It is then the normal condition to wish to live, and a most abnormal one to wish to die; and with many there is even a further aspiration, and that is to prolong a life which, with all its drawbacks, is to so many a desirable state of things.

Examples of rare longevity are carefully treasured up and even placed on record. As whenever a human being is carried away, causes from which we are supposed to be free, or against which we take precautions, are complacently sought for, so instances of longevity are studied to discover what habits and manners, what system of diet, or conduct, and which environing circumstances, have most tended to ensure such a result.

Numerous treatises have been written on the subject, both in this country and on the continent; but it cannot be said that the result has been eminently satisfactory. When carefully inquired into, it has been found that the most contradictory state of things has been in existence. It is not always to the strong that long life is given, nor is such, as often supposed, hereditary. Riches and the comforts and luxuries they place at man's disposal no more conduce to long life than poverty. Even moderation and temperance, so universally admitted as essentials to health and long life, are found to have their exceptions in well-attested cases of prolongation of life with the luxurious and self-indulgent and even in the intemperate and the inebriate. Strange to say, even health is not always conducive to long life. There is a common proverb (and most proverbs are founded upon experience) about creaking hinges, and so it is that people always ailing have been known to live longer than the strong, the hearty, and the healthy. The latter have overtaxed their strength, their spirits, and their health. Even vitality itself, stronger in some than others, may in excess conduce to the premature wearing out and decay of the faculties and powers.

It is not surprising, then, that great difficulties have had to be encountered in fixing any general laws by which longevity can be assured; yet such are in existence, and like all the gracious gifts of a most merciful Creator, are at the easy command and disposal of mankind.

They are to be found in implicit obedience to the Laws of God and Nature. These imply the use and not the misuse or abuse of all the powers and faculties given to us by an all-wise and all-merciful Providence. If human beings would only abide by these laws they would not only enjoy long health and long life but they would also pass that life in comfort and happiness.

With respect to the physical, intellectual and moral man, work is the essential factor in procuring health and happiness. Idleness is the bane of both. Man and woman were born to work either by hand or brain. Man in the outer world, woman in the home. The man who lives without an object in life is not only not doing his duty to God, but he is a curse to himself and others. But work, like everything else, should be limited. Many cannot do this, and overtax both their physical and intellectual energies. The employment of labour should be regulated by the capabilities of the working-classes, not by the economy or profits to be obtained by extra labour; and legislation, if paternal, as it should be, ought to protect the toiler in all instances—not in the few in which it attempts to ameliorate his condition. So with every pursuit or avocation, the leisure essential to health and happiness is too often sacrificed to cupidity, and when this is the case there can be no longevity.

Exercise is beneficial to man; but it should not be taken in excess, or in too trying a form. It is very questionable if what are called "Athletic Sports" are not too often as hurtful as they are beneficial. It is quite certain that they cannot be indulged in with impunity after a certain time of life.

Sustenance is essential alike to life and longevity, but it is trite to say it must be in moderation, and as far as possible select. So in the case of temperance, moderation is beneficial, excess hurtful. Total abstainers defeat the very object they propose to advocate when they propose to do away with all because excess is hurtful. Extremes are always baneful, and the monks of old were wise in their generation when they denounced gluttony and intemperance as cardinal vices. The physical powers are as a rule subject to the will, which is the exponent of our passions and propensities and of our moral and intellectual impulses. Were it not so we could not curb our actions, restrain our appetites, or keep within that moderation which is essential to health, happiness and longevity.

Our passions and propensities are imparted to us for a wise purpose, and are therefore beneficial in their use. It is only in their neglect, misuse or abuse that they become hurtful. A French author has pertinently put it thus: "The passions act as winds to propel our vessel, our reason is the pilot that steers her; without the winds she would not move, without the pilot she would be lost."

Even our affections, so pure and beautiful in themselves, may, by abuse, be made sources of mischief, evil and disease. The abuses are too well known to require repetition here. The powers of energy and resistance, beneficial in themselves, in their abuse bring about the spirit of contradiction, violence and combat.

It seems passing strange that even our moral feelings should be liable to abuse; but it is so, even with the best. Benevolence and charity may be misplaced or be in excess of our means. They assume the shape of vices in the form of prodigality and extravagance. The honest desire to acquire the necessities of life or the means for moral and intellectual improvement may in excess become cupidity or covetousness, and lead even to the appropriation of what is not our own. Kleptomania is met with in the book-worm or the antiquarian, as well as in the feminine lover of dress or those in poverty and distress. Firmness may become obstinacy; the justifiable love of self may, by abuse, become pride; and a proper and chaste wish for the approbation of others may be turned into the most absurd of vanities. Even religion itself may be carried to uncharitableness, fanaticism and persecution. Still more strange it must appear that even the intellectual faculties should be liable to abuse; but it is part of the pains and penalties of the constitution of man that it should be so. It is so to teach us that moderation is wisdom and the only conduct that leads to health and happiness.

The abuse of the moral faculties is directly injurious; that of the intellectual faculties mostly so in an indirect manner. Such abuses are more hurtful by the influence they have upon the conduct than they have upon the intellect itself. If a man's judgment is unsound, for example, it leads to deleterious consequences, not only to himself, but to others. If the powers of observation are weak, and a person is deficient in the capacity of judging of form, distance or locality, he will be incapacitated from success in many pursuits of life without his suffering thereby, except in an indirect manner. The imagination, the noblest manifestation of intellect, may, without judgment, be allowed to run riot, or abused by its exaltation; and with the faculty of wonder may lead to superstition, fanaticism and folly. The intellectual faculties may be altogether weak or almost wanting. In such cases we have foolishness merging into idiocy.

The examples here given of use, as opposed to neglect, misuse, or abuse, are simply illustrative of the point in question. They might be extended in an indefinite degree, especially if it were proposed to enter into details. They will, however, suffice for the purpose in view, which is to show that the use of all the powers and faculties granted to us by the Creator is intended for our benefit, and is conducive to health, happiness and longevity, but that their neglect or their abuse leads to misery, pain, affliction, disaster and disease.

The lesson to be conveyed is that moderation is essential in all things. Why is it that the sickly and the ailing sometimes survive the strong and hearty? Because suffering has taught the former moderation, whilst the sense of power leads the latter to excesses which too often prove fatal. Everyone has, in his experience, known instances of the kind.

