MIRK ABBEY,

“As you please, my Lady,” returned Mistress Forest, in a tone which the other, did not fail to mark: it was a very respectful tone—a more humble one even than she was ordinarily wont to use—but there was a certain deliberation and set resolve about it too, which expressed as decidedly, as though she had used the words: “I am ready to listen, madam; but I know very well what you are going to ask me, and I have made up my mind already to answer 'No.'”

“Mary,” continued my Lady earnestly, but not without a tremor in her kind soft voice, “come and sit here on the sofa beside me, and let us not be mistress and maid tonight, but only friends.”

“Yes, madam;” and Mary's voice trembled too, for this unlooked-for arrangement would place her, she knew, at a disadvantage in the argument which was certainly at hand. “We have known one another many, many years, Mary—more than half our lives—and I don't think we have had a single quarrel yet.”

“Not one, ma'am, not one,” assented the waiting-maid; already, after the manner of her susceptible kind, beginning to cry.

“I can remember you when quite a child, Mary; not fifteen years old; as willing and kind-hearted a girl as the sun ever shone upon; and when I had not a friend in the world, nor even so much as a coin that I could call my own, and when I was weak and sick at heart, having lost all that was dear to me, I remember who it was that tended and caressed me as though I was her own sister.”

“Don't ye, don't ye, my Lady; hush, hush!” cried the weeping Mary. “It was only natural that I should take to a sweet innocent creature cast at our very door by the raging sea. I often dream of that storm o' nights, madam, even now; of the thunder, and the lightning, and the rain; and of the flashes that were not lightning, but signals for help—that, alas! we could not give—from the poor doomed ship. And how father and the other fishermen, and many of the visitors themselves—and among them poor Sir Robert—all crowded down to the Cove, for they could not get nearer to the shore because of the waves; and I was with them, sheltering myself in the brushwood as well as I could, and peering through the branches to see the great white waves lit up for an instant, and then the darkness shutting all things out except the roaring of the storm. I mind it just as though it were but yesterday; and ah! my Lady, shall I ever forget when that one great wave dashed up into the very Cove itself, wetting us all to the skin, and knocking down young Jack West, whom it almost carried back with it in its return, and then the Great Black Spar, which it did carry back, with something white a-clinging to it; when my father cried out: 'O my God, a woman!' and all our hearts seemed stricken with a sudden shoot of pain. Lord! how I cried, for my part, to think that a poor creature should he tossing in that dreadful foam; and when I heard good Sir Robert's voice, clear and loud as a bugle: 'One hundred pounds to the man who brings her ashore, dead or alive!' I do believe I could have run out and kissed him. Ah, my Lady, what a noble gentleman he was; for though he could not have known how dear you were to be to him—you might have been an old woman, for all he could see—how he worked and strove to save you; not by his money alone, for no mère gain would have tempted men to do what was done that night, but by risking life and limb. They made a double chain, holding one another's hands, for there was no time to spare for ropes, and went down almost among the breakers, where you were: my father and Sir Robert were the two first men, God bless them!”

Here Mistress Forest paused, interrupted by incipient hysterics, and my Lady herself cried like a child, but not in agony; her tears were tribute to the memory of a gallant deed.

“I mind my father had a black shoulder—a place you could not cover with both your hands—all along of the spar being driven up against him, but they carried it up with you upon it safe into the Cove, and then there was a great cry for us women to come down and help. Ah, how beautiful you looked, my Lady, though we thought you dead, white, and cold, and wet, with your long black hair dripping like sea-weed, and your tender limbs all bruised and bleeding. It must have been a kind band as tied you to the plank, for between your dainty waist and the rough rope there was bound a sailor's jacket.”

My Lady moaned, and held her bands up as though she would say, “Forbear!” but Mistress Forest could not be stayed.

“There was little enough clothes upon you, poor Lady, just a bodice and a petticoat, but round your neck there was hung a charm or two, and perhaps that had some hand in saying you from drowning.”

My Lady looked quickly up; how strange it seemed that the comment passed by Mary Forest upon the locket (and the bundle of letters in their little waterproof case) should have been so exactly what Derrick had pointed out it would be. The coincidence reminded her of the task that lay before her, and of the danger of delaying it.

“Yes, Mary, I indeed owe my life to you and yours, and I am not forgetful of the debt. Your welfare is, and ever will be only second in importance to that of my own children, and it is concerning it that I now wish to speak with you. Your future”——

“You owe me nothing, my dear Lady, that you have not paid again and again, I am sure,” interrupted the waiting-maid hurriedly. “When you rose to that high station, for which it seems to everybody you were born, your hand was always held out to me; through good report and evil report, you have ever stood my friend: it will be a great wrench of my heart, dearest mistress, when I leave your service—as I shall have to do, I fear, very soon.”

“Mary!”

“Yes, my Lady. You see I'm not a young girl now; and it is not everybody who has so good a chance as I have now of—of—settling in life. Service is not inheritance, you know, my Lady, although I am well aware I should never want for nothing”——

“Whether I live or die, Mary,” broke in her mistress eagerly, “I have taken care of that, good friend; and if I should die tomorrow—— But you shall see my will itself, for it lies here.”

She laid her hand upon the desk before her, but Mary checked her with a determined “No, my Lady; no. I was never greedy—with all my faults, you will grant that much, I know—and if I had been like Mrs Welsh, and others of this household I could name—but that I never was a mischief-maker—I might long since have put myself beyond all need of legacies, and you never would have missed it. But Mr Derrick is himself a person of property; a very rich man indeed for one in my condition of life—not that I need be a burden upon any man, thank Heaven, for I have money saved out of my wages—and very handsome they always were—and that great present of good Sir Robert's still untouched: the most generous of gentlemen he was. I am sure, my Lady, nobody felt for you as I did when Sir Robert died; and you have often said how terrible it was to lose a husband; therefore”—here for a moment her excessive volubility flagged for the first time; she paused, and reddened, then added, with the air of a mathematician stating an indisputable corollary—“therefore, you must allow, dear mistress, that to find one—particularly when one comes to my time of life—is not unpleasant, nor a chance to be lightly thrown aside.”

“That depends entirely upon the sort of husband he may be, Mary,” observed my Lady gravely.

“Really, dear madam, with all respect, I think I am the best judge of that,” rejoined the waiting-maid tartly; “although, indeed, I never thought to say such words to you. Sir Richard may have his likes and dislikes, but I am not his slave; nor yet his servant, for the matter of that. While Master Walter, who, saving your presence, everybody knows to be worth a hundred of him, likes Ralph very much.”

A pang shot across my Lady's face, and left it crimson, as though she had received a blow; but the waiting-maid little knew what had brought the colour there, although she felt that she had pained her mistress deeply.

“God forgive me,” cried she penitently, “if my foolish tongue has hurt your feelings, my Lady! I did not mean to say aught against Sir Richard, I am sure. I scarcely knew what I said, for when those are dear to us—as Ralph has grown to be with me, and I don't deny it—are misjudged and wronged, why, then, we are apt to say bitter things. This talk was none of my seeking, my Lady; and although Ralph thinks that you are to blame because of his being forbidden the Hall, and all the rest of it, I have always told him you have never said a word to set me against him; and oh, I am sorry you are doing it now, because what is done cannot be undone, and”——

“Great Heaven! you are not married to this man?” cried my Lady, rising from her seat with agitation.

“O no, my Lady—certainly not, my Lady,” rejoined the waiting-maid with a certain demure dignity. “There has been nothing underhand between us in the matter at all, except, that is, so far as meeting Mr Derrick at the back gate”——

“Did you go out to meet him to-night?” inquired Lady Lisgard sharply, and keeping her eyes fixed steadily upon her attendant's face. “No, madam, I did not.”

“She is speaking truth,” murmured my Lady to herself. “Who, then, could it be whom I saw upon the churchyard path just now?”

“Although,” continued Mrs Forest quietly, “I don't deny that I have often met him after dusk, no other time being permitted to us; but to-day he has gone to town.”

“And you are to write to him thither to give him your final decision as to whether you will become his wife or not.”

“How on earth do you know that, my Lady?” inquired the waiting-maid with a curiosity even beyond her indignation.

“I do know it, dear old friend,” answered Lady Lisgard tenderly, “and it is because of that knowledge that I have sent for you to-night, to strive to persuade you to write 'No,' while there is yet time.”

It was very seldom—not once in a year, perhaps—that Mary Forest was ever out of temper with my Lady; but then such a supreme occasion as the present had never occurred before. Underneath their mère superficial relation of mistress and servant, they were more like elder and younger sister; but then even sisters quarrel when the one wants the other—generally under some pretence of mère prudence, not to be listened to by a woman of spirit—to give up the man of her choice. The ample countenance of Mistress Forest expressed something more than Decision in the negative; there was an unpleasant smile upon her pale lips, which seemed to say: “If you knew what I know, you would know that you are wasting your breath.” She sat with her plump hands folded before her, like a naughty boy that has been put in the corner, but who does not care—nay, more, who knows that he has got a cracker to put presently under his master's chair, the results of which will make full amends for the inconvenience he at present experiences.

“I will say nothing more, Mary, of the mutual esteem and affection between us two, and of the pain that an eternal parting—such as your marriage with this Mr Derrick would most undoubtedly entail—needs must cost us both. I presume that you have weighed that matter in your mind, and found it—however weighty—insufficient to alter your determination?”

Mary nodded, sharply enough, but it was doubtful if she could have spoken. Already her features had lost their rigidity, as though melted by my Lady's touching tones.

