by a dying man's bed, exactly be- cause I had announced that morning that there was nothing to be done for him. 'Oh, then, you must stay till all is over,' said they; 'it would be terrible if he should die and you not by him.' I did not know or ask why it would be so terrible, but I knew they must give me another fee; so I sate by the fire as long as they pleased. He was a very rich old fellow, who had always had his own way up to this very hour, and who had been accustomed to use his voice, and deliver his orders in peremptory style. Now, however, his voice was failing him, and being confused with dying, he could not think what ailed him not to move and scold as usual. His daughter was in the room; and, as she was growing into a great heiress all the time her father was dying, the whole assembly took her view of the case, and put on the most proper, laudatory, and lamentable faces in the world. To do her justice, she had no thought about her own coming importance; she was full of nothing but her father; and, though he had been a cross-grained parent to her all her days, she was as much frightened and concerned to see his death as natural instincts and impulses could make her. Well, the old man, with his eyes half closed, and a voice which you might perceive to be strained to its highest pitch, though it was no louder than just to be called sound, was complaining of everything, without having so much as the comfort of knowing that everybody was trying to please him. Presently, while his daughter was doing her best to settle his nightcap comfortably, for it was all in wrinkles, he made an effort beyond common to speak to her, and even edged himself an inch nearer, holding open his eyes and looking at her. They all thought he was going to kiss her, and give her his blessing, and she sobbed and leaned down to hear him. 'If you do that again,' said he, making violent exertion to speak, 'I'll knock you down!'"

Dr. Monkton's conclusion made me laugh, and then I was ashamed of laughing, and was very near crying. He gave me a glass of water from the luncheon; and, turning to Gray, said, "I have talked enough for one morning; come, Gray, 'tis your turn now, let us hear if you have an appropriate anecdote."

And then Mr. Carey observed the evening was hot, and we had a long journey home, so let it be short as well as good, and begin at once.

"Very well, very well," said Gray, forcing his voice to gaiety; "I am willing. What shall it be? Didactic, I think; yes. The fir grove waved in the evening blast; the sun glanced on the noble figures of three men and one damsel; suddenly, they all, sprang on their feet and went home. That's all."

"Nonsense, Gray," cried I, starting up, as he also rose, and jumping once or twice out of mere excitement; but the other two, though they laughed also, said it was a very judicious catastrophe; and, Dr. Monkton and I mounting our ponies, we all set off back to Buckwell.

The next morning Mr. Carey went home and Gray with him. They were to stay together a few days, and Dr. Monkton and I were left alone together at Buckwell. The time passed pleasantly enough with us. Most part of the morning Dr. Monkton passed in the library; another part he generally read with me, if I could not invent any excuse for getting away from him. After that, he liked very well to take a quick walk with me; and the more successfully I had avoided him in the morning, the more amiable and eager in pleasing him I was in the afternoon; and it was evident to me that he preferred a young, half-taught girl like myself, whom he could teach, scold, laugh with, and sometimes compliment a little, to the society of any learned doctor of his own age and level. I was unconsciously conscious of this, and took a little pleasure in feeling my womanhood.

On the fourth morning I was surprised by an announcement in a letter from Gray, that Mrs. Carey intended to come to Buckwell that very day, with her husband and him. There was to be no preparation — nobody invited to meet her — he had persuaded her to come over and pay him a visit; and he was glad of it, he added, for she was a very agreeable woman. I was not glad at all. I stood in awe of Mrs. Carey, on grounds of which Gray could have no idea. I was afraid of her wardrobe, of her sarcasms, of her contempt, of her conversation. I did not know how to entertain her after dinner; and I did not like the idea of Gray coming in and finding her suppressing a yawn. Dr. Monkton said it was quite indifferent to him whether she came or not; but, as I passed his dressing-room door that day, I heard him say to his servant, "Put out the new velvet waistcoat."

