CHAPTER IV.

EVERYTHING in this world is of use, even a black thing crawling over the nape of one's neck!

I shall make of thee. a simile!

Grim unknown!

I think, ma'am, you will allow that if an incident such as I have described had befallen yourself, and you had a proper and lady-like horror of earwigs, (however motherly and fond of their offspring,) and also of early hornetsand indeed of all unknown things of the insect tribe with black heads and two great horns, or feelers, or forceps, just by your ear -I think, ma'am, you will allow that you would find it difficult to settle back to your former placidity of mood and innocent stitch-work. You would feel a something that grated on your nerves er'd "all over you like," as the children say. worst is, that you would be ashamed to say it. You would feel obliged to look pleased and join in the conversation, and not fidget too much, nor always be shaking your flounces, and looking into a dark corner of your apron. Thus it is with many other things in life besides black insects. One has a secret care- an abstraction

and cr'd

And the

a something between the memory and the feeling, of a dark crawling cr, which one has never dared to analyse. So I sat by my mother, trying to smile and talk as in the

old time -but longing to move about and look around, and escape to my own solitude, and take the clothes off my mind, and see what it was that had so troubled and terrified me for trouble and terror were upon me. And my mother, who was always (heaven bless her!) inquisitive enough in all that concerned her darling Anachronism, was especially inquisitive that evening. She made me say where I had been, and what I had done, and how I had spent my time and Fanny Trevanion, (whom she had seen, by the way, three or four times, and whom she thought the prettiest person in the world) - oh, she must know exactly what I thought of Fanny Trevanion!

And all this while my father seemed in thought; and so, with my arm over my mother's chair, and my hand in hers, I answered my mother's questions - sometimes by a stammer, sometimes by a violent effort at volubility; when at some interrogatory that went tingling right to my heart, I turned uneasily, and there were my father's eyes fixed on mine-fixed as they had been when, and none knew why, I pined and languished, and my father said "he must go to school." Fixed, with quiet watchful tenderness. Ah no! his thoughts had not been on the Great Work- he had been deep in the pages of that less worthy one for which he had yet more than an author's paternal care. I met those eyes, and yearned to throw myself on his heart and tell him all. Tell him what? Ma'am, I no more knew what to tell him than I know what that black thing was which has so worried me all this blessed evening!

"Pisistratus," said my father softly, "I fear you have forgotten the saffron bag."

"No, indeed, sir,” said I, smiling.

"He," resumed my father," he who wears the saffron bag has more cheerful, settled spirit than you seem to have, my poor boy."

46

'My dear Austin, his spirits are very good. I think,” said my mother anxiously.

My father shook his head-then he took two or three turns about the room.

"Shall I ring for candles, sir? It is getting dark: you will wish to read?"

"No, Pisistratus, it is you who shall read; and this hour of twilight best suits the book I am about to open to you."

So saying, he drew a chair between me and my mother, and seated himself gravely, looking down a long time in silence then turning his eyes to each of us alternately. 'My dear wife," said he, at length, almost solemnly, "I am going to speak of myself as I was before I knew you."

Even in the twilight I saw that my mother's countenance changed.

"You have respected my secrets, Katherine, tenderly -honestly. Now the time is come when I can tell them to you and to our son."

CHAPTER V.

MY FATHER'S FIRST LOVE.

"I LOST my mother early; my father (a good man, but who was so indolent that he rarely stirred from his chair, and who often passed whole days without speaking, like an Indian dervish) left Roland and myself to educate ourselves much according to our own tastes. Roland shot, and hunted, and fished, read all the poetry and books of chivalry to be found in my father's collection, which was rich in such matters, and made a great many copies of the old pedigree; - the only thing in which my father ever evinced much vital interest. Early in life I conceived a passion for graver studies, and by good luck I found a tutor in Mr. Tibbets, who, but for his modesty, Kitty, would have rivalled Porson. He was a second Budæus for industry, and by the way, he said exactly the same thing that Budæus did, viz., 'that the only lost day in his life was that in which he was married; for on that day he had only had six hours for reading!' Under such a master I could not fail to be a scholar. I came from the university with such distinction as led me to look sanguinely on my career in the world.

I returned to my father's quiet rectory to pause and consider what path I should take to fame. The rectory

was just at the foot of the hill, on the brow of which were the ruins of the castle Roland has since purchased. And though I did not feel for the ruins the same romantic veneration as my dear brother (for my day-dreams were more colored by classic than feudal recollections), I yet loved to climb the hill, book in hand, and built my castles in the air amidst the wrecks of that which time had shattered on the earth.

"One day, entering the old weed-grown court, I saw a lady seated on my favorite spot, sketching the ruins. The lady was young-more beautiful than any woman I had yet seen, at least to my eyes. In a word, I was fascinated, and, as the trite phrase goes, 'spell-bound.' I seated myself at a little distance, and contemplated her without desiring to speak. By-and-by, from another part of the ruins, which were then uninhabited, came a tall, imposing, elderly gentleman, with a benignant aspect; and a little dog. The dog ran up to me barking. This drew the attention of both lady and gentleman to me. The gentleman approached, called off the dog, and apologised with much politeness. Surveying me somewhat curiously, he then began to ask questions about the old place and the family it had belonged to, with the name and antecedents of which he was well acquainted. By degrees it came out that I was the descendant of that family, and the younger son of the humble rector who was now its representative. The gentleman then introduced himself to me as the Earl of Rainsforth, the principal proprietor in the neighborhood, but who had so rarely