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village. It was a pretty place, with an old kissing-well in the centre of the tiny Place. It was surrounded by great fields of colza, and it stood at the foot of a hill which was bisected by a narrow road; beside, too, ran a small stream in which was a water-mill, which was clanking noisily. On the water some ducks were already swimming to and fro. Again Harry Hedley turned his head to look behind him. Not a sign of his captors was to be seen anywhere. A mad impulse seized hold of him, and he fled up the narrow road which led to the hill.

The curé of the village had risen early, and was looking sadly out of his window over the lonely land-, scape. He was thinking of the poor fellows who were quartered in the village, and wondering why it was that the world could not always go on peaceably and happily. He was thinking, too, of what a good harvest there would be if the rain cleared off, and of how some of his village folk would with no joyful hearts join in the coming merry-makings, now that honest Jacques and Pierre and many more would never return home again; and he would have to console old parents and young wives and sweethearts; and he shook his head and wiped his eyes.

But what was that? He was startled out of his reverie by the rattle of musketry. Half an hour afterwards the hapless brigade was marching underneath his windows. When it had passed some officers came by on horseback; they were talking together, and he could distinctly hear what they were saying.

'It was just as well, after all, mon ami,' said one of them, a tall man with a great black moustache.

But what was just as well the curé did not trouble himself about,

but, calling to his housekeeper, asked for his breakfast.

CHAPTER XLIV.

'QUAND NOUS RETOURNERONS!

THERE had been great festivities in the village of Oakham. Speeches had been made by the Tory county member, and verses had been written in the county paper. A bonfire had blazed on the green that had nearly set fire to the village church, and much liquor had been consumed at the Red Lion. However, the Radical shoemaker, who had lost a son at Quatre Bras, had not shown the good taste which he might and ought to have done, in joining in the general festivities. Parson Heneage had certainly tried to bring him to a sense of his shortcomings; only, despite the offer of a loan of a copy of Baxter's Sermons and a fortnight-old copy of the county paper, had far from altogether succeeded. Still, there were great rejoicings in the village all the same. Boney, the dragon, had been put an end to at last, and there was no fear of the nation being invaded by an army of gaunt Johnny Crapauds.

At Colonel Hedley's a pleasant party was assembled. They were all seated on the lawn, in full view of the grand old Sussex hills. It was a lovely time; and there is no summer like a Sussex summer. Let those talk of exotic Devonshire,' be they whom they may ! The rich ferns were springing from the hedges in their grandest growth; the streamlet wandered through the cornfields until it passed through the cleft in the downs. The quaint old garden was at its best; the leaves were falling from the roses on to the rich mould; the foxgloves were laden with

blossom; the jasmine was covered with the white stars which had just peeped out through the foliage.

It was not yet evening, but the sun had a mellow light, which showed that the day would soon pass away. The perfume of flowers was warm and sweet and aromatic, and the cows were gently lowing in the fields at the foot of the hill.

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And so,' said Colonel Hedley to his old comrade, who was seated beside him, puffing at his cheroot, which the young bucks of Almack's and of Crockford's would have shuddered at- and so the war is at an end, and Boney has got the worst of it, and we shall have peace at last.'

Colonel Dawson knocked the ash off the end of his cigar, and smiled.

'We had a longer time of it in the old days, Hedley. We went about our campaigns in more scientific fashion. We did not sit down to a siege and winter quarters, as in the days of Marlborough; yet at any rate we took matters a little more quietly and comfortably.'

So Miss Hetty Dawson sat and listened to what the oldsters were saying, and blushed and smiled. The war was virtually over; that was as much as she cared for. Jack was safe; and the fate of empires and the Congress of Vienna concerned her very little indeed. She arose from her seat and wandered down to the orchard, which ran to the feet of the hill. There had she plighted her troth to her young soldier. Ah, what a hero he was, and what a happy girl she ought to be! It was spring-time then, and full of promise; and now it was summer, and full of content. Never were flowers such as bloomed in that summer; never did the birds sing

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so sweetly. She looked across the lovely landscape, and it seemed, not inaptly, to mirror back her happiness in its calm pensive beauty. Then she returned and sat beside her father, and took his hand with a gentle sigh.

Davies' Inn in the year 1815 was much about the same as it looks in this present year of 1865; but, whatever it looks now, these are not its palmy days. Then dwelt there the greatest of counsel, learned in the laws, and among these was Mr. Christopher Hedley, the King's Counsel. He was a man hard of head and cool of judgment. When he spoke he was listened to, and listened to with attention. He was a man who had Fortune at his feet, and one who did not mean to use Fortune too mercifully so far as others were concerned; yet all spoke well of him, all courted him. He would be a great man some day, a very great man indeed. When that some day would come no one could exactly prophesy; yet that it would come there was not the least doubt whatever.

The young guvnor' (meaning Harry Hedley) is reported among the missing,' said his old clerk to his junior, who was looking out of window at the few sparrows which, half-baked, were languidly hopping about on the stones of the court.

'He doesn't seem to mind it much,' was the answer of the young gentleman, who was thinking how resplendent he would be that evening in the glittering mazes of Vauxhall.

