never hoped to enjoy them, the landscape proved the best sedative of the insane perturbation of my spirit. The lodge at last, covered with honeysuckle. An old stone gateway, with two eagles, with ferocious plumage, perched on either buttress. The park was studded with grand stately elms. The middle-aged woman who opened the gate looked at us with kindly eyes, and dropped a curtsey. She was tidy and pleasant to look at; and the expression of a lodge-keeper's face is not the worst index to the ménage at the hall.

A sweep of the approach brought us in sight of the Grecian portico, which had been the subject of Dagentree's sneers. It was ugly, I own, and darkened the middle windows; but the general effect was light and handsome; and the timber, though luxuriant and fine, did not crowd round and shut in the building, as is too often the case with English country seats.

A spacious entrance-hall certainly betrayed at once the Hellenic taste of the designer. Statues and busts, mutilated or perfect, were ranged round the vestibule, and in the centre was a fine copy in marble of Danneker's Ariadne.

I was ushered into the drawingroom, through a couple of ante-rooms on the ground floor, and plucking up my courage as I approached the enemy, resolved to face the worst.

There was, however, nothing to face which would have frightened a chicken. Sir George Dashwood, a rubicund, short-statured, good-tempered-looking country gentleman, came forward with a simple hearty greeting, and presented me to Lady Dashwood and his daughters, saying that he had known my father in the Guards, and that he was very glad to see his son in his house. Lady Dashwood was a matronly goodlooking dame, and two pretty girls completed the party assembled in the drawing-room. But the guests

began to arrive, and were for the most part of the staple announced by Dagentree.

Mr. and Mrs. Torrens, Colonel Hastings and Miss Hastings, Sir George Brook, Captain Deverall, Mr. Nugent, Mrs. Carrington.

At this last name I lifted up my eyes, for here in truth was the widow, not unlike what I had expected, but very unlike Dagentree's ideal.

She was dark, rather below the middle size, plump, though not stout in figure; clear in complexion, with great soft liquid eyes inclining to brown, a firmly cut chin, withal, and a mouth not devoid of resolution and character, although sweet in expression; she could not be above thirty, and probably was some years short of it.

'Are we all here?' said Sir George to his daughter.

'Yes, papa; all but Mr. Rendelson.'

'Ah! Rendelson. He shall have five minutes' grace, as he is a busy man. A very able man, Mr. Pemberton, and belongs to your profession too. I do not know how half the county could get on without him. I am sure you will suit each other.'

As he spoke, the door opened, and in walked the subject of Sir George's eulogy. The surprises of the day were not over, for here, in person, was my elderly fellowtraveller.

I knew him, as I had done in the case of the other, at once; but in both instances there was an indescribable difference from the appearance they presented in the railway carriage; not sufficient to make me doubt for a moment of their identity, but still bewildering and unpleasant.

His manner and the tone of his voice I at once recognised, and his features were too characteristic to be forgotten; although in evening dress his toilet presented no pecu

liarity. Sir George introduced me, and he accepted the introduction graciously, without the slightest indication that we had ever met before.

Dinner was announced immediately afterwards, and, although considerably struck by the incident, I had no opportunity at that time of observing Mr. Rendelson more closely.

We defiled, two and two, into the dining-room, the widow falling to my lot, as I had half hoped and half feared might be the case.

I was murmuring the ordinary common-places-the prelude or overture to dinner discourse, when she said

'You are living with Mr. Dagentree, I hear. I am told he has a beautiful place.'

'Do you know him?' said I. 'Oh, no! I know very few people as yet. I have only come into the county lately. I have looked for him in the Dagentree pew at church, but I suppose he never goes to church. When I say I don't know him, I mean, I think not; for there is something not unfamiliar to me in his name, although I cannot recollect where I can have heard it before.'

'It is a charming place, and he is a very good fellow,' said I. 'I wish both he and his place were better known in the neighbourhood. Originality and grace are not such common merits that one can easily allow them to be buried. He is a most hospitable and kindly anchorite.'

'Why does he bury himself, as I hear he does? Has the world been unkind to him, or what misfortune does he brood over?'

The only misfortunes I know to have befallen him are two-the possession of too much money, and the absence of anything to do. He is very ill of these diseases, and takes them much to heart. I wish I knew a cure for them.'

'He should go into parliament, and cure one of them, if not both.'

'So I hope he may; but at present he looks with supreme contempt on politics and parliamentary stars. He sees no difference whatever between Lord Palmerston and Lord Derby, and does not think that it is of the least consequence which is in power.'

'At all events, I hope he will alter his establishment, and put a lady at the head of it,' said my fair neighbour, with true feminine solicitude.

We fell to talking the commonplaces of weather and scenery, and all those atmospheric themes with which the vacant or agitated mind seems in this humid climate to be constantly engrossed. I found my companion on the whole lively, though occasionally she would relapse into reverie. She had a vein of sadness running through the texture of a mind naturally gay and joyous, which was curiously interwoven in her temperament. She seemed to have lived a great deal abroad. Whether she had ever been in America she did not say, nor did I ask her; but she made no allusion to that country. She rather avoided speaking of herself, and preferred more general subjects, such as literature and music. On these her opinions seemed to be founded both in study and good taste.

So we discussed Mozart and Beethoven, and preferred them far before Verdi and Meyerbeer; allowed Rossini and Donizetti a place on the steps of the altar, and went deep into the metaphysics of that wondrous power in the concord of sweet sounds to make sensation too intense or too refined for our feeling sense, and which are unsatisfying even in their enjoyment from a yearning consciousness of incompleteness.

'I presume,' I said, 'you are yourself a musician.'

