tending to peep about for it. "Look if she has put it upon the chimney-piece or in my work-basket."

"Your brother has been here and he left it," added Mr. Joshua, to stave off the impatience that had flashed into Robert's eyes.

The card was not found in either of the places indicated by the housekeeper, and from her expression of stealthy glee, the most probable supposition was that she had either destroyed or hidden it where it would not readily be discovered; for she had recently developed a magpieish tendency to appropriate and conceal trifling matters, which she exercised on Robert's property more than any one else's; though it was not easy for her to keep her hands off anything that she saw lying about in a casual manner. Robert saw at once that search and inquiry would be equally vain, so, after Betsy had been summoned and had denied all knowledge of the card, he resigned himself to its loss. His uncle made another effort.

"Feel in your pocket, Mrs. Eliotson; if, by any chance, you may have it put there," he suggested, mildly.

"You know I never put anything in my pocket, sir," replied she, with a tartness which convinced Robert that his brother's card was lurking in the depths of that treacherous receptacle at that very moment.

"Cyrus was vastly disappointed not to see you, and I think he wrote on the card when he should come into the town again. I wish I had observed it," said Mr. Joshua.

Robert commenced his tea in patience; he had resolved that when Pussy fell asleep after tea he would pick her guilty pocket of his own property, nefarious as such a transaction might appear under other circumstances.

"I had the honour of speaking to Mr. Cyrus," by-and-by said the housekeeper, blandly; " and he seemed to me to have grown into a very fine and distinguished-looking young gentleman indeed; only rather too haughty for his place, which is a pity, for we are told that pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall, and none of us would like to see him so humbled."

Neither Robert nor his uncle made any response to this pious observation, which apparently chafed the deliverer, for she became rather impetuous in her way of handling the crockery, and, as a climax, upset a cup of tea, which she was about to hand to Robert; in ostentatious haste she wafted out

5-2

her handkerchief to stay the flood until Betsy could arrive, and, in so doing, jerked Cyrus's card from her pocket upon the carpet. With boyish vivacity, Robert was down upon it in an instant, and only just in time, for if Pussy's movements were stealthy, on occasions also they were swift. Her hand came in contact with his upon the floor, and Robert raised his face red and laughing and triumphant, for though he had received a slight scratch, he had secured the card. For some minutes after the scurry the housekeeper appeared bewildered and vacant, but she soon recovered, and went on exactly as if nothing had happened.

"So sorry you were not in, dear Robin," the card said, "for I cannot come into Walton again till Sunday. We are at Hadley for a month and must meet oftenThere was

an attempt at something more, which had been given up, because, as Mrs. Eliotson explained, Cyrus's horse was fidgety and would not stand to let him write further, so he threw her the card, and rode off.

"He will come on Sunday-is that a leisure day amongst great folks as well as small?" said Mr. Joshua Hawthorne. Robert did not much care what it was so long as his brother came to see him, and all the rest of the week he lived in a state of the happiest anticipation. But on Sunday, instead of Cyrus in person, there came only a messenger with a letter-a most disappointing substitute.

in

Cyrus did not mean to be unkind: he did not mean to slight Robert or to be selfish, but the fact was, this meeting did not seem so great an event to him as to his brother, and he betrayed it. He said in his letter that there was company at Hadley which he did not like to lose, and he would come on the following day. Robert wondered what company the world would have tempted him to forego the sight of Cyrus even for an hour! Mrs. Eliotson remarked with a too visible satisfaction that she feared Cyrus had grown rather too fine for such humble folk as they were in Maiden Lane, but Robert would not hearken to that, he was sure he would come on the Monday.

But on the Monday something else intervened, and again and again, until Robert's heart ached with disappointment. When he appeared, at last, it was with warm affection and overflowing excuses; but Cyrus's brother was never the one to reproach him, and he did not reproach him now. Cyrus never perceived how he had been hurt, and, fancying that

"dear old Robin" would bear with anything, he neglected him more than was quite kind or brotherly.

We must accept in his excuse the plea Robert accepted--there was somebody at Hadley Royal whom he could not bear to leave. Robert could sympathize with him in some degree. The evenings at Peter Carlton's seemed very strange, and long, and dull, since Lilian went away.