“You have known this person—that is to say, you have met him some dozen times—during a period of less than four months; yet such is his influence over you, that you are prepared to sacrifice for him a friend of thirty years' standing, a comfortable home, and a position in which you are respected by all who know you. If I was speaking to a young girl, Mary, I should not advance these arguments; but you are a—a wise and sensible woman, and yet not of such a mature age that you need despair of finding a suitable partner for the rest of your life.”

Mistress Forest heaved a little sigh of relief, and her cheeks began to tone down to something like their natural crimson; they had been purple with the apprehension of what my Lady might have said upon the subject of age.

“Now, what is it,” pursued my Lady, “which has produced this confidence in an almost entire stranger? Do you know anything of his former life, which may be a guarantee to you for the stability of your future? Have you ever met a single individual who is acquainted with it in any way? For all you know, this man may have been a”——

“My Lady!”

For a moment, the relative position of Mentor and pupil were exchanged; there was a quiet power about the waiting-maid's rebuke, for which an archbishop would have given more than his blessing, if he could only have incorporated it into a “charge.”

“You are right, Mary,” said my Lady frankly; “let us only speak of what is within our own knowledge. Does this man's own conduct, then, give any promise of lasting happiness to the woman who may become his wife? Is he sober?”

“I believe he is fond of a glass, my Lady, as most men are who have no home, or people to look after them. If he had a wife, he would never go to the public-house at all, perhaps—he tells me so himself.”

My Lady smiled faintly.

“Is he industrious and provident, Mary?”

“He has earned his money hardly enough, my Lady, and it seems only natural that he should now spend a little in enjoying himself.”

“But not fling his money to left and right—I use your own words, dear Mary—and treat every chance-companion he comes across to liquor. Do you suppose that at his age he is likely to change habits of this sort?”

“I am not aware, my Lady, that his age is anything against him,” replied the waiting-maid coldly. “He is not so like to run through his money as if he were younger, and particularly when he has got some one to provide for beside himself. And indeed, so far as money goes, he has thousands of pounds; and if all goes well with him—and something has occurred to-day about which he has sent me a line by hand, dear fellow, by which it has been made almost certain that things will go well—he will be a very rich man indeed after a week or two. There is some great race on Epsom Downs”——

“O Mary, how can you talk so cheerfully of money acquired in that way. If it is won to-day, it is lost to-morrow; and even if it were not so, do you know that it is gained from those who can ill afford to lose it, and who, having lost it, often turn to wicked ways?”

“I don't know about that, my Lady, I'm sure,” responded the waiting-maid demurely; “I leave all these things to my betters. But, I suppose, if racing was a crime, Mr Chifney would not be let to have the Abbey Barn—Sir Richard being so very particular—and Master Walter would not for ever be up at the stables. Why, he and Mr Derrick are both together, hand and glove, in this very business—something about a French racer, it is; although, when you and I were at Dijon, my Lady, we never heard of there being such a thing in all France, did we?—so my poor Ralph cannot be so very wicked after all. And please, ma'am, it is no use saying anything more about it, for I have written him that letter already which he was to find in London, and put it in the post.”

“And did you answer 'Yes,' or 'No,' Mary?”

“I answered 'Yes,' my Lady—that I would marry him—and begging your pardon, madam, but I mean to stand to it.”

CHAPTER II. CONFESSION.

THERE is one serious disadvantage—which mistresses should do well to remember—at which waiting-maids are always placed in disputations with their domestic superiors; they cannot (except they are prepared for instant dismissal) either quit the room, and hang the door after them, or leave it open, and run down stairs “saying things” at the top of their voices. Both these modes of procedure, so natural to the female when “put out,” are denied to them, for the same reason that when on board ship they can't take champagne for sea-sickness as their employers do; they cannot afford the indulgence.

Now, although Mary Forest was not debarred by mère pecuniary considerations from flinging herself out of her mistress's room when she cried, “And I mean to stand to it,” there were other reasons which prevented her from suiting to her words that very appropriate and natural action. In all her blinding passion (and she was really very angry), she never quite lost sight of the respect she owed her mistress. Her devotion to her was such, that even while she listened to her most unpalatable arguments against the man she had accepted for her husband, her heart smote her with a sense of ingratitude towards the long-tried friend, who, after all, she knew, was anxious for her happiness rather than for her own mère comfort; and when she seemed most obstinate, she had often been nearest to throwing herself upon her mistress's neck, and exclaiming: “You are quite right, my Lady; and I believe I have been an old fool all along.” It was more with the desire of putting a stop to this most unpleasant dispute, than because her determination was absolutely adamantine and inflexible, that she once more reiterated: “Yes, my Lady, I mean to stand to it,” and fixed her eyes doggedly upon the floor, as though she would not even encounter another questioning glance.

“Mary,” said her mistress solemnly, and after a long silence, “I am grieved beyond all power of words to tell at what you have just said; but the mischief may not yet be quite past mending. I have seen this—Mr Derrick—this very night, and therefore he will not receive your letter till, at earliest, to-morrow evening.”

“No, nor then neither, my Lady, so far as that goes, for I was late for the London post; I put the letter in the box for the very reason that I might not be persuaded to change my mind by”——

“Then it has not yet left the village postoffice,” interrupted my Lady, hastily snatching up her bonnet from the table on which she had wearily put it down upon entering the room: “there is time to stop it yet.”

“No, my Lady; I heard the postman's horn half an hour ago; and if it were otherwise, nothing would induce me to alter what I have already written—nothing—nothing!” repeated Mistress Forest, emphasising her last two words by beating with her foot upon the carpet.

“Alas, dear friend, you know not what you say,” replied my Lady very gravely. “Give me your hand, Mary; nay, do not withdraw it coldly, for you will have need of comfort and support, almost as much, alas, as I——Mary, Mary, this man is married already!”

The waiting-maid started from her seat with a shrill scream. “I don't believe it, I won't believe it; it is false. How dare you tell a lie to me, Lady Lisgard, only to gain your ends?”

“Hush, hush, Mary; did you ever know me to tell a lie, my friend? It is true as that yonder moon is rising, that this man has a wife alive. Do not weep so passionately.”

“The perjured villain; the false, bad man; the wicked, wicked wretch!” cried the waiting-maid, her eyes flashing through their tears.

“Nay, above all, do not blame him, Mary, for he knows it not himself; he does not, indeed.”

“What? Not know whether he's married or not!” sobbed the unhappy bride-elect. “I don't believe that, at all events, even if I believe you. He has married so many, he doesn't know rightly who is his wife; that is what you mean, I see. Sailors are all alike. O dear, dear, dear, when Mrs Welsh comes to know of it! And the monster will have got my letter by to-morrow night, to shew about! How nearly have I been committing bi—bi—bigamy!”

“Calm yourself, dear Mary, calm yourself. Your trouble is nothing to what I suffer, and must continue to endure for my life long.”

“Ah, my Lady, I daresay it is very bad to be a widow; but it's much worse to die an old——leastways, at forty-fi—or forty-four, rather—to lose—— O dear! what an honest man he looked, and such a beard and eyes! I will never trust to appearances again. I daresay, it is very wrong, my Lady, but I fee—fee—feel as though I could tear Mrs Derrick's eyes out; I do, indeed.” Here the bottle of smelling-salts, which upon a certain occasion we saw used by Mary Forest for the recovery of her mistress, had to change hands. The unfortunate waiting-maid was taken with a very genuine fit of hysterics, and not of the quiet sort either; and if her senses left her, it could not certainly be said that she also lost the use of her limbs. At last, exhausted in body, but also more reasonable as to her mind, she whispered: “Mistress, dearest, tell me all you know.” Then my Lady knew that the time was come for her first self-humiliation. Throughout the narrative that followed, they were sitting upon the sofa together, hand in hand, but each had her face averted from the other, and only now and then, by a convulsive grasp of the fingers, did Mary shew her sympathy with her unhappy mistress. At first, she was too full of her own trouble to interrupt by words, but soon the astounding revelation from my Lady's lips overwhelmed every faculty of speech within her, and she sat like a child who listens to a horrid story in the darkening twilight.

“We have known one another more than half our lives, Mary, said I, a while ago, and yet there has been a secret between us all that time. I have never kept anything else from you, but this was not mine alone to tell; it was Sir Robert's also. When he asked me to become his wife at Coveton, and you thought me so mad for first refusing him, and afterwards for demanding such a long delay, I had a reason for it, which he knew, but which you have never guessed. I was then the three-weeks' bride of another man.—You may well start, Mary, but that is the dreadful truth. The man, Ralph Gavestone, whom I mourned so deeply, as being drowned with my dear parents, and all the rest of the ship's company, in that great storm—which I would to Heaven had whelmed me in its waves—was not my half-brother, as Sir Robert persuaded me to give out, but my husband.”

“You had no wedding-ring, my Lady, when you came ashore,” murmured the waiting-maid half incredulously.

“That is true, Mary. I know not how it was, but perhaps the cold and wet of that dreadful night made my fingers shrink—you remember how wan and thin I looked—and the ring must have dropped off; I never saw it after I reached land. But I was none the less a widow—as I thought; and although friendless, save for you, Mary—homeless and penniless, I thought I could never take another husband to my arms, although the raging sea had worked that rough divorce between us. At first, I replied: 'No, Sir Robert, never;' you will bear me witness that I did. Then, when he pressed me still, I bargained for three years. I thought that he would tire of waiting for me, and get some fitter mate in the meantime; I did, as Heaven is my judge. I was true to my poor Ralph—he had saved me upon that spar at the risk, and, as I then believed, at the sacrifice of his own life—as long as I—nay, I was true to him in a sense for ever. Sir Robert was well aware of that. I do not need justification from man or woman; God himself absolved me, I think, so far. But that was an evil day, Mary, when I married. I was no more Sir Robert's wife than you were, Mary. Think of that. And he was not my husband. And our children, of whom he was so proud, are baseborn—bastards. Sir Richard—is it not terrible? do you not wonder that I live and am not mad?—he is not Sir Richard. And my dear, dear Walter, he is baseborn too. And Letty—for whom her eldest brother thinks nobody too high—she, too, is no Lisgard. If I had waited seven years instead of three, this would not have been so. There are law-books in the library which have told me so much; but I have no adviser—none; no friend—yes, you, Mary, I know—but not one who can help me. Is not this something worse than death itself which has fallen upon me!”

