She thought it a very dull breakfast-party, for the forehead) I have not the slightest idea what you whole length of the table separated her from have been talking about." Frederick, and she sat between the Alexanders, "I beg your pardon, my dear; I am the most father and son. The father Alexander was talking politics with perfectly disinterested enthusiasm, for nobody seemed to be listening to him; and the son was afflictingly minute in his attentions. Agnes sat opposite, with a quiet scowl on her face, which it gave you a sick headache to look at, and uncle John was absent on some farming business. It was altogether a deplorable breakfast. However, just as it was completed, uncle John came in with a face like the concentrated essence of a dozen firesides, and a voice that seemed to be compounded of the singing of kettles upon their hobs, the crowing of vigorous babies on all fours upon their hearth-rugs, and the music of Paddy O'Rafferty played at a rattling pace by drums and fifes outside the window. He was an embodied laugh-a hurrah personified. It was out of the question for anybody to be low-spirited in his presence-he was worth all the camphor julep and sal volatile in the world. "Well, young people!" cried he, rubbing his hands, "I've got a scheme for you!" "Indeed! and pray what is it?" replied Melissa, with a good-humor and alacrity which showed that she rather liked the style of his address. "Oh yes, yes!" answered he, you are included too-it is a scheme for us all, old and young, girls and boys. Such splendid weather too-not a cloud in the sky; upon my word and honor it would be a sin if we didn't. I think if we have the chariot and the phaeton-and then there will be the Woodleys' carriage and Alexander's gig; it will look magnificent in this weather, noisy, thoughtless fellow in the world; I believe I shall be a boy all my life, and I never can recollect that we are not all of us as young as we used to be." He now lowered his voice, and addressed his irate sister in the quietest and most explanatory tone, as you might speak to a superannuated person, whose intellect it was extremely difficult to awaken, and whose temper it was necessary to soothe in a very cautious and conspicuous manner. "It is a pic-nic, my dear-a party in the open air." per "I believe he thinks I don't know what a pic-nic is!" said Melissa, turning with a sharp artificial laugh to the rest of the company; haps," she added, "you will be so condescending as to carry your explanation a little further, and tell all present, who I believe are as much in the dark as myself, what expedition it is that you are meditating, and who are the persons whom you propose to invite." Poor uncle John felt himself decidedly in disgrace, though he did not in the least understand the reason. So he made a very quiet, jog-trot speech, in an humble, apologetic manner; unadorned by any of those curvets and caracoles by which his ordinary mode of talk, when in high spirits and it was a very exceptional case when uncle John was not in high spirits-was distinguished. He had planned a day's excursion to Thelwar Castle, a fine Norman ruin about twenty miles from Evelyn. Mr. Woodley, a great crony of uncle John's, his son and daughter, were to join the party, together with any other friends whom Melissa might think proper to ask. Kate Wyllys, for whose presence he had made special after the rains, too, which are always an advantage. stipulation, was a young lady of acknowledged Godfrey can steer, you know; he is a capital fashion and beauty, then irradiating the neighborsailor; and Kate Wyllys, we must n't forget her, hood, and commanding the attentions of all the you know, for she is the best hand in the world disposable gentlemen. She was, of course, far at this sort of thing. I don't think we can man-more attractive than any resident belle, however age before this day week; but I dare say we can superior to herself in natural or acquired qualificamake up our minds to wait so long. We must tions; and being very lively, perfectly fearless, set the cook to work, my lady housekeeper; you and rather quick at repartee, was exactly the sort know she is famous for her chicken pie. I can't of person to command the attentions of a whole help thinking how grand it will look at sunset; party when present, and their strictures when aband if we should have a rainbow, it will be perfect." "Chicken pie, with rainbow sauce!" observed Alexander junior, "quite a novelty in the English cuisine. Pray, sir, be so good as to give me the recipe." "Eh! ah! Ha, ha-very good that! What did I say?" returned his uncle. "I am sure, my dear John," said Melissa, with that emphasis of special crossness which is so often attached to the epithet "dear," "it