on which a few roses still lingered, upon the moat. In this shady and secluded place she took her seat. The repose was grateful to her, for the mental emotions, especially when they are of a painful kind, produce an exhaustion quite as great as that of physical exertion; on the other hand, she was in no mood for sleep. The immediate strain upon her thoughts had slackened-she had dropped her letter into the box in the hall as she came along—and they wandered within her at will, through all the phases of her past life, imbuing her with a tender melancholy, such as old people feel when they revisit the haunts of their youth. Young as she was, her girlhood seemed to be at an immense distance; she recalled it rather as something she had read in a book that had greatly interested her, than as a personal experience; her later life, with its far more important incidents, had swallowed it up like an Aaron's rod. What vitality it had was borrowed from the remembrance of her father; his occasional visits to her while at school, his presents, his treats, the hundred little acts which showed his devotion to her, rose before her now-witnesses to character, in mitigation of her late judgment of him. It was the old defence of the Egyptian queen. Whatever ill he had done her through his unhappy weakness, still he had loved her with all his tender heart. She believed that though he was dead he loved her still; it was even possible that at that very moment his spirit was near her somewhere, conscious of her trouble, remorseful for the share that he had had in it... The last reflection had hardly crossed her mind before she repented of it. Had she not a thousand causes for gratitude to him to set against this one of complaint? Thanks, and not forgiveness, was the debt she owed him. Mechanically she stretched forth her hands and murmured words, assuring him of her unaltered love; the flutter of the rose-leaves, the murmur of the stream, were all that replied to her; but they sounded to her like a sigh of intense relief. For the first time in her life she experienced that ecstasy with which the saints of the earth alone are credited the communion with a departed soul. Stripped of all earthly dross, but instinct still with love, she felt that his spirit was hovering near her, yearning for the embrace that was denied him, and solicitous for her good. In the past he had given her advice such as seemed good to him; but he no longer regarded her with the same eyes. How best could she please him now? She was too loyal to say to herself, by avoiding the rock on which he himself had split-that of selfindulgence; it was rather the recollection of her cousin's example that inspired the reply, "by self-abnegation." If she could only bring herself, like Maria, to live for others, she felt that she would be taking the surest way to comfort that departed soul. After all, what was this life, with its joys and sorrows? Here she was interrupted by a voice she knew singing softly to the music of the oar: "We twa have fished the Kale sae clear And streams of mossy Reed; For the days o' lang syne." It was only a fisherman's song, though both words and tune had an exquisite pathos in them; but it agitated her greatly. The sound of oars was now very distinct, and she knew that in another moment the boat with its tenant would pass close before her; she shrank back into the corner of the arbour in hopes to escape observation, with her hand lightly pressed upon her heart, which beat so fast and loud that it seemed itself to be a source of peril :— ""Tis many years sin' first we sat Here the singer paused, and, with oars suspended, murmured, "Is that you, Miss Darrell?" Then, without waiting for reply, he brought the boat to bank and stepped out at her feet. CHAPTER XXXII.-SELF-SACRIFICE. EVER since her conversation with Maria respecting Captain Drake, it had been Hester's especial care to give him no opportunity for private talk with her; to avoid his society was impossible; but whenever he had shown the least symptom of becoming confidential she had turned the conversation to some general topic or imported others into it. Notwithstanding all which precautions she now found herself face to face with him in the most private and secluded spot that the grounds of Medbury afforded. The circumstances in which she was placed were so peculiar that, in crediting him with tender feelings towards herself, it was impossible to accuse herself of vanity; she would have been glad indeed to find that she had altogether misconceived the nature of his attentions; but she had recognised it only too well. As he stood between her and the sun at the entrance of the arbour his shadow fell not only upon her face and form, but upon her very heart, and chilled her blood. The moment had come, she knew, for the sacrifice on which she had long resolved, and which her recent reflections had approved; yet for the first time she was conscious of its cost. How tender and true looked that handsome face, that seemed to defy the light that beat upon it to find one symptom of baseness! How strong and manly was his form, and yet how gentle, almost to womanliness, was the tone in which he addressed her! "I went up to the Castle this afternoon," he said, "in hopes to have a few words with you, Miss Darrell, but you were not down-stairs. Lady Barton told me she thought you had had some news of a