But the use and not the neglect or abuse of the faculties is the observance of the laws of God and Nature. If neglect and misuse of our faculties lead to loss of power, so their abuse leads to bad conduct and its pains and penalties. What has been here termed moderation, as a medium between neglect, use and abuse, is really obedience to the laws of God and Nature.

The whole secret of health, happiness and longevity lies then in this simple observance, if it can only be fully understood, appreciated in all its importance, and carried out in all the smallest details of life. As such perfection is rare, and somewhat difficult to attain—the trials and temptations of life being so great—so are none of the results here enumerated often arrived at; but that is no reason why man should not endeavour to reach as near perfection as possible, and enjoy as much health and happiness as he can. One of the most common and one of the greatest errors is to suppose that happiness is to be obtained by the pursuit of pleasure and excitement. The temporary enjoyment created by such is inevitably followed by reaction—lassitude and weariness—and human nature is palled by the surfeit of amusement as much as it is by the luxuries of the table. There cannot be a more humiliating spectacle than that of the man of the world, as he is called, or the woman of fashion or pleasure. Blase is too considerate an expression. Such persons are worn-out prematurely in body, mind and intellect—they are soulless and unsympathetic—the wrecks of the noble creatures God created as man and woman in all the simplicity of their nature.

It is surely worth while, then, considering whether the enjoyment of health and happiness is not worth a little study and a little sacrifice of the vain and imaginary pleasures of the world. There is no doubt that some amount of restraint and some power of self-control are requisite to ensure moderation. But the disdain of many pleasures is a chief part of what is commonly called wisdom.

It is with waking and sleeping, with talking and walking, with eating and drinking, with toil and labour, with all the acts of life, that moderation or obedience to the laws of Nature requires some little sacrifice in their observance; but it is quite certain that without this obedience there is neither health nor happiness nor longevity.



SONNET.

Who said that there were slaves? There may be men In bondage, bought or sold: there are no slaves Whilst God looks down, whilst Christ's most pure blood laves The black man's sins; whilst within angel ken He bears his load and drags his iron chain. The slaves are they whom, on His Judgment Day, God shall renounce for aye and cast away. Oh, Jesus Christ! Thou wilt give justice then! A drop of blood shall seem a swelling sea, More piercing than a cry the lowest moan. Come down, ye mountains! in your gloom come down, And bury deep the sinner's agony! Master and slave have past; Time, thou art gone: Eternity begins—Christ rules alone!

JULIA KAVANAGH.



THE SILENT CHIMES.

NOT HEARD.

That oft-quoted French saying, a mauvais-quart-d'heure, is a pregnant one, and may apply to small as well as to great worries of life: most of us know it to our cost. But, rely upon it, one of the very worst is that when a bride or bridegroom has to make a disagreeable confession to the other, which ought to have been made before going to church.

Philip Hamlyn was finding it so. Standing over the fire, in their sitting-room at the Old Ship Hotel at Brighton, his elbow on the mantelpiece, his hand shading his eyes, he looked down at his wife sitting opposite him, and disclosed his tale: that when he married her fifteen days ago he had not been a bachelor, but a widower. There was no especial reason for his not having told her, save that he hated and abhorred that earlier period of his life and instinctively shunned its remembrance.

Sent to India by his friends in the West Indies to make his way in the world, he entered one of the most important mercantile houses in Calcutta, purchasing a lucrative post in it. Mixing in the best society, for his introductions were undeniable, he in course of time met with a young lady named Pratt, who had come out from England to stay with her elderly cousins, Captain Pratt and his sister. Philip Hamlyn was caught by her pretty doll's face, and married her. They called her Dolly: and a doll she was, by nature as well as by name.

"Marry in haste and repent at leisure," is as true a saying as the French one. Philip Hamlyn found it so. Of all vain, frivolous, heartless women, Mrs. Dolly Hamlyn turned out to be about the worst. Just a year or two of uncomfortable bickering, of vain endeavours on his part, now coaxing, now reproaching, to make her what she was not and never would be—a reasonable woman, a sensible wife—and Dolly Hamlyn fled. She decamped with a hair-brained lieutenant, the two taking sailing-ship for England, and she carrying with her her little one-year-old boy.

I'll leave you to guess what Philip Hamlyn's sensations were. A calamity such as that does not often fall upon man. While he was taking steps to put his wife legally away for ever and to get back his child, and Captain Pratt was aiding and abetting (and swearing frightfully at the delinquent over the process), news reached them that Heaven's vengeance had been more speedy than theirs. The ship, driven out of her way by contrary winds and other disasters, went down off the coast of Spain, and all the passengers on board perished. This was what Philip Hamlyn had to confess now: and it was more than silly of him not to have done it before.

He touched but lightly upon it now. His tones were low, his words when he began somewhat confused: nevertheless his wife, gazing up at him with her large dark eyes, gathered an inkling of his meaning.

"Don't tell it me!" she passionately interrupted. "Do not tell me that I am only your second wife."

He went over to her, praying her to be calm, speaking of the bitter feeling of shame which had ever since clung to him.

"Did you divorce her?"

"No, no; you do not understand me, Eliza. She died before anything could be done; the ship was wrecked."

"Were there any children?" she asked in a hard whisper.

"One; a baby of a year old. He was drowned with his mother."

Mrs. Hamlyn folded her hands one over the other, and leaned back in her chair. "Why did you deceive me?"

"My will was good to deceive you for ever," he confessed with emotion. "I hate that past episode in my life; hate to think of it: I wish I could blot it out of remembrance. But for Pratt I should not have told you now."

"Oh, he said you ought to tell me?"

"He did: and blamed me for not having told you already."

"Have you any more secrets of the past that you are keeping from me?"

"None. Not one. You may take my honour upon it, Eliza. And now let us—"

She had started forward in her chair; a red flush darkening her pale cheeks, "Philip! Philip! am I legally married? Did you describe yourself as a bachelor in the license?"

"No, as a widower. I got the license in London, you know."

"And no one read it?"

"No one save he who married us: Robert Grame, and I don't suppose he noticed it."

Robert Grame! The flush on Eliza's cheeks grew deeper.

"Did you love her?"

"I suppose I thought so when I married her. It did not take long to disenchant me," he added with a harsh laugh.