would be quite hopeless to attempt to tell you what you said, or what you meant. I do wish you would explain yourself quietly-it is very trying to one's nerves to have all this confusion first in the morning, and for my part (putting her hand to her sent. Gentlemen would engross her for an entire evening, and make her as conspicuous as they could by flirtation; and then, as soon as she was gone, would betake themselves with languid zeal to the side of some older acquaintance, who had been looking over prints with sublime indifference to neglect, and say on approaching her, "I really haven't been able to get a word with you this evening! Miss Wyllys would n't let me get away for a moment." Of course, it was all her faultin such cases it is an axiom in popular philosophy, that the lady is in the wrong, and deserves all that she encounters. We would not for a moment dispute the axiom-it must be true, because everybody says it-both the gentlemen who have been encouraged and the ladies who have been neglected; we would only say, that this true view of the matter requires some exercise of faith in those who receive it, inasmuch as reason and observation would commonly lead to a different conclusion. Thelwar Castle was beautifully situated; it was approachable by sea, and therefore uncle John projected a boating party for some of the young people; and it was within two miles of a very respectable waterfall, which, as he observed, would be in its best looks after the recent rains. A castle, a pic-nic, and a waterfall! Could any scheme by land or sea be more enchanting Ida's face grew brighter and brighter as the idea developed itself, and the last word had scarcely escaped her uncle's lips, when she exclaimed, with clasped hands, "Oh, how delightful! Dear aunt Melissa, pray say yes!-you will enjoy it too, because you are so fond of fine scenery, and there will be no fatigue. A whole week!-Oh, how I wish the day were come!" Melissa, who liked any species of gayety, relaxed into benign acquiescence; and uncle John, in a perfect ecstasy at meeting with approval and causing so much pleasure, first kissed Ida, out of gratitude for her delight, and then executed a short impromptu polka, of a new and somewhat outrageous pattern, which, happily, did not last above a minute. "And now," said Melissa, "I will write the invitations, and we will settle how the party is to go." "Yes!" cried Mr. Lee, with assumed nonchalance, "it is always the best way to make one's arrangements clearly beforehand, and then nobody is put out. I am quite at your disposal; you may put me just where you please. Alex can drive Ida, and the rest will easily be settled.” "I hope I may consider this an engagement: I was just going to offer myself as your charioteer when my father forestalled me," said the son, with his most elaborate smile and bow. The Alexanders had made a false move there. Melissa was uninterruptedly conscious that she was mistress of the house, and never inclined to agree in any proposition which did not emanate from herself, unless, like the present expedition, the conduct of it were placed at once in her hands. Moreover, to do her justice, she was really fond of Ida, and would not have done anything to annoy her, unless it had been unmistakably advantageous to herself. A woman seldom mistakes a woman's feelings, and Ida's face, as she politely acquiesced in her cousin's proposal, was tolerably expressive of dissatisfaction. Ida was to go in the boat; she was charmed, and her rapture increased when she found that Frederick was to be of the party. She had been thinking of him, but was afraid to ask, and she now congratulated herself that they should be together, and expressed her liveliest thanks that the plan for her was exactly that which she best liked. She and Melissa (strange companionship!) were the only two persons thoroughly pleased, when, after much shaking and fermenting, the scheme had settled into its final shape. Aunt Ellenor was to chaperone the water-party; she made no resistance, but suffered secretly, inasmuch as she was a great coward, and every minute of her pleasure excursion was consequently a painful and heroic effort at composure. Poor Frederick never felt his privation so keenly as on an occasion like the present, but agreed to go, because he knew that his exclusion would be as painful to his mother as his participation could be to himself. So long as he did everything like other people, she was able to flatter herself with the idea that he was nearly unconscious of his loss; but the smallest sign of consciousness on his part cost her so many tears, that he would have avoided it by any sacrifice of his own personal comfort. It was touching to see how instinctively he comprehended her