'I used to be,' she said, with a sigh, 'but I live on the memory of music now. The limits between

pain and pleasure are slight at any time, but music always pains me now; but I love the memory of music past, except, indeed, in solitude. Can you tell me who any of the party are? 'No, indeed, I am a total stranger to them all. I was going to have asked you to do me the same favour.'

'I only know one or two of them. Colonel Hastings and Sir George Brook I have met before. The Colonel is an officer who, though young, has seen much service. He distinguished himself in the Crimea and India, and is a very intelligent and agreeable companion. He is tenant of the white house among the trees, which you passed on the way from the Grange. Sir George Brook has succeeded lately to his baronetcy, and is living with Colonel Hastings at present. He has, I believe, a good estate in the north.

'And who is our vis-à-vis ?' said I, looking at Mr. Rendelson, for I had observed her acknowledge him in the drawing-room, and his face had been a subject of furtive study to me during dinner.

'That is Mr. Rendelson, the lawyer,' she said, with a slight confusion in her manner, 'I thought every one knew him.'

'I have a curiosity to know more about him. Can you at all enlighten me ?'

'I know very little of him, except that he was very kind and useful to me at the time that I first came to Bonthron. But he is a peculiar man, and I don't think we are as good friends as we used to be. He is an attorney at and has large practice, and is, I believe, very well off.'

'I met him not long ago, but I do not think he recognises me.'

'He is a very difficult man to read; but I suppose all lawyers are,' she said laughingly.

It is our stock-in-trade, our costume in which we play,' I said; 'but behind the scenes, for the most part, we are an innocent and simpleminded company.'

'I suppose you meet with very strange characters in your profession, Mr. Pemberton ?"

'I suppose I shall,' said I, but I have seldom met any one more strange than I did this morning in the unsophisticated grounds of Dagentree,' and I told her the photographic adventures of the day.

Oh! I wish he could come up to Bonthron. I should so much like to have a good photograph of the place. It is very pretty, Mr. Pemberton, and if you can escape from your cell, I hope you will come and look at it, and bring the hermit with you.'

'I should be delighted; but I am a bond-slave to the hermit at present. As to the photographer, I believe Mr. Rendelson knows more about him than I do.'

"Mr. Rendelson! Oh no, I assure you, that is quite out of his line. Why do you imagine anything so improbable?'

I may be mistaken,' I replied; and as the telegraph from Lady Dashwood had begun to vibrate, the covey rose with a flutter, and the ladies rustled to the drawing

room.

We gathered together, as is the fashion of male birds, pushed up the bottles, and prepared to be happy after the manner of our ancestors and in that remote country-side after-dinner claret was not as yet proscribed. Sitting next my host I ventured to ask a question or two about my fair and pleasant neighbour: but he did not add much to my information. Her father was a younger son of a distant branch of the family, and had died several years before. She had married abroad, Sir George believed, but in conformity with the

settlement of the estate she had, since she succeeded, dropped her husband's name. It was supposed the marriage was unhappy. Was there not some question about her succession, Rendelson?' said Sir George.

'There was no question about her right, Sir George; but there was some difficulty in discovering her. She and her husband were abroad, her father was dead, and she had no near relations.'

SO

'Well, we should be obliged to you for providing us with pleasant and good-looking a neighbour. We have been delighted with her, but she seldom goes out, and it required a good deal of feminine diplomacy to induce her to come to-day. I am glad she did, for she seemed more cheerful than usual.'

'Has she been long a widow?' I inquired of Rendelson.

I cannot tell, but perhaps it might be better for me not to gossip about a client's affairs.'

I was rebuked, and disliked the cold hard face more than ever.

The conversation became general: and the lawyer, hard and stony as he looked, took his part in it well. He was well read, and bore himself like a man of the world, with hardly a dash of professional priggishness. Colonel Hastings was a cultivated man, who had been to all ends of the earth, was a good classic, and excelled in more than one of the arts. Collecting beetles, however, I found afterwards was the main pride and enjoyment of his life. He kept off his hobby, however, on this occasion, and talked Crimea and India, and abroad generally with a quiet gentlemanlike authority. Among other anecdotes he told us the following, which was suggested by what we had been saying about Mrs. Carrington's history.

CHAPTER XV.

LE REVENANT.

I was stationed at Agra during the Cabul disaster in 1841, one of a mere handful of British troops, left in charge of the wives, sisters, and daughters of the actors in that most unhappy expedition. And a weary, heart-breaking time it was. The Lieutenant-Governor, who had prayed and besought the Calcutta authorities not to risk the adventure, had the worst forebodings for its fate; and although he did all an able, kindly, and well-mannered man could do to maintain the spirits of the circle, those who knew him could read too well what his fears were. Words could not describeindeed it is painful for me even now to recall the dreary wretchedness of that fatal month, during which no tidings came of the devoted army. Evening after evening saw the roads crowded by anxious women, sitting there for hours that they might hear the first news of those who were dear to them, and evening after evening saw them return in despair. And when, at last, the news came that the sole survivor, had staggered, half alive, back to his countrymen, with the tidings of the great disaster, the wail which ascended from those heart-broken creatures, I shall never, while I live, forget.

There had been a captain in one of the native regiments, an old acquaintance of mine, of the name of Donnelly, Jerry Donnelly, as he was called by every one. He was careful to explain to all his friends that his name was Jerome, and not Jeremiah, although why he so unduly preferred the saint to the prophet, I never understood. Jerry Donnelly, however, he was, and as strange, and eccentric a creature as ever breathed.

He was a very good-looking fellow, and a first-rate officer, but a careless, rollicking, half-insane