"What was her Christian name?"

"Dolly. Dora, I believe, by register. My dear wife, I have told you all. In compassion to me let us drop the subject, now and for ever."

Was Eliza Hamlyn—sitting there with pale, compressed lips, sullen eyes, and hands interlocked in pain—already beginning to reap the fruit she had sown as Eliza Monk by her rebellious marriage? Perhaps so. But not as she would have to reap it later on.

Mr. and Mrs. Hamlyn spent nearly all that year in travelling. In September they came to Peacock's Range, taking it furnished for a term of old Mr. and Mrs. Peveril, who had not yet come back to it. It stood midway, as may be remembered, between Church Leet and Church Dykely, so that Eliza was close to her old home. Late in October a little boy was born: it would be hard to say which was the prouder of him, Philip Hamlyn or his wife.

"What would you like his name to be?" Philip asked her one day.

"I should like it to be Walter," said Mrs. Hamlyn.

"Walter!"

"Yes, I should. I like the name for itself, but I once had a dear little brother named Walter, just a year younger than I. He died before we came home to England. Have you any objection to the name?"

"Oh, no, no objection," he slowly said. "I was only thinking whether you would have any. It was the name given to my first child."

"That can make no possible difference—it was not my child," was her haughty answer. So the baby was named Walter James; the latter name also chosen by Eliza, because it had been old Mr. Monk's.

In the following spring Mr. Hamlyn had to go to the West Indies. Eliza remained at home; and during this time she became reconciled to her father.

Hubert brought it about. For Hubert lived yet. But he was just a shadow and had to take entirely to the house, and soon to his room. Eliza came to see him, again and again; and finally over Hubert's sofa peace was made—for Captain Monk loved her still, just as he had loved Katherine, for all her rebellion.

Hubert lingered on to the summer. And then, on a calm evening, when one of the glorious sunsets that he had so loved to look upon was illumining the western sky, opening up to his dying view, as he had once said, the very portals of Heaven, he passed peacefully away to his rest.

II.

The next change that set in at Leet Hall concerned Miss Kate Dancox. That wilful young pickle, somewhat sobered by the death of Hubert in the summer, soon grew unbearable again. She had completely got the upper hand of her morning governess, Miss Hume—who walked all the way from Church Dykely and back again—and of nearly everyone else; and Captain Monk gave forth his decision one day when all was turbulence—a resident governess. Mrs. Carradyne could have danced a reel for joy, and wrote to a governess agency in London.

One morning about this time (which was already glowing with the tints of autumn) a young lady got out of an omnibus in Oxford Street, which had brought her from a western suburb of London, paid the conductor, and then looked about her.

"There!" she exclaimed in a quaint tone of vexation, "I have to cross the street! And how am I to do it?"

Evidently she was not used to the bustle of London streets or to crossing them alone. She did it, however, after a few false starts, and so turned down a quiet side street and rang at the bell of a house in it. A slatternly girl answered the ring.

"Governess-agent—Mrs. Moffit? Oh, yes; first-floor front," said she crustily, and disappeared.

The young lady found her way upstairs alone. Mrs. Moffit sat in state in a big arm-chair, before a large table and desk, whence she daily dispensed joy or despair to her applicants. Several opened letters and copies of the daily journals lay on the table.

"Well?" cried she, laying down her pen, "what for you?"

"I am here by your appointment, madam, made with me a week ago," said the young lady. "This is Thursday."

"What name?" cried Mrs. Moffit sharply, turning over rapidly the leaves of a ledger.

"Miss West. If you remember, I—"

"Oh, yes, child, my memory's good enough," was the tart interruption. "But with so many applicants it's impossible to be at any certainty as to faces. Registered names we can't mistake."

Mrs. Moffit read her notes—taken down a week ago. "Miss West. Educated in first-class school at Richmond; remained in it as teacher. Very good references from the ladies keeping it. Father, Colonel in India."

"But—"

"You do not wish to go into a school again?" spoke Mrs. Moffit, closing the ledger with a snap, and peremptorily drowning what the applicant was about to say.

"Oh, dear, no, I am only leaving to better myself, as the maids say," replied the young lady smiling.

"And you wish for a good salary?"

"If I can get it. One does not care to work hard for next to nothing."

"Or else I have—let me see—two—three situations on my books. Very comfortable, I am instructed, but two of them offer ten pounds a-year, the other twelve."

The young lady drew herself slightly up with an involuntary movement. "Quite impossible, madam, that I could take any one of them."

Mrs. Moffit picked up a letter and consulted it, looking at the young lady from time to time, as if taking stock of her appearance. "I received a letter this morning from the country—a family require a well-qualified governess for their one little girl. Your testimonials as to qualifications might suit—and you are, I believe, a gentlewoman—"

"Oh, yes; my father was—"

"Yes, yes, I remember—I've got it down; don't worry me," impatiently spoke the oracle, cutting short the interruption. "So far you might suit: but in other respects—I hardly know what to think."

"But why?" asked the other timidly, blushing a little under the intent gaze.

"Well, you are very young, for one thing; and they might think you too good-looking."

The girl's blush grew red as a rose; she had delicate features and it made her look uncommonly pretty. A half-smile sat in her soft, dark hazel eyes.

"Surely that could not be an impediment. I am not so good-looking as all that!"

"That's as people may think," was the significant answer. "Some families will not take a pretty governess—afraid of their sons, you see. This family says nothing about looks; for aught I know there may be no sons in it. 'Thoroughly competent'—reading from the letter—'a gentlewoman by birth, of agreeable manners and lady-like. Salary, first year, to be forty pounds.'"

"And will you not recommend me?" pleaded the young governess, her voice full of soft entreaty. "Oh, please do! I know I should be found fully competent, and I promise you that I would do my very best."

"Well, there may be no harm in my writing to the lady about you," decided Mrs. Moffit, won over by the girl's gentle respect—with which she did not get treated by all her clients. "Suppose you come here again on Monday next?"

The end of the matter was that Miss West was engaged by the lady mentioned—no other than Mrs. Carradyne. And she journeyed down into Worcestershire to enter upon the situation.