“And this man Derrick—he was Gavestone?” whispered Mary Forest in a hoarse grating voice.

“Yes; did I not tell you so? I only found it out last Christmas Eve. I knew his voice, and I knew the carol that he sang. For one thing only do I thank Heaven—I who had reason, as I thought, to be thankful for so many things—that Sir Robert is not alive. His sleep in yonder churchyard is disturbed by no such ghastly dream. Ah, happy dead!”

“Mistress, beloved mistress,” cried the waiting-maid, in an agony of remorse—“forgive me that I have been thinking of myself these many weeks, while you have been so burdened and tormented. Henceforth, I am yours only. As I hope to get to heaven when I die, I will be true to you whatever happens. Let us think what that may be.”

“Nay, let us not think,” exclaimed her mistress with a shudder, “or I shall lose my wits. 'Would you have me picture what this house would be should he come hither and claim me for his wife? Richard and he beneath the self-same roof, and he the master! Would Walter—though he herds with him, you say—brook this man as his equal? Would he not loathe him rather, and how soon, ah me! unlearn the love he owes to me—his wretched mother! I cannot hear to think of it, I tell you. Let us act; let us be doing something—something! How my brain whirls! Think for me, Mary—pray for me, for Heaven is deaf, alas, to my poor prayers!”

But even while she spoke, the gracious tears began to fill the furrows in her cheeks, which until now had been dry throughout her talk; and having told her friend, the weight about her heart was lifted off a little, and the tightness round her brow was loosened by the blessed hand of sympathy.

“I must write to him at once,” said Mary thoughtfully. “How fortunate that he did not leave Mirk until to-night. The two letters will now reach him at the same time. He cannot write in answer to the one which—which I wrote first—without having read the other; that will be something saved.”

My Lady shook her head.

“There is but little hope in that, I fear; for he himself has this night told me—yes, I saw him face to face, Mary, only I was thickly veiled, thank Heaven—he told me frankly (thinking I did not wish to lose my waiting-maid) that he should lay it to my charge if your reply was 'No,' and should not take it as the answer of your heart. How much more, if he gets a refusal coming so quickly upon the very heels of this acceptance, will he decline to believe it comes from your own self. More likely, it would cause him, reckless as he is, to do something rash and vengeful—perhaps to return hither on the instant, and—— O Mary, Mary, I would give five thousand pounds this day, if that would stop his coming to Mirk again!”

“Would that not stop him, mistress?” asked the waiting-maid with earnest gravity. “Five thousand pounds is a fortune, is it not?”

“It would not stop him, Mary,” rejoined my Lady sadly. “Ralph Gavestone, even in his youth-time, never valued money a fillip when weighed against a whim; and now his will is more a law to him than ever. I have never known Resolve so fixed as I read it in his eyes this night. And if he guessed the truth, Mary—oh, if he did but dream that I, his lawful wife, for whom he had gladly laid his own life down, whose memory he has kept fresh and green when all else has withered, whose loss has been his ruin, was playing him false!—he said himself, that on his reckless soul 'twas like as not there might be murder some day—and, Mary, I do believe him.”

White as the very moonbeams was my Lady's face, and the hand trembled which held the handkerchief she passed across her damp white brow.

“Not for myself, good Mary, is this fear,” gasped she, “but for my dear ones—do you hear them yonder? is it not sad to listen to such mirth?—for this unhappy man being wronged, becomes a madman straightway. Not disgrace alone may fall upon us here, not only shame—think of that, Mary; not only shame upon Sir Richard and the rest! but even Crime may visit us. This house of dead Sir Robert—once the home of peace, and genial ease, and hospitality——But that shall never be; no, they shall never meet, my sons and he; I will die rather, and my corpse would part them wide enough.”

“O mistress, talk not so; you freeze my very blood. What was it we were saying before you began to look like this?”

“You talked of bribing this Ralph Gavestone—for how could I offer him gold save as a bribe! But if a bribe, what need was there to bribe him? Why should I wish him once more upon the other side of the world? Why pay him a younger brother's portion, to quit the courtship of my waiting-maid? No, Mary, this man is no mère rogue, that he should take his money without question, and be off; he is suspicious, keen—and ah, if wronged, as implacable as Death itself.”

“One moment, my Lady!” cried Mistress Forest leaping to her feet. “I do believe I have a plan to get that letter back.”

“Ah, good Heaven! What is it, wise, kind heart?”

“See, madam,” and she began to reckon on her plump fingers, with her pleasant face aglow with mingled joy and astonishment at her own sagacity: “the note was put in late for the London post from Dalwynch; it will therefore remain there, though it has left Mirk, all to-night, and not be forwarded till the morning mail. If we drive over to-morrow early—starting, say, at six o'clock—we shall be in plenty of time to stop its going further. In the meantime, I will write another letter in its place.”

“You have saved me—for this time—I do believe, dear Mary; yes, we can drive to Dalwynch—I will give orders for the carriage to be ready at six—and still be back at the Abbey by breakfast-time. If we are pressed for the reason, we can give the true one—to a certain point, if needs must be—you had a mind to alter what you have written to your suitor.”

CHAPTER III. CONTRARY TO THE REGULATIONS OF HER MAJESTY'S POST-OFFICE.

SORELY did the fat coachman, who had no neck, inveigh against that caprice of his mistress which compelled his appearance at the front door upon the ensuing morning at an hour so altogether unexampled. If he had but heard that it was all upon the account of Mistress Forest, and the outlandish fellow who wore little gold rings in his ears, and that curly heard, so like the door-mat of the servants-hall, it is doubtful whether he would have obeyed such a premature behest at all; but as it was, he was sitting on the coach-box with the sleek nags before him, at the foot of the great steps which led down from the entrance-hall, at six o'clock to a minute. It was broad daylight of course, so bright that it made him wink again, as it flashed upon the glittering harness and the shining skins of the pampered beasts; but still it was not a time for a man of his years and girth to be hurried up and made to toil. “As late as you please at night, my Lady, and nobody ever heard Joe Wiggins utter a murmur,” muttered he; “but there's no constitushun as can stand such wear and tear as this.”

However that might be with Mr Wiggins, Miss Rose Aynton seemed to make uncommonly light of early rising, for, much to the astonishment of her hostess, she was up and dressed and in the breakfast-room when that lady made her appearance at half-past five.

“I happened to hear that you were going-out betimes, dear Lady Lisgard,” said she with her sweetest smile; “and getting up in these first summer mornings is such a treat to a poor London-bred girl like me; so, without saying a word to dearest Letty, I thought I would just fill her place for once, and make your coffee for you.”

“Thank you, Rose,” returned my Lady a little stiffly, for she had not intended that anybody, and far less one who was not a member of her own family, should have been a witness to her departure. “I have unpleasant business on hand which takes me to Dalwynch before the morning train starts.”

“If you are going to London,” began Rose hesitatingly, as if intending to send something by my Lady's hands to her aunt, “if it was not too much trouble”——“I am not going to London,” replied Lady Lisgard quietly. “I shall be back by the usual breakfast-hour, I have no doubt.”

Here my Lady sipped her coffee with the air of a connoisseur, and perceiving Miss Aynton was about to ask more questions, requested a little sugar; then a fresh supply of—no, not hot milk—some cream. Would the carriage never come round, and release her from this importunate girl.

“How glad the people will be to see you about again once more, Lady Lisgard,” observed Miss Aynton cheerfully. “You can't imagine how curious they have been to know why you have shut yourself up so long.”

“I was not aware that my movements were any business of theirs, Rose,” returned my Lady with severity, “nor, indeed, of anybody's except myself.”

“Very true,” answered Miss Aynton carelessly; “that is what I always told them. Besides, it is not pleasant to run the chance of meeting a rude and perhaps half-drunken ruffian like this man Derrick, when one knows he has made up his mind to address one upon the first opportunity.”

“Indeed!” said my Lady scornfully, “I assure you I was quite unaware of that dreadful menace.” She stole a glance over her cup, to see if there was anything to read in this strange girl's face; but there was nothing. As soon as she had finished her duties in connection with the coffeepot, she had taken a piece of fancy-work in her hands, in the execution of which she seemed entirely wrapped up.

“O yes; of course it is most ridiculous, but that is what all the village has been saying for these five months, more or less; and now that you are going out for the first time, when he has but left the place overnight, they are sure to say”——

“How do you know, Rose, that this man left Mirk last night?” inquired my Lady, setting down her cup, and looking at the young girl fixedly. Could it possibly have been she whom she had beheld lurking about the churchyard wall, and perhaps listening to the conversation, in the course of which Derrick had announced his intention of going at that late hour to Dalwynch, so as to be in time for the first up-train upon the morrow?

A faint flush stole over Miss Aynton's face, but by no means such a blush as is called “tell-tale:” it might easily enough have been caused by the mère directness of the question. “Your son, Mr Walter, told me,” replied she simply—“he is a great ally of this man's, you know.—Here is the carriage. I am afraid you will find it very dull, Lady Lisgard, taking this long drive all alone. If I thought that my company”——

“Thank you, Rose,” replied my Lady hastily; “it is most kind of you to offer it; but the fact is, I am going to take Forest with me. This visit to Dalwynch is mainly upon her account indeed. If the chariot held more than two, perhaps I should take you at your word; but as it is——See, I have a book for my companion.—Come, Forest; we have no time to lose.”