feelings, and how tenderly he cared for them, though he could see no exhibition of them. No infliction of her voice was lost upon him, and so profound was his knowledge of her, that he could divine that she was grieved merely by her silence when he knew that it would have been natural to her to speak. There is no science so deep and so unerring as that of unselfish love; its perceptions are as supernatural as its origin. And soas may often be seen when a weak and halfdisciplined character sympathizes with one of a higher order than itself-the relative positions of this mother and son seemed to undergo a strange kind of change, and practically it was the consoler who needed support, and the sufferer who gave it. But these two were not unhappy; there is no unhappiness, properly so called, in the calm harmony of a double sorrow such as theirs. Young Woodley, a gawky personage from college, with a strong fear of the fair sex, taking the outward form and vesture of contempt, was another member of the water-party. He wanted to go on horseback; but his father, who was trying hard to worry him into premature polish, would not hear of it. He could not bear the arrange ment made for him, and submitted with the worst grace possible. Kate Wyllys agreed, with perfect and polite good-nature, to make a third in the chariot with Melissa and Mr. Lee; but snarled in "Excuse me, my good friends," said Melissa, with her blandest and most obstinate manner, her heart at a plan so very untoward, when three my little Ida's life is a great deal too precious aimless young men were within reach, any one to be risked by any amateur coachmanship. I of whom would have proved a satisfactory comconsider myself responsible for her, and must have panion-two in the capacity of flirts, the third in the entire management of her proceedings. When that of butt. However, there was no help for it, I get the answers to my invitations, and know what our numbers will be, I shall be able to make arrangements definitively." as she was known to be delicate, and could not be allowed to go by water. When the time arrived, she was all smiles and serenity, but it is absent. doubtful whether she felt more amiably than the versation should give him pain, and had looked collegian. Even uncle John was a little down- for him and been relieved to find that he was cast, for he shared the phaeton with Mr. and Miss Woodley, and he wanted to have accompanied Thelwar Castle was built on a rock which rose Ida. Godfrey seemed in lower spirits than usual, steeply from the edge of a wide and gentle river. kept apart from his companions, and occupied him- In style it blended the Saracen and the Norman, self with the business of the boat. But the crown- and formed no inapt representation of the age to ing discomfiture was Alexander's, who actually had to drive Agnes. To the very last he manœuvred to avoid this, but there is no being on earth so helpless as a well-bred man in the hands of a lady who is giving a party. He has neither defence nor redress; his very remonstrances must be made with fictitious playfulness, as though in reality he were grateful for the very things which he deprecates; and his final submission to the most aggravated sufferings must be cheerful and unconditional. Poor Alexander asked Miss Woodley, privately, if she would allow him to drive her; but Miss Woodley (who, by the bye, was a trifle unrefined, and had never received such a compliment from the sublime Alexander before) had been previously told, in confidence, by Melissa, that she was to go in the phaeton, "because it was desirable for many reasons, (this with much significance,) and it would be so pleasant for John." The poor girl fancied she was somehow doing a favor, and, besides, would not have presumed to alter Miss Lee's plans for the world; so she declined, graciously and regretfully. Alexander then made a desperate attack on young Woodley, whom he esteemed an utter bore, but this was likewise a failure; parental authority was too strong for the unhappy youth, and he was compelled to be victimized. Eventually, Alexander proposed to drive his father, as a last chance; but his father was afraid of catching cold, and liked the ease of the cushioned chariot, and the pretty face of Kate Wyllys, who understood and responded to his gallantries far better than Ida, and thought him a tolerable substitute when originals were not procurable. No one who had seen the faces of Alexander and Agnes, when they set off for their téte-àtéte drive, would have been surprised to hear that a murder had been. perpetrated before the end of it-only, fortunately, deeds do not always answer to looks, either good or bad. which it belonged; at once massy and graceful, rude, yet full of