But clever (and generally correct) Mrs. Moffit made one mistake, arising, no doubt, from the chronic state of hurry she was always in. "Miss West is the daughter of the late Colonel William West," she wrote, "who went to India with his regiment a few years ago, and died there." What Miss West had said to her was this: "My father, a clergyman, died when I was a little child, and my uncle William, Colonel West, the only relation I had left, died three years ago in India." Mrs. Moffit somehow confounded the two.

This might not have mattered on the whole. But, as you perceive, it conveyed a wrong impression at Leet Hall.

"The governess I have engaged is a Miss West; her father was a military man and a gentleman," spake Mrs. Carradyne one morning at breakfast to Captain Monk. "She is rather young—about twenty, I fancy; but an older person might never get on at all with Kate."

"Had good references with her, I suppose?" said the Captain.

"Oh, yes. From the agent, and especially from the ladies who have brought her up."

"Who was her father, do you say?—a military man?"

"Colonel William West," assented Mrs. Carradyne, referring to the letter she held. "He went to India with his regiment and died there."

"I'll refer to the army-list," said the Captain; "daresay it's all right. And she shall keep Kate in order, or I'll know the reason why."

* * * * *

The evening sunlight lay on the green plain, on the white fields from which the grain had been reaped, and on the beautiful woods glowing with the varied tints of autumn. A fly was making its way to Leet Hall, and its occupant, looking out of it on this side and that, in a fever of ecstasy, for the country scene charmed her, thought how favoured was the lot of those who could live out their lives amidst its surroundings.

In the drawing-room at the Hall, watching the approach of this same fly, stood Mrs. Hamlyn, a frown upon her haughty face. Philip Hamlyn was still detained in the West Indies, and since her reconciliation to her father, she would go over with her baby-boy to the Hall and remain there for days together. Captain Monk liked to have her, and he took more notice of the baby than he had ever taken of baby yet. For when Kate was an infant he had at first shunned her, because she had cost Katherine her life. This baby, little Walter, was a particularly forward child, strong and upright, walked at ten months old, and much resembled his mother in feature. In temper also. The young one would stand sturdily in his little blue shoes and defy his grandpapa already, and assert his own will, to the amused admiration of Captain Monk.

Eliza, utterly wrapt in her child, saw her father's growing love for him with secret delight; and one day when he had the boy on his knee, she ventured to speak out a thought that was often in her heart.

"Papa," she said, with impassioned fervour, "he ought to be the heir, your own grandson; not Harry Carradyne."

Captain Monk simply stared in answer.

"He lies in the direct succession; he has your own blood in his veins. Papa, you ought to see it."

Certainly the gallant sailor's manners were improving. For perhaps the first time in his life he suppressed the hot and abusive words rising to his tongue—that no son of that man, Hamlyn, should come into Leet Hall—and stood in silence.

"Don't you see it, papa?"

"Look here, Eliza: we'll drop the subject. When my brother, your uncle, was dying, he wrote me a letter, enjoining me to make Emma's son the heir, failing a son of my own. It was right it should be so, he said. Right it is; and Harry Carradyne will succeed me. Say no more."

Thus forbidden to say more, Eliza Hamlyn thought the more, and her thoughts were not pleasant. At one time she had feared her father might promote Kate Dancox to the heirship, and grew to dislike the child accordingly. Latterly, for the same reason, she had disliked Harry Carradyne; hated him, in fact. She herself was the only remaining child of the house, and her son ought to inherit.

She stood this evening at the drawing-room window, this and other matters running in her mind. Miss Kate, at the other end of the room, had prevailed on Uncle Harry (as she called him) to play a game at toy ninepins. Or perhaps he had prevailed on her: anything to keep her tolerably quiet. She was in her teens now, but the older she grew the more troublesome she became; and she was remarkably small and childish-looking, so that strangers took her to be several years younger than she really was.

"This must be your model governess arriving, Aunt Emma," exclaimed Mrs. Hamlyn, as the fly came up the drive.

"I hope it is," said Mrs. Carradyne; and they all looked out. "Oh, yes, that's an Evesham fly—and a ramshackle thing it appears."

"I wonder you did not send the carriage to Evesham for her, mother," remarked Harry, picking up some of the ninepins which Miss Kate had swept off the table with her hand.

Mrs. Hamlyn turned round in a blaze of anger. "Send the carriage to Evesham for the governess! What absurd thing will you say next, Harry?"

The young man laughed in good humour. "Does it offend one of your prejudices, Eliza?—a thousand pardons, then. But really, nonsense apart, I can't see why the carriage should not have gone for her. We are told she is a gentlewoman. Indeed, I suppose anyone else would not be eligible, as she is to be made one of ourselves."

"And think of the nuisance it will be! Do be quiet, Harry! Kate ought to have been sent to school."

"But your father would not have her sent, you know, Eliza," spoke Mrs. Carradyne.

"Then—"

"Miss West, ma'am," interrupted Rimmer, the butler, showing in the traveller.

"Dear me, how very young!" was Mrs. Carradyne's first thought. "And what a lovely face!"

She came in shyly. In her whole appearance there was a shrinking, timid gentleness, betokening refinement of feeling. A slender, lady-like girl, in a plain, dark travelling suit and a black bonnet lined and tied with pink, a little lace border shading her nut-brown hair. The bonnets in those days set off a pretty face better than do these modern ones. That's what the Squire tells us.

Mrs. Carradyne advanced and shook hands cordially; Eliza bent her head slightly from where she stood; Harry Carradyne stood up, a pleasant welcome in his blue eyes and in his voice, as he laughingly congratulated her upon the ancient Evesham fly not having come to grief en route. Kate Dancox pressed forward.

"Are you my new governess?"

The young lady smiled and said she believed so.

"Aunt Eliza hates governesses; so do I. Do you expect to make me obey you?"

The governess blushed painfully; but took courage to say she hoped she should. Harry Carradyne thought it the very loveliest blush he had ever seen in all his travels, and she the sweetest-looking girl.

And when Captain Monk came in he quite took to her appearance, for he hated to have ugly people about him. But every now and then there was a look in her face, or in her eyes, that struck him as being familiar—as if he had once known someone who resembled her. Pleasing, soft dark hazel eyes they were as one could wish to see, with goodness in their depths.

III.