Mary had entered the room while she was speaking, and gave quite a start at seeing Miss Aynton at the breakfast-table. Her mistress was already cloaked, and had her bonnet on.

“To Dalwynch, my Lady?” said the footman, having put up the steps and closed the chariot-door.

“Yes; drive fast.”

“Which part of the town, my Lady?” for there were two roads to the post-town, the relative length of which from the Abbey depended upon what part of the place was to be visited.

Miss Aynton was standing on the last flight of the stone steps, and could hear every word that was spoken.

“Take the lower road,” replied my Lady very distinctly; and the well-hung chariot—pleasantest invention save the fair-weather Hansom, which the wit of coachmakers has yet sought out—rolled swiftly along the gravelled road.

“Then they are not going to the railway station,” exclaimed Rose aloud.

“No, miss,” assented the butler, as he stood at the open hall-door, regarding nature as though it were a novelty to him at that hour. “I should say it must be the postoffice. Perhaps my Lady wishes to get the letters this morning earlier than the Mirk's man can bring them.”

“Very likely, Roberts,” returned the young lady, a little disconcerted at her involuntary remark having been overheard. “Let us hope she will have good news. But I should scarcely have thought it was necessary to have gone herself.”

“Well, I am not so sure, miss. Mrs Rudd, the post-mistress at Dalwynch, is a great stickler for forms and that, and she might have made some difficulty, particularly as she did not obtain her place through our influence.”

“Whose influence, Roberts?”

“Ours, miss, to be sure. The Lisgard interest, you see, was given last election to the losing side. Although time was, I can well recollect, when poor Sir Robert had everything of that sort at his disposal that was vacant in these parts; but them yallers, they have gone and spoilt it all this time.” And with a sigh of regret for the golden age of patronage, and a shake of the head directed against the levelling opinions at present in the ascendant, Mr Roberts went off to his breakfast.

No sooner had the wheels of the chariot began to move, than Lady Lisgard observed to her companion: “You have the letter with you that I dictated last night, have you not?”

“Yes, my Lady; here it is, though not sealed down, in case you might have thought of anything to add.”

“No, Mary,” said her mistress, perusing it; “there is nothing here that I can better by thought, although I spent all night in thinking over it. A refusal could scarce be made shorter or more decided than this; there is not a trace of vacillation to give the most sanguine suitor hope.” Then, as if some other idea was expressing itself almost in spite of herself, she added: “Do I not look deadly pale, Mary?”

“Very white and worn, madam, as you well may.”

“But bad enough for people to observe who did not know the cause?”

“For some people, madam. She saw it sharp enough, if you mean her, my Lady,” and the waiting-maid made a significant gesture in the direction of Miss Rose Aynton.

“Nothing escapes her, bless you—nothing; and the sooner she's out of the house, under present circumstances—and indeed under every circumstance, in my opinion—the better.”

“You never liked her from the first, Mary,” said her mistress in the tone of one who argues against her own conviction. “We should not be uncharitable in our judgments of others, and particularly as respects young folks; we often set down as serious faults what in them is only thoughtlessness.”

“Miss Aynton is none of that sort, my Lady; she always thinks before she speaks, and takes a good long look before she leaps; and for all she seems as though butter would not melt in her mouth, she's as full o' schemes as a cat at a dairy-door. If there's cream to be got in this world, she'll get it, my Lady, I'll go bail, let the butter-milk fall to whose share it will.”

“I confess that I can't quite understand her,” said my Lady musing. “I am sure, when she first came, she seemed simple and unobtrusive enough; while, on the other hand, in her manner towards me of late”——

“Downright impudence, I call it, my Lady, in such a chit as she.”

“Well, I don't say that; but she is certainly not so respectful as she might be. I shall be sorry to send her back to London just as the summer is beginning, to live with her cross old aunt, whom she appears to dislike so; but I confess I think she has been here long enough.”

“Much too long, my Lady, much too long,” answered Mrs Forest gravely; “she has set more people in the house by the ears than you wot of. While Anne Rees, who used to be Miss Letty's maid, one would think Miss Aynton was her mistress now, so entirely has she got her under her thumb. She has ferreted out some folly of Anne's—Heaven knows how she did it, or what it is; but the girl's her slave. From whom but her did she learn that you were starting at this hour? And, again, why was not Miss Letty told as well as Miss Rose? Do you suppose she would have let anybody else make coffee for her mamma, if she had been aware of your departure? No, no. Then Miss Aynton will take credit to herself for not permitting Miss Letty to be called, and fatigue herself by getting up so early. Nasty, sly young hussy! That's just her way; uncommon civil, kind, and attentive until she gets the upper hand, and finds you under her thumb; then you begin to know her. We've found her out in the servants-hall, although she makes a fool of old Roberts yet. She actually told him, that at the last dinner-party at the Abbey she thought him the most distinguished-looking person in the room; but only wait till she catches him some afternoon at the Madeira! then he'll be her obedient, humble servant, without having any more pretty speeches. That's a bad, bold girl, ma'am, let her be ten times a lady born.”

Here Mistress Forest, indignantly tossing her head back, without making due allowance for her bonnet, came into sharp contact with the back of the chariot, and severely bit her tongue. My Lady was thereby enabled to interpose a remark.

“But why have you not told me a word of this before, Mary? I would never have permitted a guest of mine, and particularly a young lady to whom I stand in the relation of guardian while she is under my roof, first to ingratiate herself with my servants, and then to tyrannise over them in the way you describe. I never heard of anything more atrociously mean, and I think you have been wanting in your duty—let alone your personal regard for me, Mary—to have concealed the matter so long.”

“Begging your pardon, my Lady, you have nobody to blame but yourself for that,” observed the waiting-maid with asperity. “The only harsh words you ever spoke to me were about certain of Mrs Welsh's doings, of which I complained with reason, though I do not wish to refer to them now. What you said was this: 'Never abuse the affectionate relation in which we two stand, Mary, by causing me to side with you against your fellow-servants. I can deny you nothing, but do not vex me with talebearing. I hate all vulgar gossip, and despise those who bring it.' After a setting-down like that, it was not likely that I should give tongue about Miss Aynton's ways, nor let you know how she has made Anne Rees a spy upon us all. No, no; mind your own business, Mary Forest, says you; and I've minded it, my Lady, ever since.”

“Do not be angry with me, friend,” returned Lady Lisgard sadly; “I daresay I was wrong; and even if not, I have no heart to argue with you now.”

“And no wonder, poor dear,” assented the waiting-maid, greatly mollified. “I was a brute to bring it up against you just now in all this trouble; nor was it the right time, perhaps, to speak about Miss Aynton's goings on. Only you yourself said her manner was not quite what it used to be, and I was so afraid that she might be getting you, my Lady, under her thumb.”

“How could that possibly be, Mary? She surely cannot have the slightest suspicion of”—

“She sniffs something, my Lady, or she would not have been making your coffee this morning. However, let her sniff, only be you very careful to lock your desk; and when you want to say anything to me about you know who, come out of earshot of the keyhole of your own door.—Ah, wouldn't she, though? But I know better. A thief? No, I didn't say a thief, although, for the matter of that, she has a mind to steal from you, or I am much mistaken, something you value most on earth—your son. There now, I've said it.”

And the waiting-maid drew a very long breath, as though some oppressive weight was off her mind at last. She evidently expected her mistress to express astonishment, if not horror; and it was positively a disappointment to her when my Lady replied calmly: “I know all about that, Mary; but you are doing Miss Aynton wrong. She might have been my daughter-in-law if she liked, and yet, to my certain knowledge, she refused to be so.”

“She refused?”

“Most certainly she did. My son made her an offer in my presence, and she rejected him.—But here we are at Dalwynch. Tell Wiggins to stop at the post-office. Thank Heaven, there is plenty of time to spare. How my heart does beat!”

The waiting-maid pulled the check-string, and delivered her mistress's orders, but quite mechanically, without knowing what she said. In spite of the importance of what she had now so immediately to do, her mind was entirely occupied with the wonder of what she had just heard, and she kept repeating to herself: “And she rejected him? and she rejected him?” while her heightened eyebrows almost amalgamated with her hair.

Perhaps some of this excessive astonishment was due to poor Mistress Forest's peculiar position; she thought it so strange that one of her own sex should reject any man—who was not already married to somebody else.

“Here is the post-office, Mary. Mind you speak very civilly to the woman, and make haste; I shall be in a perfect fever till I see you come back with that dreadful letter safe in your hand.”

One minute, two minutes, three minutes—each seeming an hour to my Lady, shrinking in a corner of the chariot, while the omnibus to the station passed and repassed, picking up she knew not what passengers, and bearing Derrick himself, for all she knew, within it. At last Lady Lisgard could endure the suspense no longer. “John,” said she to the footman standing beside the door, “what is Forest about? Why does she not return?”

“She is talking to Mrs Rudd, my Lady. I think there is some dispute about a letter; for they are both in the post-office department.”

“Let me out, John,” exclaimed my Lady impatiently; and the next instant she had entered Mrs Rudd's establishment. This was, for the most part, a grocer's shop; one-fifth of it only being reserved for the reception and despatch of Her Majesty's mails. There were no customers at that still early hour; a young man who was sanding the floor with some ostentation, as though to imply that all the sand went that way, and none into the sugar, made a respectable pause as my Lady's silk swept by; and another, who appeared to be washing his hands in tea, assumed that sickly smile which is supposed by persons of his class to conciliate people of quality; but Mrs Rudd herself, intrenched behind her little post-office palisade, gave no sign of gracious welcome, and from out the pigeon-hole through which she distributed her stamps, her words poured forth in an undiminished stream of denial and severity; nay, I doubt whether the presence of my Lady did not intensify the bitterness of its tone.

