T

HIS is a story told over the fire at a country house where I was staying the fourteenth of February of a year ago.

It was the hour after dinner, and the children were in the drawingroom. For some time previous it had been as though all the bells in the house were gone wild, as though all the spirits in the world and under the world had taken to rapping at doors, as though all the fairies, good and bad, had gone about to shower their gifts on the various members of the family, from Mr. Heath, squire, downwards, through Gooch, butler, to John Sims, stable boy. The wild clangour had now ceased, however; the uproarious mirth subsided, the contemplative mood was coming on.

It came thus on one member of the circle. Something of a collection, certainly! Enough to set Lory up in a fancy goods' shop. Lory, ten years of age, with fourteen; Sissy, fourteen, with eleven; Cecil, six, with thirteen; Fan, five, with sixteen; Lennard, fifteen, with six; Flo, nineteen, with twelve; Miss Wilton-with three.' A little silent merriment, for Gurnel Duke had inadvertently touched on what was a sore point; at least, so the youngsters averred, youth being magnanimous only by fits and starts. 'Ah, children, I was twentyeight before ever I had a valentine.' 'And what was that, uncle?" cried ever so many voices.

'And what was that, Mr. Duke?' said young Ferrers, seated very close to Florence Heath.

'Ah, that's a story - a long story,' he answered, looking halfhumorously, half-gravely round the group, his eye resting longest on a lady some nine years his junior, into whose face there came the brightest blush and the wickedest smile.

'Then tell us it, uncle, there's a VOL. XV. NO. LXXXVI.

dear,' said Sissy, of fourteen, with fourteen's good appetite for stories. And all seconded her.

But Gurnel Duke shook his head, and appeared nowise inclined. A man of some four-and-thirty years, with broad, large forehead, dark, penetrative eyes, mouth steadfast in itself-a man, written within and without, was Gurnel Duke.

'Come, Duke,' said Mr. Heath, good-humouredly backing up the young people, perhaps himself a little curious.

'It's not a story that can well he told-not a story at all easy to tell.' A second chorus of entreaty. A dozen characteristic speeches in a dozen characteristic tones of beseeching, assertion, disappointment, confidence, hope.

'If Uncle Gurnel tells it in his way, we must tell it in ours also, must we not, my pet?' said the lady whom his gaze had distinguished, taking little May on her lap, her voice as bright and sweet as her sweet, bright face. The saucy face and voice incited them not a little.

'Come, Duke,' reiterated Mr. Heath, who was getting an inkling of what the story might be, 'that admission was half permission, eh?'

'Well, see here, a compromise. I don't know what induced me, but last year I drew up a true and authentic account-of-a very singular episode in a man's life. I have it amongst my papers in the library.'

As Mr. Duke walked to and from the library, it was with a scarcely perceptible halt. Strangely, nothing about him became him so well. The slight stoop it occasioned gave him an air of continual courtesy, and a gentleness to an otherwise decided, authoritative bearing. We girls were enthusiasts about him, with about as much, or as little, discrimination as commonly belongs to girls.

M

I

When he returned, it was with a manuscript of many closely-written pages in his hand. 'This paper was not meant for so many ears. scarcely know how much is told.' And he turned over a page or two doubtfully. Well, if I begin to use the scissors and amend, it may not be genuine; it is that now. So, young folks, come fence round your poor old uncle; a bold thing he's in for, I can tell you,' with a sly face for some of the elders. 'Lennard is appointed reader. Fire away, Lennard. The Story of Gurnel Duke's First Valentine.'

My father was a captain in the Royal Navy, and my mother the daughter of another-the last of the old Gurnels of Berkshire. But at eight years of age I had neither father, mother, nor penny in the world wherewith to help myself. From eight to twenty I lived by the grace, or charity, of a rich relative. But it is a libel on either word; for if you would know what his charity was like, I can only say, like the big, ostentatious, sordidlooking, ugly crown pieces which invariably accompanied his responses to my periodic holiday letters-as big, ostentatious, sordid - looking, ugly. These very periodic holidayletters were a part of it. My schoolmaster was post-diluvian in his opinions, and made strong objection, but had to content himself with leaving me entirely to my own devices in the matter, which devices at first consisted of obtaining such assistance as was to be obtained from the elder boys, and gradually, as I myself grew into an elder boy, of speaking my mind on various points after a fashion very unusual in the holiday-letter era. The responses were offensive enough; but by the time I perceived it I had grown so accustomed as to suppose it a privilege of relationship.