Months passed away, and Miss West was domesticated in her new home. It was not all sunshine. Mrs. Carradyne, ever considerate, strove to render things agreeable; but there were sources of annoyance over which she had no control. Kate, when she chose, could be verily a little elf, a demon; as Mrs. Hamlyn often put it, "a diablesse." And she, that lady herself, invariably treated the governess with a sort of cool, indifferent contempt; and she was more often at Leet Hall than away from it. The Captain, too, gave way to fits of temper that simply terrified Miss West. Reared in the quiet atmosphere of a well-trained school, she had never met with temper such as this.

On the other hand—yes, on the other hand, she had an easy place of it, generous living, was regarded as a lady, and—she had learnt to love Harry Carradyne for weal or for woe.

But not—please take notice—not unsolicited. Tacitly, at any rate. If Mr. Harry's speaking blue eyes were to be trusted and Mr. Harry's tell-tale tones when with her, his love, at the very least, equalled hers. Eliza Hamlyn, despite the penetration that ill-nature generally can exercise, had not yet scented any such treason in the wind: or there would have blown up a storm.

Spring was to bring its events; but first of all it must be said that during the winter little Walter Hamlyn was taken ill at Leet Hall when staying there with his mother. The malady turned out to be gastric fever, and Mr. Speck was in constant attendance. For the few days that the child lay in danger, Eliza was almost wild. The progress to convalescence was very slow, lasting many weeks; and during that time Captain Monk, being much with the little fellow, grew to be fond of him with an unreasonable affection.

"I'm not sure but I shall leave Leet Hall to him," he suddenly observed to Eliza one day, not observing that Harry Carradyne was standing in the recess of the window. "Halloa! are you there, Harry? Well, it can't be helped. You heard what I said?"

"I heard, Uncle Godfrey: but I did not understand."

"Eliza thinks Leet Hall ought to go in the direct line—through her—to this child. What should you say to that?"

"What could he say to it?" imperiously demanded Eliza. "He is only your nephew."

Harry looked from one to the other in a sort of bewildered surprise: and there came a silence.

"Uncle Godfrey," he said, starting out of a reverie, "you have been good enough to make me your heir. It was unexpected on my part, unsolicited; but you did do it, and you caused me to leave the army in consequence, to give up my fair prospects in life. I am aware that this deed is not irrevocable, and certainly you have the right to do what you will with your own property. But you must forgive me for saying that you should have made quite sure of your intentions beforehand: before picking me up, if it be only to throw me down again."

"There, there, we'll leave it," retorted Captain Monk testily. "No harm's done to you yet, Mr. Harry; I don't know that it will be."

But Harry Carradyne felt sure that it would be; that he should be despoiled of the inheritance. The resolute look of power on Eliza's face, bent on him as he quitted the chamber, was an earnest of that. Captain Monk was not the determined man he had once been; that was over.

"A pretty kettle of fish, this is," ruefully soliloquised Harry, as he marched along the corridor. "Eliza's safe to get her will; no doubt of that. And I? what am I to do? I can't repurchase and go back amongst them again like a returned shilling; at least, I won't; and I can't turn Parson, or Queen's Counsel, or Cabinet Minister. I'm fitted for nothing now, that I see, but to be a gentleman-at-large; and what would the gentleman's income be?"

Standing at the corridor window, softly whistling, he ran over ways and means in his mind. He had a pretty house of his own, Peacock's Range, formerly his father's, and about four hundred a-year. After his mother's death it would not be less than a thousand a-year.

"That means bread and cheese at present. Later—Heyday, young lady, what's the matter?"

The school-room door, close by, had opened with a burst, and Miss Kate Dancox was flying down the stairs—her usual progress the minute lessons were over. Harry strolled into the room. The governess was putting the littered table straight.

"Any admission, ma'am?" cried he quaintly, making for a chair. "I should like to ask leave to sit down for a bit."

Alice West laughed, and stirred the fire by way of welcome; he was a very rare visitor to the school-room. The blaze, mingling with the rays of the setting sun that streamed in at the window, played upon her sweet face and silky brown hair, lighted up the bright winter dress she wore, and the bow of pink ribbon that fastened the white lace round her slender, pretty throat.

"Are you so much in need of a seat?" she laughingly asked.

"Indeed I am," was the semi-grave response. "I have had a shock."

"A very sharp one, sir?"

"Sharp as steel. Really and truly," he went on in a different tone, as he left the chair and stood up by the table facing her; "I have just heard news that may affect my whole future life; may change me from a rich man to a poor one."

"Oh, Mr. Carradyne!" Her manner had changed now.

"I was the destined inheritor, as you know—for I'm sure nobody has been reticent upon the subject—of these broad lands," with a sweep of the hand towards the plains outside. "Captain Monk is now pleased to inform me that he thinks of substituting for me Mrs. Hamlyn's child."

"But would not that be very unjust?"

"Hardly fair—as it seems to me. Considering that my good uncle obliged me to give up my own prospects for it."

She stood, her hands clasped in sympathy, her face full of earnest sadness. "How unkind! Why, it would be cruel!"

"Well, I confess I felt it to be so at the first blow. But, standing at the outside window yonder to pull myself together, a ray or two of light crept in, showing me that it may be for the best after all. 'Whatever is, is right,' you know."

"Yes," she slowly said—"if you can think so. But, Mr. Carradyne, should you not have anything at all?—anything to live upon after Captain Monk's death?"

"Just a trifle, I calculate, as the Americans say—and it is calculating I have been—that I need not altogether starve. Would you like to know how much it will be?"

"Oh, please don't laugh at me!"—for it suddenly struck the girl that he was laughing, perhaps in reproof, and that she had spoken too freely. "I ought not to have asked that; I was not thinking—I was too sorry to think."

"But I may as well tell you, if you don't mind. I have a very pretty little place, which you have seen and heard of, called by that delectable title Peacock's Range—"

"Is Peacock's Range yours?" she interrupted, in surprise. "I thought it belonged to Mr. Peveril."

"Peacock's Range is mine and was my father's before me, Miss Alice. It was leased to Peveril for a term of years, but I fancy he would be glad to give it up to-morrow. Well, I have Peacock's Range and about four hundred pounds a-year."

Her face brightened. "Then you need not talk about starving," she said, gaily.

"And, later, I shall have altogether about a thousand a-year. Though I hope it will be very long before it falls to me. Do you think two people might venture to set up at Peacock's Range, and keep, say, a couple of servants upon four hundred a-year? Could they exist upon it?"