Mind it! no; he's tough enough for anything;' and the senior clerk shook his powdered head, and sighed.

Not until late in the evening did Christopher Hedley return to his chambers. When he did so he walked briskly up the old staircase,

opened the oak' and the inner door-for his clerks had long since gone-and made his way into his solitary room.

The room was an old room, with a painted wainscot, with a few dingy prints hanging on it. The carpet was torn and ragged, the red curtains were faded; only an old Chippendale mirror was over the mantelshelf. The glowing sunset shed a red light upon everything, and seemed to stain the very mirror itself.

Christopher Hedley sat down in his stiff armchair, folded his arms, crossed his legs, and half closed his eyes.

The story of his son's death had reached him that morning. He had attempted to escape when a prisoner, and had been shot by his guard.

of the room grew darker, he could not shake off the feeling of loneliness and depression that was creeping over him.

'We have not been much like father and son,' he thought; 'some men make their sons their friends. I suppose it is right; but I never could understand it.'

Yet although he so tried to compose himself, he could not settle down to any work, and could not keep his mind from wandering back to the subject.

'I wonder what sort of a place they have buried him in ?' and then he called to mind the different Continental churchyards forty years before. Would it be a bright little spot, or a dark and dank corner, wedged in between the village houses, as he had seen somewhere or the other, he could not recollect? At last, however, Nature to a small extent asserted herself, despite his wish to play more than the Spartan parent. Poor lad,' he said, and slightly rubbed his eyes with his hand. And that was all the mourning that Harry Hedley got from his loving and affectionate father. [To be continued.]

'So there is an end of him,' said the astute father to himself; 'well, I don't know that I can particularly grieve. Why should I? I shall not make such a great name that I want it succeeded to by a son.'

Yet somehow, as the sunset colour deepened and the shadows

NO NAME.

SOME caller comes while I am out,
And finds his knock obeyed
(With due celerity, no doubt)
By Mary Ann, my maid.
I strive, on my return, to trace
What caller 'twas who came;
She tells me, with a grinning face,
'He never left no name!'

Methinks I cannot well be styled
An irritable man;

As gently as a christom child
I treat my Mary Ann.
And yet my visage oft conveys
A hint or two of blame
On hearing that eternal phrase,
'He never left no name!'

Perchance, I think, 'twas cousin Jack;
Perhaps 'twas uncle Joe
(They told me he was coming back
From India long ago):
He once was very fond of me,
But is he still the same?

Pooh, 'twasn't he! it couldn't be :
'He never left no name!'

Some trifling matters of detail
I bid my wench recall:
'Say, was he rubicund or pale;
Diminutive or tall?

A lean ascetic, such as I;

Or one of burly frame?'
She merely makes me one reply,
'He never left no name!'

The words are graven on my heart,
For ever there to burn,
Until the breath of life depart,
And earth to earth return.
Upon the tomb that hides away
My hopes of worldly fame
Fate's finger will indite one day,
'He never left no name!'

HENRY S. LEIGH.

GEORGE CONGREVE'S DOOM.

BY RICHARD DOWNEY.

SEVEN years have come and gone since that awful night on which George Congreve died by his own hand, under circumstances almost too terrible to contemplate.

I will not dwell upon how the event affected me, his nearest friend; and I shall endeavour to write impartially the story of his sad life and tragic end.

George Congreve and I, Edmund Aspar, were fast friends from our earliest boyhood, and this friendship ripened and perfected with the passage of years.

We were never formally introduced to each other; but I can conscientiously assert that my memory fails to bear me back to the time-which certainly must have been-when we were unacquainted.

We went to the same schools -in the first instance to a school where children of both sexes were made miserable by two tyrannical old maids, from 10 A.M. to 3 P.M. each day; and afterwards to an academy presided over by an eccentric Master of Arts, where we learned the rudiments of the art of boxing, and acquired a taste for evading the acquisition of useful knowledge.

George Congreve was considered by no means a boy of brilliant intellect or particularly sound understanding; but some one discovered that he was a boy of genius, and that he would be in time a great

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perienced the pleasure of passing on the same day the preliminary examination for the medical profession that being the walk in life which we had, upon mature deliberation, decided to pursue, provided our parents placed no obstacles in the way, which happily they refrained from doing.

During the first term of lectures we attended, we lived together in apartments in a house situated in a gloomy square in the Rathmines district.

Congreve at this period began to exhibit the genuine ability which he possessed; but I am free to confess that his abilities ran in an impracticable channel.

He was a subtle metaphysician, and the cleverest abstract reasoner at the college; but he lacked practical propensities and qualities which would fit him for a successful worldly career.

Physically as well as mentally Congreve was by no means robust. He was painfully sensitive, and was habitually prone to alternating fits of exhilaration and despondency, the latter mood as surely succeeding the former as night follows day.

In addition to his other peculiar mental characteristics, Congreve was what is commonly known as a 'fatalist.' He believed that the career of every man was irrevocably mapped out by Providencethat the souls of human beings are frequently swept towards strange vicissitudes by uncontrollable exterior currents.

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