I thank God there were other influences at work; for such culture as Richard Duke desired for me, and supposed himself to have provided, makes a man either crossgrained or without any grain at all -unworthy, any way. My schoolmaster gave me of his best, partly

because he was a conscientious man, partly because of a personal liking for me, partly because I promised to be a credit to the school. My comrades, too, stood by me, and I never lacked an invitation for holidays, which I must otherwise have spent at the school. With one thing and another my uncle's crop of tares, sown with half-yearly punctuality, bore but little fruit. In my visits to my schoolfellows I was familiar with that form of irritating speech in which, however much it is to be deplored, the most affectionate of relatives do at times indulge. It was not difficult to confound the spirit of my uncle's contumelious alms with this.

It is hard on a young fellow to have the solid ground-so solid it seems to him-open under his feet, as it did under mine. There are many veritable meanings that will not bear abrupt disclosures; God is merciful, and mostly the young are graduated in them. I don't say I was not a little uneasy and semiconscious of an injurious element, but it came hard on a young fellow. Not long after I commenced my college career a competition was announced for undergraduates of a year's standing, the prize a scholarship of one hundred pounds a-year. When, eager and hopeful, I stated my intention of competing, I was given in a roundabout way to understand that I should be running dangerously counter to my uncle's wishes; that he had formerly privately objected to my entrance for any of the school exhibitions. Which roused me to put my independence to the test. I said, in public, it was strange, after this, if I did not succeed. And I did to receive a letter by the next post after the public announcement withdrawing my allowance, with not a single reason assigned.

'What do you do now? asked a friend, to whom I read the communication.

'Do? Why, please God, get my name into the Wranglers' List this time three years.'

That speech and my story were carried to the head of my college. He sent for me, and offered to see

me through my academical course. I gratefully declined pecuniary assistance; he had given me the only aid I needed in keeping up in me a great respect for my kind. As has been said, 'It is not absolutely necessary thata man should see many men whom he can respect.' I obtained an amount of literary employment, and with a five-pound note here and a ten-pound note there, pulled through, to see myself in the three years' time third Wrangler.

Next was a fellowship, and the post of travelling tutor to Viscount Narboyne, Lord Uxford's only son. Lord Uxford was, you know, a great man in the government of that day.

A gentle-minded, delicately-nurtured fellow was my charge. A milksop, some said; but I had seen in him the lion-heart and the right instinct. I did love that fellow. Well, it is the often-repeated story. I, the friendless, penniless man, whose death might momentarily affect a classfellow or two-but even that, in my obscurity, doubtfulwent scathless through perils many; he, the petted boy, heir to broad acres, to a vast influence, of a long patrician line, the only son of his parents, fell ill of a low fever, that has its haunts peculiarly with penury and care, and died. I did my best by him, but he died. It was in a small village on the nearer Italian coast. On the first tidings of his illness Lady Uxford was herself too ill to travel, and Lord Uxford so greatly engaged in public affairs as only to arrive the day before his son's death.

On my return to England, which was delayed until the spring by my own state of health, my first visit was to Somersley, the Uxfords' Hampshire seat. He had withdrawn from the government shortly after his bereavement, and they were living in strict privacy. Both Lord and Lady Uxford were lavish with their kindnesses. They treated me almost as a son, and on the last evening of my month's visit Lord Uxford, whilst knowing the element of independence so harshly evoked in my character, ventured to offer

me a thousand pounds besides my salary up to the very date. I am an old traveller, and I assure you there is a wonderful deal in the way a knapsack is packed. Not one man in a thousand could have offered that thousand pounds-a great sum to me in those days-so as to have it accepted. But I took it from Lord Uxford. For this is how he gave it. Our obligation to you neither this nor anything could remove: and, indeed, my wife and I both feel it to be the dearest thing remaining to us. We know-Hugh told me that time-you are saving money for two purposes; the one I commend, the other I do not commend. Think it over, Duke.'

I did think it over, and the next morning, in bidding him farewell, I'asked his advice. 'Some years ago, my lord, as you know, I registered a resolve to repay to my uncle every farthing I ever cost him. Principal, interest, compound interest, collateral gains, I reckoned them all at fifteen hundred pounds. Your thousand has made up the sum, and a little to spare. But now it seems not a good thing to pay it. You know my provocation, my lord, and yet I am reluctant.'

'When you speak of provocation, I think, Duke, you have answered yourself.'

'But then,' said I, in extreme perplexity, 'if I don't, it helps me on so with these projects that have been my waking and sleeping dream these two years and more. so it can look ugly, even to myself.'

And

'It's just one of those cases in which you are the only judge of yourself.'

And I did not repay it. Instead, I offered myself as a candidate for the mastership of an endowed school in the small town of Cumberley, in the county of Reepshire. The only difficulty the trustees made was over the excessive superiority of my testimonials. There must be something against me, or I couldn't want to come there. But a chance word in a letter of Lord Uxford's to a gentleman, a trustee, in the neighbourhood, settled that point for me.

I was to have two