"Oh, dear, yes," she answered eagerly, quite unconscious of his drift. "Did you mean yourself and some friend?"

He nodded.

"Why, I don't see how they could spend it all. There'd be no rent to pay. And just think of all the fruit and vegetables in the garden there!"

"Then I take you at your word, Alice," he cried impulsively, passing his arm round her waist. "You are the 'friend.' My dear, I have long wanted to ask you to be my wife, and I did not dare. This place, Leet Hall, encumbered me: for I feared the opposition that I, as its heir, should inevitably meet."

She drew away from him, with doubting, frightened eyes. Mr. Harry Carradyne brought all the persuasion of his own dancing blue ones to bear upon her. "Surely, Alice, you will not say me nay!"

"I dare not say yes," she whispered.

"What are you afraid of?"

"Of it altogether; of your friends. Captain Monk would—would—perhaps—turn me out. And there's Mrs. Carradyne!"

Harry laughed. "Captain Monk can have no right to any voice in my affairs, once he throws me off; he cannot expect to have a finger in everyone's pie. As to my mother—ah, Alice, unless I am much mistaken, she will welcome you with love."

Alice burst into tears: emotion was stirring her to its depths. "Please to let it all be for a time," she pleaded. "If you speak it would be sure to lead to my being turned away."

"I will let it be for a time, my darling, so far as speaking of it goes: for more reasons than one it may be better. But you are my promised wife, Alice; always recollect that."

And Mr. Harry Carradyne, bold as a soldier should be, took a few kisses from her unresisting lips to enforce his mandate.

IV.

Some time rolled on, calling for no particular record. Mr. Hamlyn's West Indian property, which was large and lucrative, had been giving him trouble of late; at least, those who had the care of it gave it, and he was obliged to go over occasionally to see after it in person. Between times he stayed with his wife at Peacock's Range; or else she joined him in London. Their town residence was in Bryanstone Square; a very pretty house, but not a large one.

It had been an unfavourable autumn; cold and wet. Snow had fallen in November, and the weather continued persistently dull and dreary. One gloomy afternoon towards the close of the year, Mrs. Hamlyn, shivering over her drawing-room fire, rang impatiently for more coal to be piled upon it.

"Has Master Walter come in yet?" she asked of the footman.

"No, ma'am. I saw him just now playing in front there."

She went to the window. Yes, running about the paths of the Square garden was the child, attended by his nurse. He was a sturdy little fellow. His mother, wishing to make him hardy, sent him out in all weathers, and the boy throve upon it. He was three years old now, but looked older; and he was as clever and precocious as some children are at five or six. Her heart thrilled with a strange joy only at the sight of him: he was her chief happiness in life, her idol. Whether he would succeed to Leet Hall she knew not; since the one time he mentioned it, Captain Monk had said no more upon the subject, for or against it.

Why need she have longed for it so fervently? to the setting at naught the expressed wishes of her deceased uncle and to the detriment of Harry Carradyne? It was just covetousness. As his father's eldest son (there were no younger ones yet) the boy would inherit a fine property, a large income; but his doting mother must give him Leet Hall as well.

Her whole heart went out to the child as she watched him playing there. A few snowflakes were beginning to fall, and dusk would soon be drawing on, but she would not call him in. Standing thus at the window, it gradually grew upon her to notice that something was standing back against the opposite rails, looking fixedly at the houses. A young, fair woman apparently, with a profusion of light hair; she was draped in a close dark cloak which served to conceal her figure, just as the thick veil she wore concealed her face.

"I believe it is this house she is gazing at so attentively—and at me," thought Mrs. Hamlyn. "What can she possibly want?"

The woman did not move away and Mrs. Hamlyn did not move; they remained staring at one another. Presently Walter burst into the room, laughing in glee at having distanced his nurse. His mother turned, caught him in her arms and kissed him passionately. Wilful though he was by disposition, and showing it at times, he was a lovable, generous child, and very pretty: great brown eyes and auburn curls. His life was all sunshine, like a butterfly's on a summer's day; his path as yet one of roses without their thorns.

"Mamma, I've got a picture-book; come and look at it," cried the eager little voice, as he dragged his mother to the hearthrug and opened the picture-book in the light of the blaze. "Penelope bought it for me."

She sat down on a footstool, the book on her lap and one arm round him, her treasure. Penelope waited to take off his hat and pelisse, and was told to come for him in five minutes.

"It's not my tea-time yet," cried he defiantly.

"Indeed, then, Master Walter, it is long past it," said the nurse. "I couldn't get him in before, ma'am," she added to her mistress. "Every minute I kept expecting you'd be sending one of the servants after us."

"In five minutes," repeated Mrs. Hamlyn. "And what's this picture about, Walter? Is it a little girl with a doll?"

"Oh, dat bootiful," said the eager little lad, who was not yet as quick in speech as he was in ideas. "It says she—dere's papa!"

In came Philip Hamlyn, tall, handsome, genial. Walter ran to him and was caught in his arms. He and his wife were just a pair for adoring the child.

But nurse, inexorable, appeared again at the five minutes' end, and Master Walter was carried off.

"You came home in a cab, Philip, did you not? I thought I heard one stop."

"Yes; it is a miserable evening. Raining fast now."

"Raining!" she repeated, rather wondering to hear it was not snowing. She went to the window to look out, and the first object her eyes caught sight of was the woman; leaning in the old place against the railings, in the growing dusk.

"I'm not sorry to see the rain; we shall have it warmer now," remarked Mr. Hamlyn, who had drawn a chair to the fire. "In fact, it's much warmer already than it was this morning."

"Philip, step here a minute."

His wife's tone had dropped to a half-whisper, sounding rather mysterious, and he went at once.

"Just look, Philip—opposite. Do you see a woman standing there?"

"A woman—where?" cried he, looking of course in every direction but the right one.

"Just facing us. She has her back against the railings."

"Oh, ay, I see now; a lady in a cloak. She must be waiting for someone."

"Why do you call her a lady?"

"She looks like one—as far as I can see in the gloom. Does she not? Her hair does, any way."

"She has been there I cannot tell you how long, Philip; half-an-hour, I'm sure; and it seems to me that she is watching this house. A lady would hardly do that."