“Whatever importance it may be to you to get this letter, Mistress Forest,” cried she, addressing poor Mary, who was looking very disconsolate, and not a little angry also, “it is of much greater moment to me that I should keep it. It is as much as my place is worth to give a letter back which has once been given into my charge; and I am not aware that I owe that place to my Lady Lisgard, and therefore feel called upon to risk——I beg pardon, your Ladyship—but I did not catch sight of you before. What your servant has come to ask of me is something out of the question. I will post this second letter for her—although it is two minutes past the time, even with an extra stamp, for that—but as for returning her this other: yes, I have no doubt it's hers—although, for that matter, people's handwriting is often very like other people's—but directly it reached this box it became the property of the Postmaster-general. It is no more hers now than it is mine; and if I was to yield it up, it's a matter, madam, that might be brought before the assizes.”

“Mrs Rudd,” said my Lady quietly, “I hope, although your late husband and my son were not quite of the same way of thinking as to politics, that you do not look upon me in an unneighbourly light. I do not wish to insult you by offering you a bribe; but I may say this much, that nobody ever put me under an obligation yet, without my endeavouring to recompense them to the best of my power.”

“Yes, my Lady—although I can't say as I have ever been overburdened with favours at your Ladyship's hands—I know what sugar and currants goes to the Abbey from Simmons' every week—enough for a regiment, I'm sure, and at such a price, too, and all because he voted blue”——

“Voting blue, Mrs Rudd,” interrupted my Lady, “is nothing at all compared with the good service you would do me, if you could only oblige my maid in the matter of this letter. Her future happiness, I may say, is bound up in the mère fact of that little note arriving or not at its destination.”

“Mr R. Derrick, Turf Hotel, Piccadilly,” muttered Mrs Rudd, looking at the address over the top of her silver spectacles. “I should like to have half the Abbey grocery custom very much, of course.”

“You shall have it,” whispered my Lady in broken tones.

“But I dare not do it,” continued the post-mistress. “This might be held over me—if it ever came to be known—so that I should never be my own mistress again, which, now that Rudd is gone, I mean to be. When you have once done an illegal action, my Lady, you may just as well be a slave—until you have taken your punishment. Somebody is sure to get wind of it, and to put you under their thumb.”

My Lady gave a ghastly smile, for speech was not in her.

“Look here, Mrs Rudd,” interposed Mistress Forest softly, “you are not asked either to destroy or to give up this letter—of the inside of which, if you please, I will tell you every word. It is written to my lover—that's the fact; and I am very, very anxious that he should receive it”—here she trod upon my Lady's foot with unmistakable emphasis—“should receive it by this night's post.”

“Well, so he will,” returned the postmistress, “in Piccadilly.”

“Yes, but Mr Derrick is not in Piccadilly,” urged the waiting-maid. “The direction should he 'Care of Mr Arthur Haldane'—what court is it, my Lady?—Yes; Pump Court, Temple. If you would only let me write that, Mrs Rudd, upon the envelope, instead of the present address, all mischief will be avoided. Would it not, my Lady?”

“There seems no great harm in that,” said Mrs Rudd reflectively.

“No harm whatever, and a great deal of good to you,” murmured the waiting-maid, as with a rapid hand she crossed out the words already written, and substituted for them the address of Mr Haldane's law-chambers. “Thank you kindly. Now, please to stamp this other. I am so much obliged.”

“And I too,” said my Lady graciously. “Be so kind, Mrs Rudd, as to let me take your list of groceries with me. What nice macaroni that looks—I find such a difficulty in getting it in the country pure.”

Mrs Rudd herself accompanied my Lady to her chariot, and courtesied to the ground as the chariot whirled away.

No sooner were they alone, than mistress and maid exchanged a hearty kiss. “Thank you, thank you, dear Mary,” cried the former; “without your presence of mind, what should we have done! I began to feel quite prostrate with despair, and even now I tremble to think how nearly we had failed. I could not go through such a scene again, I believe, even if my life depended upon it.”

“Ah, yes, you could, my Lady; and I only trust it may not be necessary for you to do so. There is nothing more, however, to be done at present, save to wait and hope—except the telegraph message. I ventured to tell John, 'To the Railway Station.'”

“Telegraph to whom, and about what, Mary?”

“We must let Mr Arthur know what he is to do with that letter, my Lady; otherwise, he may endeavour to forward it to the person to whom it is addressed.”

“Very true, dear Mary. I do believe that my wits are leaving me. By all means telegraph 'Burn it.' I wish I could repay you for your prudent thought, as easily as I can recompense Mrs Rudd for her complaisance.”

“Do not think of repaying me, my dear,” replied the waiting-maid fondly. “It is a heartfelt pleasure to find that I am not altogether useless in this strait. I am yours—yours—yours—my beloved mistress, and will be though every friend on earth should stand afar off, and you were forsaken by your very kith and kin.”

“But God forbid that should ever be the case, Mary!” ejaculated Lady Lisgard solemnly.

“Amen, my Lady—amen, I'm sure; but when the worst happens that can happen, you will please to remember you have Mary Forest still!”

CHAPTER IV. AN UNCHEERFUL PICNIC.

BY the time Lady Lisgard returned to the Abbey, notwithstanding that the sleek bays had devoured the road with all the haste of which their condition permitted, it was long past the breakfast-hour, and her absence from that meal provoked no little comment from the members of her family. Nobody was able to allay their curiosity as to what could have taken mamma to Dalwynch, but Miss Aynton did her best to stimulate it.

“She has gone upon Mary Forest's account,” said she—“that is all I can tell you. I never knew any one take such trouble about her maids as dear Lady Lisgard.”

“Yes, Rose,” replied Letty warmly; “but it is not every maid who has lived with her mistress thirty years. I believe Mary would lay down her very life for dear mamma, and indeed for any of us. Whenever I read those stupid letters in the papers about there being no good old servants to be seen now a days, I long to send the editor a list of our people at the Abbey. Mary, indeed, is quite a new acquisition in comparison with Wiggins and the gardener; but then she is almost faultless. I have heard mamma say that there has never been a word between them.”

“Not between them, indeed, Letty,” returned Miss Aynton laughing; “for Mistress Forest has all the talk to herself.”

Sir Richard smiled grimly, for Mary had been in his bad books ever since her attachment to “that vagabond Derrick.”

“Good, Miss Rose!” cried Walter—“very good. I wish I could say as much for this so-called new-laid egg. Why should eggs be of different degrees of freshness? Why not all fresh? Why are they ever permitted to accumulate?”

“My egg is very good,” observed Sir Richard sententiously; “how is yours, Miss Aynton?” and he laid an emphasis upon the name, in tacit reproof to his brother for having been so familiar as to say “Miss Rose.”

“Well, Sir Richard, I am London-bred, you know, and therefore your country eggs, by comparison, are excellent.”

“I wish I could think,” said the baronet with stateliness, “that in other matters we equally gained by contrast with Town, in your opinion.”

“I believe London is the place to get everything good,” remarked Walter sharply.

“We are going to-day, Miss Aynton,” continued the baronet, without noticing the interruption, “to offer you something which really cannot be got in town, and which hitherto the state of the weather has forbidden even here”——

“Ah, for shame, Richard!” interrupted Letty, holding up her hands. “Now, that was to be a surprise for Rose.—It's a picnic, my dear. I daresay now you scarcely know what that is.”

“I can tell you, then,” ejaculated Walter with acidity: “it's packing up all the things you would have in the ordinary course at luncheon in a comfortable manner—except the bread, or something equally necessary, which is always left behind—and carrying them about six miles to the top of an unprotected hill—in this particular case, to a tower without a roof to it—there to be eaten without tables or chairs, and in positions the most likely to produce indigestion that the human body can adapt itself to.”

“I have always been told that being in a bad humour is the most certain thing to cause what you eat to disagree with you,” observed Letty demurely.—“Never mind what Walter says. I am sure you will be delighted, dear Rose; we are going to Belcomb, a sort of shooting-box belonging to us, about five miles away, and built by grandpapa.”

“Commonly termed 'Lisgard's Folly,'” added Master Walter.

“Not by his descendants, however, I should hope, with one exception,” observed Sir Richard haughtily.—“I will thank you, Walter, not to cut my newspaper.”

Master Walter had seized the paper-knife as though it had been a more deadly weapon, and was engaged in disembowelling one of a multiplicity of newspapers which had just arrived by post.

“I did not see it was yours,” returned he. “Goodness knows, nobody wants to read the Court Journal but yourself. The idea of not liking one's newspaper cut!”

“Yes, I must say, my dear Richard,” said Letty, playfully patting her elder brother, next to whom she sat, upon the shoulder, “that is a most singular objection of yours, I think it certainly proves that you will always remain an old bachelor.”

Sir Richard maintained a frowning silence. Master Walter twirled his silken moustache, and looked up at Miss Aynton with a meaning smile.

“What is your opinion upon the subject,” said he, “Miss Rose?”

“Insolent!” exclaimed Sir Richard, rising so hastily that he knocked over the chair on which he had been sitting. “How dare you ask such questions in my presence?”

“Richard, Richard!” cried a reproving voice; and lo! at the open door stood my Lady, hollow-eyed and pale, and with such a weariness and melancholy in her tones as would have touched most hearts.—“Am I ever to find you and Walter quarrelling thus?—Yes, I have heard all, and think you both to blame; but nothing can excuse this violence. If I have any authority in this house at all, not another word, I beg.”