serious nature. I trust it was not bad news. "It was not pleasant news," she answered quietly. "Still, it was what any reasonable person would have expected; one should not complain of even bad news when one has deserved it." "It seems impossible," returned the young man naïvely, "that you should deserve anything bad. It would be very sad to receive two unpleasant communications on the same day; and I hardly know whether the one I am about to make to you-which I have had in my mind, Miss Darrell, to make these many days-will be welcome or otherwise. Sometimes I have ventured to think you were not averse to me; and then, again, at others you have seemed so indifferent, and even cold. And then-which is most of all -I feel so utterly unworthy of you." unworthiness; but what you speak of can never be. There are reasons, believe me, which render it utterly and absolutely impossible." "That there are reasons which may seem unsurmountable I admit, Miss Darrell," he replied gravely. "That there are drawbacks and objections to my offer enough and to spare I can easily imagine. It would, indeed, be very difficult to point out its advantages; but somehow, in a matter of this kind one omits to weigh the pros and cons. One is hurried on-perhaps to the destruction of one's hopes-by an irresistible impulse. When I had first the pleasure of meeting you I said to myself, 'This is a girl for whom I have no passing fancy; it must, I think, be love.' When afterwards I found myself thinking of you though you were unknown to me even by name-and picturing to myself every incident of our chance meeting, recalling every word you spoke to me and every look you gave me, then I felt sure of it. 'If I ever see her again,' I said to myself, 'I will ask that girl to be my wife.' When I found myself thrown together with you once more on life's journey, was it strange if I took it for something more than a happy chance? It seemed to me the finger of Fate. Miss Darrell, I love you, and though I have little more to offer you than my love" Captain Drake, I entreat you to forbear," interrupted Hester vehemently. "I am conscious-I feel in every fibre of my heart the honour you have done me. As for advantages, it seems to me that you would be the loser and I the gainer in every way in the case suggested; but such considerations do not enter into the question; there are other reasons infinitely more important that compel me to decline your proposition; when I say that it would be dishonourable in me even to entertain it in my thoughts, I am certain that a nature so generous, so chivalrous as your own will forbear to press it." For an instant or two she answered nothing, though she was well aware that it behoved her to answer, to nip in the bud the declaration of his hopeless passion. She drank in his words with a feverish delight that she had no power to control; barren and unfruitful though they need must be, as the last words of love to dying ears, they filled her whole soul with the same sense of joy. She was for the moment carried away by the strong tide of rapture, and only by aquired earnestly, "that I am anticipated, great effort gained the land. The Captain regarded her with a pained and steadfast look, that she remembered afterwards for years. "Am I to understand from what you say, Miss Darrell," he in that some one else has been beforehand with me in asking the honour of your hand?" She turned pale to the very lips, and inclined her head in assent. She was telling no untruth, for had not Mr. Digby Mason been beforehand in proposing to her? But in the sense in which he must needs understand her it was, it must be confessed, a disingenuous reply. Whatever of wrong THE LUCK OF THE DARRELLS. doing belonged to it, was not, however, for her own sake, but for another's; while, on the other hand, no falsehood (as she was only too well aware) could have brought more severe or more immediate punishment upon its utterer. She had shattered her lover's hopes, as she believed, for his own good-for independently of Maria's love for him, she could give him wealth and restore him to the station he had once occupied-but at the same time she had shattered her own, without pretence of "good." There seemed no happiness left for her in the world; the gates of an earthly paradise had been opened to her, but she had closed them with her own hand. When she looked up again, half in hope, half in fear, of a glance or a word of farewell, her companion had fled. The turf and the stream had given no note of his departure; the only trace of his presence was to be found in her own heart, where, indeed, it seemed graven for ever, "bitten in" by the acids of disappointment and despair. There are occasions when with the knowledge that we have done right, conscience itself is unable to make head against the stream of regret; when, though the temptation has not proved beyond our powers, our victory seems less welcome than defeat; when, though virtue may be its own reward in the long the result of its action in the meantime appears deplorable. It seemed to Hester Darrell that she had wrecked her life. run, The solemnity and hush at midnight in a country landscape have been often experienced, and almost as often described; the pale, weird moonlight and the quaint shadows cast by the trees, are surroundings among which it is easy for the dullest imagination to feel awed and isolated; but