"This house? Oh, then, Eliza, perhaps she's watching for one of the servants. She might come in, poor thing, instead of standing there in the rain."

"Poor thing, indeed!—what business has any woman to watch a house in this marked manner?" retorted Eliza. "The neighbourhood will be taking her for a female detective."

"Nonsense!"

"She has given me a creepy feeling; I can tell you that, Philip."

"But why?" he exclaimed.

"I can't tell you why; I don't know why; it is so. Do not laugh at me for confessing it."

Philip Hamlyn did laugh; heartily. "Creepy feelings" and his imperiously strong-minded wife could have but little affinity with one another.

"We'll have the curtains drawn, and the lights, and shut her out," said he cheerily. "Come and sit down, Eliza; I want to show you a letter I've had to-day."

But the woman waiting outside there seemed to possess for Eliza Hamlyn somewhat of the fascination of the basilisk; for she never stirred from the window until the curtains were drawn.

"It is from Peveril," said Mr. Hamlyn, producing the letter he had spoken of from his pocket. "The lease he took of Peacock's Range is not yet out, but he can resign it now if he pleases, and he would be glad to do so. He and his wife would rather remain abroad, it seems, than return home."

"Yes. Well?"

"Well, he writes to me to ask whether he can resign it; or whether I must hold him to the promise he made me—that I should rent the house to the end of the term. I mean the end of the lease; the term he holds it for."

"Why does he want to resign it? Why can't things go on as at present?"

"I gather from an allusion he makes, though he does not explicitly state it, that Mr. Carradyne wishes to have the place in his own hands. What am I to say to Peveril, Eliza?"

"Say! Why, that you must hold him to his promise; that we cannot give up the house yet. A pretty thing if I had no place to go down to at will in my own county!"

"So far as I am concerned, Eliza, I would prefer to stay away from the county—if your father is to continue to treat me in the way he does. Remember what it was in the summer. I think we are very well here."

"Now, Philip, I have said. I do not intend to release our hold on Peacock's Range. My father will be reconciled to you in time as he is to me."

"I wonder what Harry Carradyne can want it for?" mused Philip Hamlyn, bowing to the imperative decision of his better half.

"To live in it, I should say. He would like to show his resentment to papa by turning his back on Leet Hall. It can't be for anything else."

"What cause of resentment has he? He sent for him home and made him his heir."

"That is the cause. Papa has come to his senses and changed his mind. It is our darling little Walter who is to be the heir of Leet Hall, Philip—and papa has so informed Harry Carradyne."

Philip Hamlyn gazed at his wife in doubt. He had never heard a word of this; instinct had kept her silent.

"I hope not," he emphatically said, breaking the silence.

"You hope not?"

"Walter shall never inherit Leet Hall with my consent, Eliza. Harry Carradyne is the right and proper heir, and no child of mine, as I hope, must or shall displace him."

Mrs. Hamlyn treated her husband to one of her worst looks, telling of contempt as well as of power; but she did not speak.

"Listen, Eliza. I cannot bear injustice, and I do not believe it ever prospers in the long run. Were your father to bequeath—my dear, I beg of you to listen to me!—to bequeath his estates to little Walter, to the exclusion of the true heir, rely upon it the bequest would never bring him good. In some way or other it would not serve him. Money diverted by injustice from its natural and just channel does not carry a blessing with it. I have noted this over and over again in going through life."

"Anything more?" she contemptuously asked.

"And Walter will not need it," he continued persuasively, passing her question as unheard. "As my son, he will be amply provided for."

A very commonplace interruption occurred, and the subject was dropped. Nothing more than a servant bringing in a letter for his master, just come by hand.

"Why, it is from old Richard Pratt!" exclaimed Mr. Hamlyn, as he turned to the light.

"I thought Major Pratt never wrote letters," she remarked. "I once heard you say he must have forgotten how to write."

He did not answer. He was reading the note, which appeared to be a short one. She watched him. After reading it through he began it again, a puzzled look upon his face. Then she saw it flush all over, and he crushed the note into his pocket.

"What is it about, Philip?"

"Pratt wants a prescription for gout that I told him of. I'm sure I don't know whether I can find it."

He had answered in a dreamy tone with thoughts preoccupied, and quitted the room hastily, as if to search for it.

Eliza wondered why he should flush up at being asked for a prescription, and why he should have suddenly lost himself in a reverie. But she had not much curiosity as to anything that concerned old Major Pratt—who was at present staying in lodgings in London.

Downstairs went Mr. Hamlyn to the little room he called his library, seated himself at the table under the lamp, and opened the note again. It ran as follows:

"DEAR PHILIP HAMLYN,—The other day, when calling here, you spoke of some infallible prescription to cure gout that had been given you. I've symptoms of it flying about me—and be hanged to it! Bring it to me yourself to-morrow; I want to see you. I suppose there was no mistake in the report that that ship did go down?—and that none of the passengers were saved from it?

"Truly yours,

"RICHARD PRATT."

"What can he possibly mean?" muttered Philip Hamlyn.

But there was no one to answer the question, and he sat buried in thought, trying to answer it himself. Starting up from the useless task, he looked in his desk, found the infallible prescription, and then snatched his watch from his pocket.

"Too late," he decided impatiently; "Pratt would be gone to bed. He goes at all kinds of unearthly hours when out of sorts." So he went upstairs to his wife again, the prescription displayed in his hand.

Morning came, bringing the daily routine of duties in its train. Mrs. Hamlyn had made an engagement to go with some friends to Blackheath, to take luncheon with a lady living there. It was damp and raw in the early portion of the day, but promised to be clear later on.

"And then my little darling can go out to play again," she said, hugging the child to her. "In the afternoon, nurse; it will be drier then; it is really too damp this morning."

Parting from him with fifty kisses, she went down to her comfortable and handsome carriage, her husband placing her in.

"I wish you were coming with me, Philip! But, you see, it is only ladies to-day. Six of us."

Philip Hamlyn laughed. "I don't wish it at all," he answered; "they would be fighting for me. Besides, I must take old Pratt his prescription. Only picture his storm of anger if I did not."

Mrs. Hamlyn was not back until just before dinner: her husband, she heard, had been out all day, and was not yet in. Waiting for him in the drawing-room listlessly enough, she walked to the window to look out. And there she saw with a sort of shock the same woman standing in the same place as the previous evening. Not once all day long had she thought of her.