Sir Richard bit his lip, but resumed his seat; Walter went on quietly dissecting the Illustrated London News, with an air of intense interest; Miss Aynton very accurately traced the pattern of her plate with her fork; Letty, the innocent cause of the outbreak, shed silent tears. Altogether, the family picture was gloomy, and the situation embarrassing. My Lady reaped this advantage, however, that nobody asked her a word about her expedition to Dalwynch.

“Do not let me detain you at table, my dear Letty,” said she, breaking a solemn pause. “Miss Aynton was so good as to make my coffee this morning, and therefore it is only fair that she should perform the same kind office now.”

Glad enough of this excuse to leave the room—a movement felt by all to be very difficult of imitation—Letty rushed up stairs to indulge in a good cry in her own bedroom, “the upper system of fountains” only having been yet in play. Sir Richard gloomily stalked away towards the stables; Walter lounged into the hall, lit a cigar, and paced to and fro upon the terrace beneath the windows of the breakfast-room, with both his hands in his pockets. Whiffs of his Havana, and scraps of the opera tune which he was humming, came in at the open window, to those who yet remained. My Lady had much too good taste to dislike the smell of good tobacco, and the air which he had chosen was a favourite one with her; perhaps Master Walter hummed it upon that account. He was to leave the Abbey next day to join his regiment—although not immediately. It was only natural he should wish to spend a few days in London after he had had so much of the quiet of Mirk, and yet my Lady grudged them. How pleasant everything about him was; how dull the Abbey would be without him; what a sad pity it was that he and Sir Richard got on so ill. If she were to die, would they not turn their hacks on one another for ever, and he brothers no more; and if something worse than Death were to happen to her——No, she would not think of that. Had not all that could be done to avert such utter ruin been done that very morning? There was surely no immediate peril now—no necessity for such excessive caution and self-restraint as she had been obliged of late months to exercise; it was something to have breathing-space and liberty.

“I hope you are coming with us to the picnic, Lady Lisgard, now that that horrid man has gone?” said a cold quiet voice.

My Lady, looking out of window at her favourite son, and lost in gloomy depths of thought, had entirely forgotten that she had invited Miss Rose Aynton to bear her company. She did not venture to look upon her questioner's face, though she felt that it was fixed on hers, reading Heaven knew what. How had she dared to think of liberty with this domestic spy under her very roof! What should she answer to this dreadful question? Something this girl must know, or must suspect, or she would never have ventured thus to allude a second time to the man Derrick, after her rebuff in the morning. Above all things, she would follow Mistress Forest's advice, and get Miss Aynton out of Mirk Abbey. She had intended to speak to her respecting what had just occurred at the breakfast-table; that would also offer an opportunity to say something more.

“Yes, Rose, I am going with you to Belcomb. It is a very favourite spot of mine—very. It was about that expedition, partly, that I wished to speak with you. I was about to ask you to be very careful in your conduct towards my sons this day. It is the last time they will be together for weeks, perhaps. Be kind to my poor Richard. Of course, Walter knew nothing of what has passed between you and his brother; but the bow which he drew at a venture sent home a barbed shot.”

Miss Aynton bowed her head.

“You were sorry for that, Rose, I know. You cannot fail to see how irritable he has lately grown, poor fellow. The fact is, he has overestimated the strength of his own powers of self-constraint. Your presence is a perpetual trial to him.” My Lady paused, anticipating some reply to a hint so palpable; but Miss Aynton, who carried her fancy-work in her pocket, continued to develop a pansy in floss silk; and the flower opened in silence.

“Under these circumstances, dear Rose,” pursued my Lady, “do you not think it would be better—I know how embarrassing it would be to you to propose it, and therefore, although your hostess, I relieve you of the task—do you not think it would, on the whole, be wiser for you to leave us a little sooner than you had intended?”

The humming of the opera tune, and the odour of the Havana, were growing more distinct, and the elastic footfall on the gravel was coming very near.

“If I consulted my own feelings,” returned Miss Aynton, in firm, clear tones, “I should certainly have left Mirk before this, Lady Lisgard.”

“Hush, Miss Aynton, for Heaven's sake!” cried my Lady, “the window is open.”

“But unless Sir Richard himself,” pursued the girl in more subdued accents, “releases me from my promise to remain until after his birthday, I must, with your permission, madam, do so; otherwise, he might possibly imagine that his presence is too great a trial for me, and I should be loath indeed to have my departure so misconstrued.” There was bitterness in the tone with which she spoke, but determination too.

“I am to understand, then,” returned my Lady flushing, “that contrary to my advice and wish”——

“Mother, dear, here comes the Break,” cried Master Walter, from the terrace beneath, in his ringing cheerful tones. “I hope you have told Roberts about the prog.”

“Yes, dear, yes,” answered my Lady, lovingly even in her haste; then turning to the young girl, she whispered almost fiercely: “At least, Miss Aynton, you will shape your behaviour this afternoon as I requested. There is no time now to discuss the other matter.”

And indeed the butler entered the next moment with: “The Break is at the door, my Lady.”

Now, the Break was a very roomy vehicle, with accommodation within it for three times the party who were now about to occupy it, beside two seats at the back, like flying buttresses, for footmen. Yet Sir Richard chose to sit upon the box beside the driver, a place only selected (unless for smoking purposes) by persons with “horsey” characteristics, who prefer coachman's talk to that of their equals, and among whom the baronet could not be justly classed; but the fact was, the young man was in an evil temper, and desired no companionship but his own. He would have seen the whole expedition at the bottom of the sea—a metaphor open to the gravest objections, but which he used while arguing the matter with himself aloud—if it were not that that fellow Walter was going—and—and—he was not going to let him have all the talk to himself, that was all. True, Sir Richard had given up the idea of transforming Miss Aynton into Lady Lisgard; but still it was not pleasant to see another man making himself exclusively agreeable to her. He was annoyed with himself at having exhibited such passion at the breakfast-table, for the more he thought of it, the more he felt convinced that Walter's remark, although doubtless intended to be offensive, had not been made with any knowledge of his own rejected suit. Still, he was in a very bad temper,-and listened to the conversation going on behind his back with a moody brow, and every now and then a parting of the lips, through which escaped something the reverse of a prayer.

It was Walter, of course, who was talking.

“Inhabited!” said he in answer to some question of Miss Aynton's; “O dear, no. Belcomb never had a tenant but once, and I should think would never have another. One Sir Heron Grant and his brother took it two years for the shooting-season: a brace of Scotchmen whose ancestors dated from the Deluge, but so dreary a couple, that one wished that the family had started from a still earlier epoch, and been all washed away.”

“I thought Richard rather liked Sir Heron,” observed Letty simply.

“Yes, because he was a baronet; and birds of the same gorgeous plumage flock together, you know. There was nothing remarkable about him but his feathers, and he scarcely ever opened his mouth except to put food in it. It is said that in the old stage-coach times, he and his brother travelled from Edinburgh to London, and only uttered one sentence apiece. At York, the younger brother saw a rat come out of a wheat-rick. 'By Jove,' cried he, 'there's a rat!' The next morning, and after an interval of about eighty miles, Sir Heron replied: 'Ay, if Towser had seen that rat, he would have made short work of him.'”

“Well, it appears, they agreed, at all events,” returned Rose coldly. “After all, even a foolish remark is better than an ill-natured one.”

“The scenery is getting well worth your attention here,” observed Sir Richard, turning graciously round towards Miss Aynton. “Belcomb is a complete solitude, but for those who are contented with the pleasures of the country, it is a pleasant spot enough.”

“Can we see the house from here, Sir Richard?”

“No, not until we reach this Windmill, on the top of the hill. The private road branches out from the highway at that spot; and the mill is the nearest inhabited house to Belcomb.—By the by, mother, Hathaway must be spoken to about those sails of his—there, you saw how even old Jenny started at them—it is positively dangerous for horses to pass by. He must build up that old wall a foot higher, and put a gate up. Any stray cattle might wander in and get knocked down—the sails are so close to the ground.”

Master Walter had not at all relished Miss Aynton's rejoinder to his story; still less had he liked his brother's striking into the conversation; least of all did he approve of this landlord talk about repairs and alterations, which reminded him of his being a younger son, and having neither part nor lot in the great Lisgard heritage.

“There's the Folly,” cried he suddenly, with a view of changing the subject; “upon that cliff-like hill yonder, above that belt of trees.”

“What, that beautiful ivied tower!” exclaimed Rose.

“Yes; without a roof to it.”

“Well, at all events, it's very pretty,” said Miss Aynton reprovingly. “I am sure, Mr Walter, you ought to be grateful to your grandpapa for building so picturesque an edifice.”

“He might have made a road, however, to it,” observed Walter satirically; “a road and a roof, I do consider to be indispensable.”

“There's a beautiful winding path through the wood, Rose,” said Letty, “fifty times better than any road; and is not the piece of water charming? It is the only one with any pretension to be called a Lake in all the county.”

Certainly Belcomb deserved praise. A small but comfortably furnished house, embosomed in trees, through which were the pleasantest peeps of hill and dale, and spread before it quite a crystal tarn, with rocky islands so picturesquely grouped that they almost gave the notion of being artificial. It was as though a segment of the Lake-country had been cut off, and inserted into the very midst of Wheatshire.

It was as lonely, too, to all appearance, as any Cumberland mère. An old man and his wife, who were in charge of the place, came hirpling out with respectful welcomes, and the latter was about to remove the shutters of the drawing-room, when my Lady interposed.

“No, Rachel; we will not trouble you to do that. We are going to picnic at the Tower. You seem quite surprised to see us so early. I suppose nobody has been here yet upon the same errand.”