beauty. There were tall slender turrets of circular form with overhanging parapets broken and encrusted with moss; huge dwarf towers strongly battlemented and pierced with those cruel loopholes which admit no light save for purposes of destruction, and look like sullen eyes winking at you, great irregular walls of unhewn stone all scarfed and garlanded with ivy and plumed with the airy fern; green sward in the courts as smooth as though it had been shorn for the feet of fairies, whom you might fancy skimming tenderly over its surface, or perching upon the fragmentary corbels which jutted from the walls, or climbing by the shattered tracery of the windows, or swinging by the green streamers which hung from many a giant arch, and rocked upon the air as though only just loosed from some tiny grasp, or lying crushed beneath the damp lichen-covered masses of stone which had fallen from above, and might have been hurled down by some stern mailed ghost upon the battlements to check such unseemly revel in a place so sombre. There were vast hospitable chimneys, calling up strange visions of those old uncivilized dinner parties, when wayfarers and beggars had their place and their portion, and servants feasted at the same board with their masters; wonderful little bedchambers, suggesting the idea that our ancestors slept in one invariable position, and stood upright to dress, having their clothes let down upon them from the roof; interminable twisted staircases, which you must convert yourself into a screw to ascendpainful as one of those miraculous opera cadenzas, (named, we suppose, on the lucus-a-non-lucendo principle,) where, after a certain point, every step seems the highest possible, and yet is succeeded by one higher and more excruciating still, and where the descent is accomplished by a series of accentuated plunges, any one of which is sufficient Is not a pleasure-party the most delightful thing to break your neck, long shadowy passages in the world! CHAPTER XII. THE PIC-NIC. through the hearts of the enormous walls, with sharp streaks of light here and there catching the curve under the square head of some narrow door A few minutes before the boat landed, Fred-way, and tempting you to proceed, though you eric, with some timidity of manner, presented Ida with a pretty sketching apparatus. "She had expressed a wish to sketch the castle," he said, "and though-" here he paused for an instant, and then abruptly concluded by saying, "that it would be a pleasure to him to think that she could make any use of a gift of his." She thanked him warmly; but was a little puzzled by remembering that he had not been in the room when the must needs walk trembling, lest at the next opening the ray should be reflected from a stooping helmet or a poised spear, or lest the hesitating feet which you can scarcely guide along the uneven floor, should stumble against the coiled-up limbs of an old sentinel sleeping at his post. There seemed a waste of strength, as though a great deal of it were built out of sheer symbolism -a mixture of the jovial and the sombre, so un picturesqueness of the castle as a subject for like the world in which our own forms of thought sketching was discussed; she was sure of this, are cast, that it was almost impossible to imagine because she had felt a sudden fear lest the con- | it into any consistent whole, but the ideal picture was forever resolving itself into a host of out-self at Ida's feet, and looked expressively into her rageous contradictions. One moderate sized tombstone might have sufficed for the flooring of any bed room, and the great banqueting-hall looked as if it might have been appropriately papered with a series of "rubbings" from sepulchral brasses. "Oh! for one day, for one single hour, to see it all alive again!" cried Ida, as, after a breathless and eager examination of every attainable nook and corner, she paused at the summit of a winding stair, and, seating herself in the hollow of a battlement, looked out upon the rich valley and the sweet fresh river, "that one could tell how they really lived and thought from hour to hour, those grim soldiers, and graceful knights, and stately ladies! It is almost painful to have such a strange kind of unseen existence so perpetually suggested without being able to fill up the blanks, and imagine what it actually was. is like secing the very corpse of the past." It "Cannot you construct a living character out of these autographs?" asked Godfrey, smiling as he laid his hand on the summit of a roughly-ornamented and overhanging buttress; "I do not think it would be a very difficult task." He stopped, and Ida looked earnestly in his face as though she wanted him to continue. ander. "An easy one, I should say," observed