there is also sometimes a depth of solitariness in the summer afternoon. The sun may be high in the heavens, there may not be a cloud in the sky, but all that brightness and lightness may be instinct with a sublime silence or with sounds that make stiller by their sound the inviolable quietness. It was so now, or so it seemed to be to Hester, left alone with her own thoughts in that arbour in the rose-garden; the high wall of the terrace behind it, the broad girdle of the moat in front, gave it a sense of isolation very consonant with her own feelings. Not a leaf was stirring, nor a blade of grass; there was a drowsy hum of insects, and now and then the leap of a fish, but of a human existence there was not a shadow nor a sign; it seemed to her that in fact as in spirit she was utterly alone in the world. As reflec tion began to resume its sway, she gradually The case, unhappily, is common enough; the husband dies, and the old and childless widow, though life is emptied of all joys, has to live on in single wretchedness; but she, at least, has had her day; it is only the evening of existence that she spends in solitude. Before Hester's eyes there stretched a whole life-time, like one of those French landscapes so familiar to the traveller by diligence in old days-dull, flat, and solitary, its rows of poplars tapering to the grave. Presently she rose and walked towards the house. In that hour or two her whole being, as it seemed to her, had suffered change; her step had no longer the elasticity of youth; her heart had lost the pulse of hope. It was, however, above all things However weak she may necessary to conceal this alteration from the world without. have shown herself in her late struggle, Hester was far too proud to seek commiseration from others; she was not one to wear the willow before the crowd, and far less that mask of pretended cheerfulness which says to all beholders, "I show a smiling face; do not distress yourself on my account, but Heaven only knows the pain I suffer." It was probable, nevertheless, that she could not altogether discard from her countenance the impression of recent events; there were the traces of tears, too-for she had wept bitterly-which it was absolutely necessary to brush away before meeting the eyes of others. She endeavoured, therefore, to reach her own apartment unnoticed and unseen, as she In the library, as usual, there had come. was no one, no one in the hall, nor on the great staircase; the corridor above was clear, and she had even gained her own room and had her hand upon the door, when she heard her own name pronounced. Hester, I want a few minutes' conversa- of the windows stood an old-fashioned escrition with you, my dear." toire that had certainly not been supplied by the upholsterers who had contributed those splendid curtains, those elaborate arm-chairs, and that glazed bookcase, with its smooth and gilded treasures. The lid of the desk lay open, as though its proprietress had been busy with its contents when she had heard her niece's step in the corridor. Lady Barton motioned Hester to a seat, closed the door, and turned the key, and, standing in front of her with folded arms, regarded her with an expression of great seriousness, not unmixed, however, with commiseration. It was the voice of Lady Barton which thus addressed her: the words were kind enough, but the tone in which they were spoken was authoritative almost to severity. Her aunt was standing at the door of her boudoir, where she was evidently awaiting her, and where, as it struck her, she had probably been on the watch for her for some time. It was certain that Lady Barton had something of importance to communicate, or something which she considered of import ance; whatever it was, was Hester's bitter reflection, it could now matter little to her. There was henceforth nothing that could matter. She obeyed her aunt's beckoning sign and entered the boudoir, an apartment as large as an ordinary drawing-room, and handsomely, if not tastefully, furnished. By one "In what I am about to say to you, Hester, I am performing a very painful duty. If it distresses you, I do assure you, however appearances may be to the contrary, that it distresses me no less. If I seem to be unkind, I pray you to believe that I am not so." WHEN JACK IS TALL AND TWENTY. WHEN Jack is tall and twenty, We know what Jack will do ; But Jack, if truth be spoken, Is simple Jack no more; If gold his heart has broken, "Tis scarce the gold of yore. He wots of dower for daughters Not all in ringlets roll'd; MY To beauty steel'd, his heart will yield When Jack goes forth a-wooing, The hour that saw him wed, Nor cringe for wealth to hold, Hearken, Jack, and heed me- SOME REMINISCENCES OF MY LIFE. CHAPTER III. Y father, who had returned to Uttoxeter humble and submissive after his adversity in the Forest of Dean, was speedily to see that God had not forsaken him, but was preparing for him a better lot in the old home than he had sought for himself in the new. In 1800 a commission sent out by the Crown to survey the woods and forests, decided that "the Chase of Needwood," in the county of Stafford, should be divided, allotted, and enclosed. This forest, dating from time immemorial, and belonging to the Crown, extended many miles, contained magnificent oaks, limes, and other lordly trees, gigantic hollies and luxuriant underwood, and twenty |