“Well, no, ma'am; nor is it likely, after your orders”——

“Oh, the fact is, mother,” interrupted Sir Richard with a little stammer, “I forgot to tell you about it; but Rinkel informs me there has been considerable damage done by parties coming here from Dalwynch and other places, and therefore he has put up a Notice to prohibit the whole thing in future.”

And, indeed, upon the path leading to “the Folly,” which could be approached by another way than that in front of the house, they presently came upon a board recently erected, which threatened Trespassers with all the rigour of the law.

There was a bitter sneer upon Captain Lisgard's handsome face, at this assumption of authority upon the part of his brother, and it did not soften when my Lady thoughtfully remarked: “Ah, well; that will certainly make the place very private.”

A curious reply, as Letty thought, at the time, for her mother to make, who was always so eager to oblige her neighbours, and who well knew how popular Lisgard's Folly was with the humbler class of townsfolk in the summer months. But she was destined to be vastly more astonished before that day was spent.

The little party, so strangely out of accord with one another, took their lunch, indeed, beneath the shadow of the Tower; but all those harmonious elements which are so absolutely essential to the success of a picnic were wanting. There were no high spirits, no good-humoured badinage, and not the ghost of a laugh. My Lady, singularly silent even for her, gazed around her on the familiar landscape, or regarded the shuttered cottage with a mournful interest, as though they reminded her of happier times. Miss Aynton, careful of what my Lady had enjoined, was studiously urbane to Sir Richard, but without obtaining the wished-for result; for while the baronet was thereby only rendered tolerably gracious, the captain grew intensely irritated. Poor Letty, who was the only one prepared to be agreeable, or had any expectation of enjoying herself, felt immensely relieved when the repast was concluded, and the horses were ordered to be “put to.” As for strolling about the grounds, and pointing out their varied beauties to Rose, as she had counted upon doing, that was no longer to be thought of. Sir Richard, as usual, offered his arm in stately fashion to his mother; but Master Walter, lighting a cigar, stood for a few minutes looking down with knitted brow upon the lake, then sauntered after them, without saying a word, and with both hands in his pockets.

“Dear Rose,” cried Letty, who watched these proceedings with little short of terror, “what have you said to make Walter so cross? I never saw him behave like that in my life. He did not even look at you. Would it be very wrong if you just ran after him, and said a word or two before we got into the carriage? I am so dreadfully afraid of a quarrel between him and Richard.”

“Just as you please, Letty,” returned Miss Aynton, looking pale, and a little frightened too; and forcing a laugh, she tripped down the zigzag path in pursuit of the exasperated captain.

Letty waited a reasonable time, watching the footman collect the débris of the entertainment, and pack the plate, and then, supposing their difficulty had been adjusted, followed upon the track of her friend and Walter. The path was not only of considerable length, but so very steep, that one little zigzag overhung another; thus, as she descended, she perceived through the thin Spring foliage the two young people standing beneath her, although they were quite unconscious of her approach. She caught the last words of something Rose was saying; those were: “Walter, dear.” She marked the girl stretch her arms towards him, as though she would have clasped them round his neck; and then she saw Captain Lisgard, of her Majesty's Light Dragoons, put her roughly by, shake himself free of her with a movement expressive almost of loathing, and turn upon his heels with an oath.

CHAPTER V. THE FINESSE IN TRUMPS.

IT is the Night before the Derby. The West End is thronged with men. The streets are perceptibly more thronged with well-dressed males than at any other time in the year. The May meetings brought enough of parsons and sober-coated laity to dull the living tide—to almost make us Londoners a mournful people (which we are, naturally, not, despite what Frenchmen say); but those grave ones have either departed from us, or are now lost and undistinguishable in this influx of gay company. All the newcomers are in their most gorgeous raiment, for is not this the great “gaudy” week of the Wicked? Half the officers of cavalry in her Majesty's sendee have obtained leave of absence for eight-and-forty hours upon urgent private affairs; and a fourth of the infantry have done the like; they have come up from every station within the four seas to see the great race run, which is to put in their pockets from five pounds to fifty thousand. Over their little books they shake their shining heads, and stroke their tawny moustaches in a deprecating manner, but each one has a secret expectation that “he shall pull it off this once;” for, upon the whole, our military friends have not been fortunate in turf transactions. There is a fair sprinkling, too, of respectable country gentlemen, who rarely leave their families to occupy their old-bachelor quarters at Long's or the Tavistock, except on this supreme occasion. Every fast university-man who can obtain an exeat upon any pretence whatever—from sudden mortality in the domestic circle down to being subpoenaed by a friendly attorney in the supposititious case of Hookey (a blind man) v. Walker—is up in town resplendent, confident, Young. Every sporting farmer, save those in the north, who have a private saturnalia of their own in the mid-autumn, has left his farm for two nights and a day, and is seeing life in London. Besides these, an innumerable host of well-dressed scoundrels—for whom the word “Welcher” is altogether too commendable—have come up from country quarters, where they have been playing various “little games,” all more or less discreditable, to work together for evil with their metropolitan confreres for four days.

Every haunt of dissipation is holding highest holiday. The stupid, obscene Cider Cellars find, for one night at least, that they have attractions still; the music-halls are tropical with heat and rankest human vegetation; Cremorne, after the crowded theatres have disgorged their steaming crowds, is like a fair. The strangers' room at all the clubs has been bespoken this night for weeks. In the card-rooms, the smoking-rooms, the billiard-rooms, there is scarcely space to move, far less to breathe in; yet there is everywhere a babblement of tongues, and the words that are most bandied about from feverish mouth to mouth, are first, The King, and secondly, Menelaus. The tout had kept his word—either from fear or nicest honour—until the stipulated week had elapsed, and then the news of the trial-race began to circulate: from his outsiders' place, to that of fourth favourite, then of third, and at last to that of second had “the French horse” gradually risen. A curious and illogical position enough—but then the turf-people are illogical—for if the news that he had beaten The King was true, he ought to have been first favourite; and if the news was not true, he had no reason to find favour at all. As it was, however, The King had come down half a point as if to meet him, to 9 to 2; while Menelaus stood at 5 to 1.

And had that trial-race really taken place or not? and if so, Was it on the Square? was the question which was just then agitating the Houses of Lords and Commons (nay, it was whispered, Marlborough House itself), and all the mess-tables in her Majesty's service, more than any other subject in this world. There was also a vague rumour that the favourite's “understandings” were not as they should be; that there was a contraction that might be fatal to his prospects; that the idol's feet were of clay.

Ralph Derrick had “put the pot on” his Many Laws, and would be a millionaire if he won; but Walter Lisgard had put more than the pot. If the French colours did not shew in front at the winning-post, the captain, still to use the elegant metaphor of the sporting fraternity, would be in Queer Street. So infatuated had the young man grown, that he had absolutely hedged even that one bet which insured him a thousand pounds in case The King should win the race. Notwithstanding his coyness in accepting the first offer of a loan from his uncultivated friend, he had borrowed of him twice since, in each case giving his I.O.U., whereby he endeavoured to persuade himself that he was liquidating all obligation; yet, unless he considered his mère autograph was worth the sums for which it was pledged, I know not how he succeeded in this. For if Menelaus did not happen to win, he not only would not have enough to discharge his debts of honour for nearly two years—when he would come into possession of his patrimony of five thousand pounds—but even a great portion of that would be bespoken. Thus, of course, he had placed himself, through mère greed, in a most unpleasant position; but at the same time it must be allowed that he had yielded to a great temptation, such as would probably have made the mouth of any financier water, had the opportunity offered in his particular line; for with the exception of mère outsiders, The King had beaten every horse that was to contend with him on the morrow; and Menelaus, to Walter's certain knowledge, had beaten The King.

Equinely speaking, then, it was a certainty that the French horse should win the Derby, in which case the young man's gains would be prodigious; for not only had he taken advantage of the original position of the animal in the betting, but as the odds grew less and less, had still backed him, until his possible winnings reached, on paper, to five figures; on the other hand, by this last piece of imprudence, his possible——But no, it was not possible. “Things surely wouldn't go so devilish cross with a fellow as that or to put the captain's thought in other words, the Government of the Universe being founded upon just principles, would never permit such a stupendous misfortune to overwhelm him; or, it might be, the gallant captain believed that Fortune was indeed a female, and would therefore hesitate to inflict calamity upon so pretty a fellow as himself. At the same time, the event of the morrow was so big with fate, that it was not pleasant to dwell upon it; and anything which could have prevented his mind from recurring to the same, would have been welcomed gladly. But there was but one thing that had the power to do this. His anxiety was far too deep to be flattered away by the smile of Beauty, or lost in the sparkle of Wine. The homoeopathic treatment, similia similibus, he felt was the only one that could now give him relief, and he therefore sought for rest from the cares of the racecourse in the excitement of the gaming-table. Do not, however, let it be supposed that the captain sought out any of those convenient establishments for the immediate transfer of property, which are guarded by iron doors, and always liable to the incursions of the police, who, upon breaking in, discover four-and-twenty gentlemen (one of whom has swallowed the dice), sitting round a green baize table in conversation about Music and the Fine Arts. Master Walter was rash in his speculations, but he was not madman enough to play chicken-hazard against foxes.

“I think I shall try my luck with the Landrails to-night,” observed he to his companion Derrick, stopping short in flaring Piccadilly, and biting-his nails. The two men had been occupying lodgings in the same house, the Turf Hotel being full; the younger finding a species of comfort in the society of the part-owner of Menelaus, who was even more confident of the success of that noble quadruped than himself.

“By all means, my lad,” returned the gold-finder simply, “although I don't know what they are; and so as you take me with you, I don't care.”