A little before dinner Mrs. Carey arrived. Gray was driving her in her little open carriage. She seemed radiant with smiles and good humour; and when she came down for dinner, I could not but acknowledge that she had every right to be a very agreeable woman, for she was as beautiful as a picture. She was delicately fair, with dark hair parting over her forehead, and clustering in curls, so as to frame, her face and throat. Her eyes were long and deeply fringed. These eyes had the habit of looking full in the face of the person she was talking with, if she liked that person, and at the same time had a very slight motion, which gave a tinge of shiness to their expression. Her mouth was round at the ends, and arched in the middle. She was hardly tall; the figure corresponded with the delicacy of her features and complexion; her hands were white and small, and her shoulders so well rounded that people always thought that by getting the patterns of her collars and capes, they should obtain the grace which they observed their own collars and capes were deficient in.

When she came into the room I was talking to Mr. Carey and Gray, and hearing with glee all they had to tell me of what had passed during their absence, but from the moment she entered I was silent. She appropriated the conversation to a style and conducted it in a tone which I had not any means of sharing, and if I was talked to at all, it must be as to one who was not of the circle. Gray took every possible pains to amuse his guest; and it was plain that he would have considered a failure to be entirely his fault, not hers, by any means. Mr. Carey was talking in the same strain as his beautiful wife; and Dr. Monkton, I found, had store of gallantries, and dry agreeable anecdotes of high life at the service of this fair dame, which had lain in the dark all the time till she came. Gray made a sign to me at last to retire to the drawing-room, and Mrs. Carey's inclination of the head at my invitation so to do, was nearly the first token she had given of recognising my presence. Anxious were my thoughts as I opened the drawing-room door for her and followed her in, and I felt quite grateful when she answered, graciously, my very entertaining observation that I thought it was five miles from her house to Buckwell.

"I dare say it is," said she; "but the roads are excellent."

"They are much better than they were," said I.

"Ah," said Mrs. Carey, arranging her hair in the glass; "are they?" Then, after a pause, "What, they were not always good?"

"Not always," said I, quite charmed at such a mark of interest; "but Gray's steward understands road-making very well, and since he has been overseer they have been improved very much."

"No, really?" said Mrs. Carey.

"She can't care the least about it. She does not know what I said," thought I, straining my brain for something better; but, before I found it, Mrs. Carey, as if returning from her own thoughts, began again.

"So your brother's steward understands road-making?"

I could not bear this; I got off the subject in haste. "Yes, I believe so," said I. "You play a great deal, don't you, Mrs. Carey?"

"I? play? Ah! you mean on the piano-forte — oh, yes, I play."

"Would you be so very good as to play to me, then?" said I.

"Oh, yes, to be sure, if you like it — but not directly after dinner; in a few minutes I will. Won't you play in the meantime? Do now;" and all the while she was lighting a candle, in order to leave the room. "I'll fetch my work," said she; "I hope I shan't go to sleep; but I'm uncommonly stupid to-night. Thank you," as I opened the door — and it is to be supposed that sleep overcame her in her own room, for she did not re-appear till half an hour was gone by, coffee cold and hot again, and the party from the dining-room had come in. Her slumbers seemed to have been very refreshing, for she was in great spirits all the rest of the evening.

Next day Mrs. Carey, who was not a lazy fine lady, came down to the early breakfast which the sportsmen had ordered. I almost hoped she would not come — but she did; and professed herself interested in all that was going on, and had no terror of guns, nor horror of dogs, nor amazement at fatigue, nor disgust at the cruelty of shooting. Gray was pleased — any one might see he was pleased, by the interest taken in his pursuits, and I thought to myself that it was odd he should believe a beauty, and a woman, and a fine lady really wanted to know anything about gun locks, or that her misplaced questions meant anything more than "Talk to me, think of me, admire me."

Gray generally perceived affectation in a moment; Dr. Monkton suspected it when it was sometimes absent. "Don't go into a rapture, Katherine," he would say; "just say, I like it — not, I do delight in it. Delight is an uncommon emotion."

However, in this. instance, Gray took all her pretty mistakes for genuine