so pale and ghostly in the wood. The first was Rachel, who, greatly exhilarated by her unusual freedom, and by all that had happened during these few days past, almost led the little party, protesting she was sure to know Charlie, and very near giddy in her unthinking and girlish delight. The second was Agnes, who was very thoughtful and somewhat grave, yet still could answer her companion; the third, a step behind, coming along very slow and downcast, with her veil over her drooping face, and a shadow upon her palpitating little heart, was Marian, in whose gentle mind was something very like a heavy and despondent shadow of the tumult which distracted her betrothed. Yet not that either for there was no tumult, but only a pensive and oppressive sadness, under which the young sufferer remained very still, not caring to say a word. "What would papa say?" that was the only audible voice in Marian Atheling's heart.

"There now, I am sure it is himthere he is," cried Rachel; and it was Charlie, beyond dispute, shouldering his carpet-bag. The greeting was The greeting was kindly enough, but it was not at all sentimental, which somewhat disappointed Rachel, at whom Charlie gazed with visible curiosity. When they turned with him, leading him home, Marian fell still farther back, and drooped more than ever. Perhaps the big boy was moved with a momentary sympathy-more likely it was simple mischief. "So," said Charlie in her ear, "the Yankee's cut

through his own arm roughly but kindly, pleased to feel his own boyish strength a support to her. Marian was so young too - very little beyond the rapid vicissitudes of a child. She bounded forward on Charlie's arm at the words, drooping no longer, but triumphant and at ease in a moment, hurrying him up the ascending high-road at a pace which did not at all suit Charlie, and outstripping the entire party in her sudden flight to her mother with the good news. That Papa should not be angry was all that Marian desired or hoped.

At the door, in the darkness, the hasty girl ran into Mamma's arms. "My father is not angry," she exclaimed, out of breath, faithfully repeating Charlie's words; and then Marian, once more the most serviceable of domestic managers, hastened to light the candles on the tea-table, to draw the chairs around this kindly board, to warn Hannah of the approach of the heir of the house. Hannah came out into the hall to stand behind Mrs Atheling, and drop a respectful curtsey to the young gentleman. The punctilious old family attendant would have been inconsolable had she missed this opportunity of" showing her manners," and was extremely grateful to Miss Marian, who did not forget her, though she had so many things to think of of her own.

The addition of Rachel slightly embarrassed the family party, and it had the most marvellous effect upon Charlie, who had never before known any female society except that of his sisters. Charlie was full three years younger than the young strangerdistance enough to justify her in treating him as a boy, and him in conceiving the greatest admiration for her. Charlie, of all things in the world, grew actually shy in the company of his sister's friend. He became afraid of committing himself, and at last began partly to believe his mother's often repeated strictures on his "manners." He did unquestionably look so big, so brusque, so clumsy, beside this pretty little fairy Rachel, and his own graceful sisters. Charlie hitched up his great shoulders, retreated under the shadow of

all those cloudy furrows on his brow, and had actually nothing to say. And Mrs Atheling, occupied with her husband's long and anxious letter, forbore to question him; and the girls, anxious as they still were, did not venture to say anything before Rachel. They were not at all at their ease, and somewhat dull as they sat in the dim parlour, inventing conversation, and trying not to show their visitor that she was in the way. But she found it out at last, with a little uneasy start and blush, and hastened to get her bonnet and say good-night. No one seemed to fear that it would be difficult to find Rachel's escort, who was found ac

cordingly the moment they appeared in the garden, starting, as he did the first time of their meeting, from the darkness of the angle at the end of the hedge. Marian ran forward to him, giving Charlie's message as it came all rosy and hopeful through the alembic of her own comforted imagination. "Papa is quite pleased,” said Marian, with her smiles and her blushes. She did not perceive the suppressed vexation of Louis's brow as he tried to brighten at her news. For Marian could not have understood how this haughty and undisciplined young spirit could scarcely manage to bow itself to the approbation and judgment even of Papa.

"And now, Charlie, my dear boy, I quite calculate on your knowing about it, since you have been so long at the law," said Mrs Atheling: "your father is so much taken up about other matters, that he really says very little about this. What are we to do?"

Charlie, whose mobile brow was shifting up and shifting down with all the marks of violent cogitation, bit his thumb at this, and took time before he answered it. "The first thing to be done," said Charlie, with a little dogmatism, "is to see what evidence can be had-that's what we have got to do. Has nobody found any papers of the old lady's? she was sure to have a lot-all your old women have." "No one even thought of looking," said Agnes, suddenly glancing up at the old cabinet with all its brass rings--while Marian, restored to all her gay spirits, promptly took her brother to task for his contempt of old women. "You ought to see Miss Anastasia-she is a great deal bigger than you," cried Marian, pulling a shaggy lock of Charlie's black hair.

"Stuff!-who's Miss Anastasia?" was the reply.

"And that reminds me," said Mrs Atheling, "that we ought to have let her know. Do you remember what she said, Agnes?-she was quite sure my lord was thinking of something -and we were to let her know."

"What about, mother?-and who's

Miss Anastasia?" asked Charlie once more: he had to repeat his question several times before any answer came.