Three weeks ago, such a proposition would have, staggered the captain, or rather, he would have rejected it point-blank. To be seen in public with his uncouth and flashily-attired friend, was at that time a considerable trial to the fastidious light dragoon; but the immense interest which they had in common, had rendered the familiarity of the once odious Orson at first tolerable, and eventually welcome, and even necessary. He had taken him with him into quite exclusive circles, and, except on one occasion at the Rag, where Derrick, having drunk more champagne than was good for him, had offered to fight Major Pompus of the Fusiliers for what he liked, nothing unpleasant had taken place in consequence. Men observed: “What a deuced rum fellow Lisgard brought with him the other night;” but the said stranger had lost his money very good-naturedly at the whist-table, and it was understood that he had more to lose.

Under such circumstances, the gentlemen-players were very charitable. Mr Ralph Derrick did not play a first-rate game at whist; very few persons who have not been brought up in good society do; but his performance was not so inferior as to make success impossible for a night or two, however certain the ruin that would have overtaken him in the long-run. Moreover, he was never “put off his head” by the largeness of the stake, his habitual lavishness in money-matters rendering him indifferent to that matter. Captain Lisgard, on the other hand, though an excellent player, considering his tender years, was liable to have his nerves disorganised at any crisis of a rubber upon which an unusual amount depended.

“Yes,” repeated Master Walter, “I'll try my luck at the Landrails, and you shall come, too, Ralph. Any member has a right to introduce whom he likes.”

“Even a miner from Cariboo—eh, Master Walter, provided he's got money in his pocket? Well, I'm their man, whether it's for whist or all-fours.”

“All-fours!” repeated the captain with irritation. “Who ever heard of a gentleman playing at that game? Do, pray, be particular in what you say to-night. Whatever you do, call a knave a knave, and not a Jack. The Landrails is a very select place, Ralph, where men who like to play their whist more quietly than at the Rag look in for an hour or two rather late.”

“Heavier stakes, I suppose?” observed Derrick bluntly.

“Yes, rather. You see, there's always some row with the committee, if play gets beyond a certain height at the regular clubs. Now, this is a sort of friendly circle where the points are quite optional, and the bets too. Yes, I think I shall try my luck for a pony or two.”

“I don't think you look quite fit for whist, my lad, to-night,” returned Derrick, gazing gravely into the young man's haggard face. “To-morrow will be a trying day, remember; I think you had much better get to bed.”

“I couldn't do it, man!” replied Walter vehemently—“I dare not. I should never sleep a wink, and perhaps go mad with thinking before the morning. Look here, how my hand trembles. I have not nerves of iron, like you.”

“Poor lad, poor lad!” ejaculated the other with affectionate compassion. “Nothing, as you say, ever makes me tremble—except D. T. Ah, Heaven, but that is terrible! Never drink, lad, never drink;” and something like a shudder throbbed through the speaker's brawny frame.

“The Landrails meet here,” said Walter, stopping at the door of a private house in the neighbourhood of St James's Palace; “it is past eleven, and I daresay play has begun.”

“Who owns this house?” asked Derrick carelessly, surveying the unpretending tenement in question—“or rather, who pays the rent?”

“Well, I hope we shall, Ralph, this evening. The fact is, the hire of the rooms, the attendance, and even the cost of the refreshments, are all defrayed each night by the winners in proportion to their gains. Money does not change hands until the ensuing week, but the secretary enters all accounts in his ledger, and sees that they are duly squared. I am answerable for your liabilities to-night, so do you be careful with the liquors.”

As the youthful Mentor administered this wholesome piece of advice to his senior, the door opened, and they were admitted. It was a most respectable house, neither very large nor very small, and neatly but inexpensively furnished. The butler was a man who might have been the body-servant of an evangelical bishop, and whose conscience was troubled by the spiritual shortcomings of his right reverend master. To come upon so grave and sad a man upon the eve of the Derby Day, was quite a homily in itself. Through the open door of the dining-room could be seen a cold collation, at which men dropped in from above-stairs if they felt so disposed; but there were light refreshments in the drawing-room also, and a great variety of pleasant drinks. The Landrails were thirsty folks, and imbibed gallons of iced hock and Seltzer water; but they had not, as a rule, good appetites. There were three tables for whist, and one dedicated to piquet or écarté. All these had massive candlesticks screwed into their wood-work—perhaps only to prevent their falling off; but it also put a stop to any possible use of them as a weapon or missile, and I think that contingency had been also taken into account. A candlestick comes uncommonly handy to the fingers when luck has gone pertinaciously against one, and the man who has won all the money is personally hateful. Above all things, it was important, in that quiet, friendly circle, to repress all ebullition of temper, and to steer clear of all disputes. Nobody, one would hope, who was in a position to be admitted to that society, would stoop to cheating; but a little strap was inserted at the opposite corners of each table for the convenience of marking the score, wherein, when the counters were once placed, they could not he accidentally removed by the elbow. *

* Persons who are acquainted with the game of whist have informed me, that it is sometimes better—in the case of holding two by honours, for instance—to be at three than four.

The spacious room—for it was a double drawing-room—was by no means brilliantly lit up; a couple of bare wax-candles stood upon the refreshment-table, where, by the by, there was no attendant, each man helping himself at pleasure; but the other four pair in the room had shades over them, which dulled their radiance, although it caused them to throw a very bright light upon the tables themselves. When the new-comers entered, which they did quite unannounced, the sight struck one of them at least as a very strange one: three shining isles of light—for one whist-table was not in use—amid a sea of gloom; ten thoughtful faces with a sort of halo round them, and one or two sombre ones standing by like their evil genii, and watching, the play. There was not a sound to be heard at first, except the dull fall of the pieces of pasteboard, but presently a hand being finished in their neighbourhood, a sort of hushed talk began about what would have happened if somebody had under-played the diamond.

“What are the points?” whispered Derrick in his companion's ear.

“What are the points to-night, Beamish?” inquired Walter of one of the four, a very unimpassioned-looking young man, who replied with a most unpleasant and ghastly smile—as though he had cut his throat a little too high up: “Fives and fifties, my gallant captain, with the odds in ponies; so, being a younger son, I advise you to go to some other table.”

“Never mind, I am going to make a good marriage,” returned Walter coolly. Mr Beamish had been a penniless government clerk until he wedded the widow of an opulent builder with half a town for her jointure. “If you are not full,” added the captain, “I declare in here, for myself and friend.”

All four looked up for an instant at the threatened stranger; for your good player, intent on gain, detests the introduction of an unknown hand. Somehow or other, although the odds are two to one, “it's always his cursed luck to have him for a partner.” General Prim, who had been a martinet in the Peninsula, and as offensive to his fellow-creatures as less favourable circumstances had permitted ever since, gave a ferocious grin, and shook his single scalp-lock of gray hair like a malignant pantaloon. The Hon. Pink Hawthorne, attache at the court at Christiana, but absent from that lively capital upon sick-leave, wrenched his fair moustache this way and that, and frowned as gloomily as his foolish forehead would permit. The dealer, a Mr Roberts, an ancient bencher of one of the Inns of Court, paused with the trump card in his fingers still unturned. “Does your friend know what the Blue Peter means, Lisgard?”

“I've been a sailor half my life, sir, and it's devilish odd if I did not.” returned Ralph Derrick grimly.

“What the devil did the fellow mean?” added he to Walter as the game began, and all the four became at once automatons.

“It's the new system of asking for trumps,” answered Walter peevishly. “The same thing that they called the Pilot the other night. How ridiculous you have made yourself. See, there's another table up. Bless the man, not there, that's the piquet place.”

Ralph had quietly seated himself next to Major Piccalilli, of the Irregular Cavalry, Cayenne Station, Upper India, and had already disturbed his marking-cards, whereby that gallant officer was reduced to the verge of apoplexy with speechless rage.

“Stay, you shall stick to this one,” continued Walter in a low voice; “that fellow Beamish is hateful to me—and I will cut in yonder. There is not a muff-table in the room—all these beggars play too well.” With these words, the captain hurried away; and as soon as the rubber he had been watching was finished, Derrick was admitted of the conclave, to the exclusion of General Prim, who cursed that circumstance very audibly, and for a man of his advanced years, with considerable emphasis and vigour. Derrick fell as a partner to the lot of the gentleman who had inquired as to his proficiency in the art of asking for trumps.

“If you would only hold your cards a little more on the table, I should be able to see them myself,” remarked Mr Roberts with severity.

“If they look over my hands, sir,” returned Derrick reassuringly, “I'll forgive 'em: that's all.—If you won't take that old gentleman's bets”—referring to the general, who seemed extremely anxious to back their adversaries—“then I will;” and he did it—and luck went with him. There was nothing stronger than champagne to be got at in that respectable place of business, so Ralph kept his head, and won—a hundred and fifty pounds or so. Then, the table breaking up, he rose and stood over his young friend, to see how the cards were going with him.

“Bad,” muttered Derrick to himself, as he watched Walter running through his hand with eager haste, as a woman flirts her fan. His beautiful face was dark with care, his eyes flashed impatiently upon the man whose turn it was to lead.

“Our odds are in fifties, eh, Lisgard?” drawled his right-hand adversary, Captain and Lieutenant Wobegon of the Horse Guards' azure.

MIRK ABBEY,

By James Payn

The Author of “Lost Sir Massengberd;” “the Clyffards Of Glyffe;” etc., etc.

In Three Volumes. Vol. II.

London: Hurst And Blackett, Publishers,1866.

CHAPTER I. MISTRESS AND MAID.

CHAPTER II. CONFESSION.

CHAPTER III. CONTRARY TO THE REGULATIONS OF HER MAJESTY'S POST-OFFICE.

CHAPTER IV. AN UNCHEERFUL PICNIC.

CHAPTER V. THE FINESSE IN TRUMPS.

London: Hurst And Blackett, Publishers,
1866.