Alex"Human nature is always the same in detail as well as in outline. We have a distant twilight view of the man of the middle ages, and he looms upon us huge and grand and vague, till our imagination bows down before him, and refuses to approach and examine more closely. But if we do approach we shall find him flesh and blood after all, perhaps differing only from ourselves in the unavoidable peculiarity that he was a good way behind us in the march of time. He ate and drank, was weary, slept and was refreshed, loved and hated like the rest of us. And all those foibles and follies, littlenesses and meannesses which distress us in our own day because they are close under our own eyes, were just as rife in the past, if we could only see them." face, though he addressed Godfrey, as for me, I live in the present." "I hope the climate suits you," replied Godfrey, with an emphasis too marked to be perfectly polite, and which called the color to his cousin's cheek. Ida felt uncomfortable, and it was quite a relief to her that Agnes joined them at that moment. "Do come down, Ida," said she, "aunt Melissa is so cross. She is unpacking the baskets, and she says it is a shame that we should leave it all to her, and go away to amuse ourselves. For my part, I thought we came here for amusement, such as it is. She is very hungry, and she says we must dine before we do anything else; and she wants you, but not Alexander or Godfrey; because, she says, gentlemen are of no use. She had just upset something when I came away, and that was one reason why I hurried." Ida felt guilty;-she had forgotten all but the enjoyment of the moment; and she now hastened to accompany Agnes, in spite of the remonstrances of the gentlemen. As they descended the stairs, she dropped her sketch-book, and Agnes picked it up for her. "Ah!" said she, "Godfrey was very mysterious about his present." "Godfrey!" repeated Ida, surprised. "This was Frederick's present." "I beg your pardon," replied Agnes, who took a sour kind of pleasure in thwarting any little scheme that came under her notice, whether she understood it or not. "I was in the room when Godfrey brought it; and he told Frederick it was for you, and begged him, as a particular favor, to give it as if from himself." There was no time for Ida to express the astonishment she felt, as they had now reached the spot where Melissa was awaiting them. She had overset the basin of powdered sugar into a dungeon, and was vehemently insisting that her brother John should descend in search of it, a service which he did not appear to relish, though he made many apoplectic efforts to reach it by stooping over the edge. She was making a solemn business of dinner; putting herself into a fretful bustle about all the adjuncts necessary and unnecessary, being sentimental about finger-glasses, and highly dignified in regard to salt-spoons. It was all to be done in a regular, grand way, as unlike a pic-nic as possible; and the feeding was the main object and purpose, evidently, of the whole party-they came not to see but to eat. It was sad waste of time, indeed, to be sketching and staring about, when the cold chickens were still unpacked, and the damask napkins undistributed. Ida ran lightly to and fro under her orders, restoring her to good-humor by the force of her alacrity and readiness, and greatly cheering the spirits of the de pressed maid, who had been vainly endeavoring to do right in the eyes of her mistress for the last "You are a worshipper of the past, I per- twenty minutes. Agnes moved heavily and awkceive," said Alexander, coolly, as he seated him-l wardly, never understood anything that she was "Very true," replied Godfrey; "depend upon it, it was all the same five hundred years ago, just as truly as it will be the same a hundred years hence. The Baron Drogo de Bracy could never obtain the entrée to the highest society, because it was noticed that he did not always pronounce his H's, and the dame Eleonora de Montauban frowned sorely upon her daughter, the lovely Lady Adelicia, because she had engaged herself for three polkas to a younger son! Don't be romantic, Ida! Don't fancy that an external development totally different from that of our own age betokens that there was any difference at all in the inner life-why should it? Don't we all know that Dr. Johnson was as great a dramatist as Shakspeare, only somehow or other he did n't manage to write such good plays?" expected to do; and, in making an unwonted ef- but I find you were so kind as to think of giving fort to be useful, finally set her foot upon a cherry tart. They were a contrast, certainly. Poor uncle John, glad to be released, hastened away, and tried to make the agreeable to Mr. Woodley, who was