"Who is Miss Anastasia? My dear, I forgot you were a stranger. She is

well, really I cannot pretend to describe Miss Rivers," said Mrs Atheling, with a little nervousness. "I have always had a great respect for her, and so has your father. She is a very remarkable person, Charlie. I never have known any one like her all my life."

"But who is she, mother? Is she any good?" repeated the impatient youth.

Mrs Atheling looked at her son with a certain horror. "She is one of the most remarkable persons in the county," said Mrs Atheling, with all the local spirit of a Banburyshire woman, born and bred-" she is a great scholar, and a lady of fortune, and the only child of the old lord. How strange the ways of Providence are, children!-what a difference it might have made in everything had Miss Anastasia been born a man instead of a woman. Indeed," confessed Mamma, breaking off in an under-tone, “I do really believe it would have been more suitable, even for herself.”

"I suppose we're to come at it at last," said Charlie despairingly: "she's a daughter of the tother lord-now, I want to know what she's got to do with us."

"And she hates Lord Winterbourne," said Marian in an expressive appendix, with a distinct emphasis of sympathy and approval on the words.

"Now I call that satisfaction," said Charlie," that's something like the thing. So I suppose she must have had to do with the whole business, and knows all about it-eh? Why didn't you tell me so at oncewhy, she's the first person to see, of course. I had better seek her out to-morrow morning-first thing."

"You!" Mamma looked with motherly anxiety, mixed with disapproval. It was so impossible, even with the aid of all partialities, to make out Charlie to be handsome. And Miss Anastasia came of a handsome race, and had a prejudice in favour of good looks. Then, though his large loose limbs began to be a little more firmly knitted and less unmanageable, and though he was now drawing near eighteen, he was still only a boy. "My dear," said Mrs Atheling," she is a very particular old lady, and takes dislikes sometimes, and very proud besides, and might not desire to be intruded on; and I think, after all, as you do not know her, and they do I think it would be much better if the girls were to go."

"The girls!" exclaimed Charlie with a boy's contempt- a great deal they know about the business! You listen to me, mother. I've been reading up hard for six months, and I know something about the evidence that does for a court of law-women don't it's not in reason; for I'd like to see the woman that could stand old Foggo's office, pegging in at these old fellows for precedent, and all that stuff. You don't suppose I mind

what your old lady thinks of meand I know what I want, which is the main thing, after all. You tell me where she lives-that's all I want to know-and see if I don't make something of it before another day."

"Where she lives?-it is six miles off, Charlie: you don't know the way and, indeed, you don't know her either, my poor boy."

Don't you trouble about thatthat's my business, mother," said Charlie;" and a man can't lose his way in the country unless he triesa long road, and a fingerpost at every crossing. When a man wants to lose himself, he had better go to the City -there's no fear in your plain country roads. You set me on the right way

you know all the places hereabout and just for this once, mother, trust me, and let me manage it my own way."

"I always did trust you, Charlie," said Mrs Atheling evasively; but she did not half like her son's enterprise, and greatly objected to put Miss Anastasia's friendship in jeopardy by such an intrusion as this.

However, the young gentleman now declared himself tired, and was conducted up-stairs in state, by his mother and sisters-first to Mrs Atheling's own room to inspect it, and kiss, half reluctantly, half with genuine fondness, the little slumbering cherub faces of Bell and Beau. Then he had a glimpse of the snowy decorations of that young-womanly and pretty apartment of his sisters, and was finally ushered into the little back-room, his own den, from which the lumber had been cleared on purpose for his reception. They left him then to his repose, and dreams, if the couch of this young gentleman was ever visited by such fairy visitants, and retired again themselves to that dim parlour, to read over in conclave Papa's letter, and hold a final consultation as to what everybody should do.

Papa's letter was very long, very anxious, and very affectionate, and had cost Papa all the leisure of two long evenings, and all his unoccupied hours for two days at the office. He blamed his wife a little, but it was very quietly, he was grieved for the premature step the young people had

taken, but did not say a great deal about his grief, and he was extremely concerned, and evidently did not express half of his concern, about his pretty Marian, for whom he permitted himself to say he had expected a very different fate. There was not much said of personal repugnance to Louis, and little comment upon his parentage, but they could see well enough that Papa felt the matter very deeply, and that it needed all his affection for themselves, and all his charity for the stranger, to reconcile him to it. But they were both very young, he said, and must do nothing precipitate-which sentence Papa made very emphatic by a very black and double underscoring, and which Mrs Atheling, but fortunately not Marian, understood to mean that it was a possibility almost to be hoped for, that this might turn out one of those boy-and-girl engagements made to be broken, and never come to anything after all.

It was consolatory certainly, and

set their minds at rest, but it was not a very cheering letter, and by no means justified Marian's joyful announcement that " papa was quite pleased." And so much was the good father taken up with his child's fortune, that it was only in a postscript he took any notice of Lord Winterbourne's summons and their precarious holding of the Old Wood Lodge. "We will resist, of course," said Papa. He did not know a great deal more about how to resist than they did, so he wisely left the question to Charlie, and to "another day."