:

THE rich exuberance of August blushed over the corn which was falling beneath the sickle of the reaper in a thousand fields already the full fruit acknowledged by a warm glow upon its greeny gloss the kiss of the ripening sun; the garden-plots blazed with the rich reds, and purples, and oranges of the mature age of the year; the woods were darkly draped in their heavy verdurous robes of sombre green. The white-bearded barley waved to its fall; the ripened grasses, dusk brown amongst the hundred-hued wildflowers on wold, in glen, by wood-walk, by shady hedge-row, trembled in the faint air; the little brooks ran slow and almost dry, where the purple bloom of the heather was out upon the moors; and the great bounteous sea lay under the glowing silence of the sky, like an ample mirror, reflecting its

cloudless glory of blueness. The meadows, greenly springing under the sweet night rains after the hay was ingathered, showed each its family of sleek and dappled kine with the lord of the herd browsing peacefully in their midst; beneath the broad shade of elm or ash, or in the shallow ponds, they stood in groups, sheltering from the noontide, and lazily ruminating. Upon the broad wolds were the great flocks of white sheep, scattered like snow-flakes to the distant eye, and from them came the low tinkle of the bell worn by the chief of the flock, chiming harmoniously with the soft summer song of birds, and the gentle rustle of the happy sounding leaves. The east terrace under the ivy-clad walls of Hadley Royal lay all in deep shadow with the rich valley of the Gled stretching into far-away sunshiny miles below it.

A large party of Sir Philip Nugent's guests had turned out there to breathe the scented warmth of the August afternoon. Seated on a garden chair, close by the grand entrance, were Lady Nugent and Lady Leigh; Mistress Alice Johnes had deposited her bulky insignificance upon one of the lowest steps near at hand, and was drowsily purring in her idleness, like a cat désœuvrée. Lilian Carlton was down on her knees teaching a frolicsome spaniel puppy how to beg for almond biscuit, which she had brought out from luncheon, and little Lola was twisting up a wreath of gaudy flowers, with which she presently crowned herself.

At a short distance from these was a second scattered group, consisting of Sir Philip Nugent, his son Cyrus, Mr. Nugent of the Leasowes, and four ladies: three young, and one elderly -mother and daughters, in fact-Lady Eleanor Lowther and her three Graces-Sophia, Caroline, and Phyllis. Lady Eleanor Lowther had been a noted beauty in her day, and her celebrity was reflected on her girls: they all had the reputation of beauties; but only Phyllis, the youngest, deserved it; the other two were spare in form, and insipid in face; but she was a fair, laughing, blushing, dimpled Hebe, fascinating and captivating exceedingly. It was to her that Cyrus Hawthorne Nugent was devoting himself—rather more earnestly than her playfulness seemed to appreciate. Her sisters were sitting silent and dignified, giving weary ear to the prosiness of the widowed Nugent of the Leasowes, and her mother, with an eye on each one of them, was holding Sir Philip Nugent in conversation. She was eminently pastoral in her remarks, which, for a woman whose life had been

passed in a whirl of gaiety, and whom the country bored to extinction, seemed almost inexplicable.

"You have a prospect from this terrace, as gloriously beautiful as it is expansive, Sir Philip," said she, with a patronizing wave of her fair hand towards the valley. "There is a richness, a variety, an affluence, in it that charms me."

Sir Philip Nugent's glance followed the sweep of Lady Lowther's hand, and paused, at last, upon the laughing face of Phyllis. When Phyllis laughed, she had a pretty way of throwing back her head, a gesture which displayed the smooth whiteness and exquisite setting on of her neck; then she opened her mouth, and disclosed two tiny even rows of pearls, shining in an arch of vivid coral, and the laugh rang out soft and clear as a peal of bells over her pouting lips. Sir Philip's glance, pausing on this bright vision, lingered there half absently. Lady Eleanor continued to rhapsodize, and forgave him that he did not listen. She was a woman of the world, worldly—also, she was a mother with three daughters to

marry.

"Hadley Royal," said she, with an unctuous mouthing of the wealth-suggesting word, "Hadley Royal is the most complete place of its kind in the kingdom. I have always thought so, and not its least charm is that, look round you from what point you will, the eye rests only on your own possessions. But pardon me, Sir Philip, an old woman's privilege-do you owe nothing to these broad acres that enrich you? Has this stately pile, the birth-place and mausoleum of twenty generations of your race, no claim upon you?

Sir Philip removed his gaze from fair Phyllis Lowther to his son. He was far fonder of Cyrus, far prouder of him, than of all his buried ancestors. The young man had a very noble visage-an air frank, kindly, and courageous; he looked as if he were accustomed to find favour and indulgence, and to expect it-pity that he was only a natural son!

"I am glad that my William married early," Lady Eleanor went on. "Men and women of our rank owe a duty to the times to come. 'Twas but yesterday that Lady Leigh and I were regretting how this magnificent place must find its heir in your cousin of the Leasowes. Those Bedinfield Nugents are not of the true blood, curmudgeons that they are."

Sir Philip smiled hardly.

“Tom learnt "You are severe on my cousin," replied he ; the value of money from his mother, who was the most penn