thoroughly tired both of him and of the party, and who responded but feebly to his charitable efforts. "Queer old place, this!" said uncle John, who had a vague idea that Mr. Woodley was a politician of the modern school, and wished to propitiate him by some congenial remark. "Now, they would n't tolerate such a place in these days. If any one were to run up such a place, public opinion would have it down again in five minutes." me that sketching-apparatus. You must let me thank you for it and I was afraid I had annoyed you in some manner, as you did not like to give it to me yourself." Godfrey colored, cast his eyes on the ground, and seemed to find much difficulty in answering this speech. At last he said: "It was such a pleasure to Frederick to give it to you, and he has so few pleasures." "Dear Frederick!" said Ida. "Ah!" cried Godfrey, eagerly, you cannot love him too well; he is absolutely perfect. His intellectual equals his moral nature, though it is not so readily discerned. I have never heard him utter a hasty word, nor known him think an unkind thought; and the whole temper of his mind is so beautiful. You must love him, Ida." "Well-I don't know," said Mr. Woodley, with cautious hesitation concerning the vigor of public opinion, looking inquiringly at the stalwart old walls as he spoke. He was a gentleman who spent his life in the mild excitement of perpetual expectation-in a kind of permanent astonishment be cold to me, Godfrey, for I feel at home with "I do," replied Ida. "I love him dearly, and aunt Ellenor too. I cannot bear that you should which never rose above the fussy point. Every your family as if I were one of yourselves. It is watching, the ejaculations, the assurances that Godfrey took ber hand between his, and looked there was a light in the north quite unnatural, at her with an expression of unspeakable gentleand which must terminate in coruscations, sup-ness; it was difficult to believe that those were plied the substance of his conversation for the evening, and effectually prevented conversation in others. In summer he was equally far-sighted as to the detection of an approaching storm; and has been known to prophesy continuously for six weeks the arrival of one, which seldom failed to come in the end and justify his prediction. He now discovered that the tower beneath which the dinner-party was being arranged, was out of the perpendicular, and would assuredly fall in the course of the next twenty-four hours. He remonstrated so pertinaciously, that good breeding compelled the unhappy Melissa to consent to the removal of her preparations just as they had attained completion, which put the crowning stroke to her discomfiture for the day. Altogether, I should think, there has seldom been a more disconsolate and dejected repast than that pic-nic. Everything had somehow gone wrong, and nearly everybody was out of sorts. Ida was as silent as the rest; she was thinking about her sketch-book, and determining to elucidate the mystery. An opportunity occurred soon after they had risen from table-cloth. She found herself near Godfrey, and a little apart from the others, and immediately addressed him. "Godfrey, have I done anything to vex you ?" she spoke timidly, and blushing. "You! To vex me! What could possibly make you think so?" "Only," said Ida, "that you change so towards me-and-and-I beg your pardon for mentioning it, as you did not wish me to know it, the same eyes which were ordinarily so downcast and so sullen. "Be one of us, then, dear Ida," said he; my mother loves you as if you were her own child, and you and I will be brother and sister-shall we not?" "Oh!" said Ida, "that implies so much!" "Too much for you to grant!" cried he, in a tone of disappointment. "Too much, a great deal," returned she, playfully, "to be granted on one side only. I never had a brother, but I can fancy very well what a brother would be to me. First, he would be quiet and steadfast in his friendship-there would be no changes, and doubts, and mysteries; then I should know all his sorrows, and he would come to me to console them; and we should tell each other of faults, and help each other to amend them. He would never give me black looks without an explanation, or " "In fact," interrupted Godfrey, you think me a savage; and you cannot think too ill of me, But, Ida, I promise to perform my part of the compact, if you will be faithful to yours. I am only afraid that you will repent when you know me better." "If I do I will tell you so," she answered; " but I am not afraid of you, or, at least, only a very little afraid sometimes." "And when were you afraid last?" asked Godfrey. "When Alexander" began Ida, but he interrupted her immediately. "Oh! I was very rude I know; but Alexan |