And now came the question, what everybody was to do? which gradually narrowed into much smaller limits, and became wholly concerned with what Charlie was to do, and whether he should visit Miss Anastasia. He had made up his mind to it with no lack of decision. What could his mother and his sisters say, save make a virtue of necessity, and yield their assent.

Early on the next morning, accordingly, Charlie set out for Abingford. It was with difficulty he escaped a general superintendence of his toilette and prevailed upon his mother to content herself with brushing his coat, and putting into something like arrangement the stray locks of his hair; but at last, tolerably satisfied with his appearance, and giving him many anxious instructions as to his. demeanour towards Miss Anastasia, Mrs Atheling suffered him to depart upon his important errand. The road was the plainest of country roads, through the wood and over the hill, with scarcely a turn to distract the regard of the traveller. A late September morning, sunny and sweet, with yellow leaves sometimes dropping down upon the wind, and all the autumn foliage in a flush of many colours under the cool blue, and floating clouds of a somewhat dullish yet kindly sky. The deep underground of ferns, where they were not brown, were feathering away into a rich yellow, which relieved and

brought out all the more strongly the harsh dark green of these vigorous fronds, rusted with seed; and piles of firewood stood here and there, tied up in big fagots, provision for the approaching winter. The birds sang gaily, still stirring among the trees; and now and then into the still air, and far-off rural hum, came the sharp report of a gun, or the ringing bark of a dog. Charlie pushed upon his way, wasting little time in observation, yet observing for all that, with the novel pleasure of a town-bred lad, and owning a certain exhilaration in his face, and in his breast, as he sped along the country road, with its hedges and strips of herbage; that straight, clear, even road, with its milestones and fingerposts, and one market-cart coming along in leisurely rural fashion, half a mile off upon the far-seen way. The walk to Abingford was a long walk even for Charlie, and it was nearly an hour and a half from the time of his leaving home, when he began to perceive glimpses through the leaves of a little maze of water,

two or three streams, splitting into fantastic islands the houses and roofs before him, and came in sight of an old gateway, with two windows and a high peaked roof over it, which strode across the way. Charlie, who was entirely unacquainted with such peculiarities of architecture, made a pause of half-contemptuous boyish observation, looking up at the windows, and supposing it must be rather odd to live over an archway. Then he bethought him of asking a loitering country lad to direct him to the Priory, which was done in the briefest manner possible, by pointing round the side of the gate to a large door which almost seemed to form part of it. "There it be," said Charlie's informant, and Charlie immediately made his assault upon the big door.

Miss Rivers was at home. He was shown into a large dim room full of books, with open windows, and green blinds let down to the floor, through which the visitor could only catch an uncertain glimpse of waving branches, and a lawn which sloped to the pale little river: the room was hung with portraits, which there was not light enough to see, and gave back a dull glimmer from the glass of its great bookcases. There was a large writing-table before the fireplace, and a great easy-chair placed by it. This was where Miss Anastasia transacted business; but Charlie had not much time, if he had inclination, for a particular survey of the apartment, for he could hear a quick and decided step descending a stair, as it seemed, and crossing over the hall. "Charles Atheling-who's Charles Atheling?" said a peremptory voice outside. "I know no one of the name."

With the words on her lips Miss Anastasia entered the room. She wore a loose morning-dress, belted round her waist with a buckled girdle, and a big tippet of the same; and her cap, which was not intended to be pretty, but only to be comfortable, came down close over her ears, snow white, and of the finest cambric, but looking very homely and familiar indeed to the puzzled eyes of Charlie. Not her homely cap, however, nor her odd dress, could make Miss Anastasia less imperative or formi

dable. "Well, sir," she said, coming in upon him without very much ceremony, "which of the Athelings do you belong to, and what do you want with me?"

"I belong to the Old Wood Lodge," said Charlie, almost as briefly, "and I want to ask what you know about it, and how it came into Aunt Bridget's hands."

What I know about it? Of course I know everything about it," said Miss Anastasia. "So you're young Atheling, are you? You're not at all like your pretty sisters; not clever either, so far as I can see, eh? What are you good for, boy?"

Charlie did not say stuff!" aloud, but it was only by a strong effort of self-control. He was not at all disposed to give any answer to the question. What has to be done in the mean time is to save my father's property," said Charlie, with a boyish Hush of offence.

"Save it, boy! who's threatening your father's property? What! do you mean to tell me already that he's fallen foul of Will Atheling?" said the old lady, drawing her big easychair to her big writing-table, and motioning Charlie to draw near "Eh? why don't you speak? tell me the whole at once."

"Lord Winterbourne has sent us notice to leave," said Charlie; "he says the Old Wood Lodge was only Aunt Bridget's for life, and is his now. I have set the girls to look up the old lady's papers; we ourselves know nothing about it, and I concluded the first thing to be done was to come and ask you.”

Good," said Miss Anastasia; "you were perfectly right. Of course it is a lie.'

This was said perfectly in a matterof-course fashion, without the least idea, apparently, on the part of the old lady, that there was anything astonishing in the lie which came from Lord Winterbourne.