"This is a strange thing!" she exclaimed. "I am sure it is this house that she is watching."

On the impulse of the moment she rang the bell and called the man who answered it to the window. He was a faithful, attached servant, had lived with them ever since they were married, and previously to that in Mr. Hamlyn's family in the West Indies.

"Japhet," said his mistress, "do you see that woman opposite? Do you know why she stands there?"

Japhet's answer told nothing. They had all seen her downstairs yesterday evening as well as this, and wondered what she could be watching the house for.

"She is not waiting for any of the servants, then; not an acquaintance of theirs?"

"No, ma'am, that I'm sure she's not. She is a stranger to us all."

"Then, Japhet, I think you shall go over and question her," spoke his mistress impulsively. "Ask her who she is and what she wants. And tell her that a gentleman's house cannot be watched with impunity in this country—and she will do well to move away before the police are called to her."

Japhet looked at his mistress and hesitated; he was an elderly man and cautious. "I beg your pardon, madam," he began, "for venturing to say as much, but I think it might be best to let her alone. She'll grow tired of stopping there. And if her motive is to attract pity, and get alms sent out, why the fact of speaking to her might make her bold enough to ask for them. If she comes there to-morrow again, it might be best for the master to take it up himself."

For once in her life Mrs. Hamlyn condescended to listen to the opinion of an inferior, and Japhet was dismissed without orders. Close upon that, a cab came rattling down the square, and stopped at the door. Her husband leaped out of it, tossed the driver his fare—he always paid liberally—and let himself in with his latch-key. To Mrs. Hamlyn's astonishment, she had seen the woman dart from her standing-place to the middle of the road, evidently to look at or to accost Mr. Hamlyn. But his movements were too quick: he was within in a moment and had closed the outer door. She then walked rapidly away, and disappeared.

Eliza Hamlyn stood there lost in thought. The nurse came in to take the child; Mr. Hamlyn had gone to his room to dress for dinner.

"Have you seen the woman who has been standing out there yesterday evening and this, Penelope?" she asked of the nurse, speaking upon impulse.

"Oh, yes, ma'am. She has been there all the blessed afternoon. She came into the garden to talk to us."

"Came into the garden to talk to you?" repeated Mrs. Hamlyn. "What did she talk about?"

"Chiefly about Master Walter, ma'am. She seemed to be much taken with him; she clasped him in her arms and kissed him, and said how old was he, and was he difficult to manage, and that he had his father's beautiful brown eyes—"

Penelope stopped abruptly. Mistaking the hard stare her mistress was unconsciously giving her for one of displeasure, she hastened to excuse herself. The fact was, Mrs. Hamlyn's imagination was beginning to run riot.

"I couldn't help her speaking to me, ma'am, or her kissing the child; she took me by surprise. That, was all she said—except that she asked whether you were likely to be going into the country soon, away from the house here. She didn't stay five minutes with us, but went back to stand by the railings again."

"Did she speak as a lady or as a common person?" quite fiercely demanded Mrs. Hamlyn. "Is she young?—good-looking?"

"Oh, I think she is a lady," replied the girl, her accent decisive. "And she's young, as far as I could see, but she had a thick veil over her face. Her hair is lovely, just like silken threads of pale gold," concluded Penelope as Mr. Hamlyn's step was heard.

He took his wife into the dining-room, apologising for being late. She, giving full range to the fancies she had called up, heard him in silence with a hardening, haughty face.

"Philip, you know who that woman is," she suddenly exclaimed during a temporary absence of Japhet from the dining-room. "What is it that she wants with you?"

"I!" he returned, in a surprise very well feigned if not real. "What woman? Do you mean the one who was standing out there yesterday?"

"You know I do. She has been there again—all the blessed afternoon, as Penelope expresses it. Asking questions of the girl about you—and me—and Walter; and saying the child has your beautiful brown eyes. I ask you who is she?"

Mr. Hamlyn laid down his knife and fork to gaze at his wife. He looked quite at sea.

"Eliza, I assure you I know nothing about it. Or about her."

"Indeed! Don't you think it may be some acquaintance, old or new? Possibly someone you knew in the days gone by—come over seas to see whether you are yet in the land of the living? She has wonderful hair, which looks like spun gold."

All in a moment, as the half-mocking words left her lips, some idea seemed to flash across Philip Hamlyn, bringing with it distress and fear. His face turned to a burning red and then grew white as the hue of the grave.

JOHNNY LUDLOW.



THE BRETONS AT HOME.

BY CHARLES W. WOOD, F.R.G.S., AUTHOR OF "THROUGH HOLLAND," "LETTERS FROM MAJORCA," ETC. ETC.

Amongst the many advantages possessed by Morlaix may be mentioned the fact of its being a central point from which a number of interesting excursions may be made. It is one of the chief towns of the Finistere, a Department crowded with churches, and here will be found at once some of the best and worst examples of ecclesiastical architecture in Brittany.

Of the churches of Morlaix we have said nothing. Interesting and delightful as it is in its old houses, it fails in its churches. Those worthy of note were destroyed at the Revolution, that social scourge which passed like a blight over the whole country, leaving its traces behind it for ever.



The church of St. Melaine is the only one deserving a passing notice. It is in the third Pointed style, and, built on an eminence, is approached by a somewhat imposing flight of steps. A narrow thoroughfare leads up to it, and the nearer houses are inhabited by the priests and other members of the religious community.

The porch and windows are Flamboyant, and a little of the stained glass is good. The interior is divided into three naves by wooden partitions, consisting of pillars without capitals supporting pointed arches. The wall-plates represent monks in grotesque attitudes: portraits, perhaps, of those who inhabited the Priory of St. Melaine of Rennes, to which the church originally belonged. The basin for holy water between the porches has a very interesting cover; but still more remarkable is the cover to the font, an imposing and elegantly sculptured octagonal work of art of the Renaissance period, raised and lowered by means of pulleys. The organ case is also good; and having said so much, there is nothing left to record in favour of St. Melaine. The general effect of the church is poor and mean, and the most vivid impression left upon the mind is that caused by the sharp climb up the narrow street and flight of steps, with little reward beyond one's trouble for the pains of mounting.

But other churches in the neighbourhood of Morlaix are well worth visiting; churches typical of the Finistere, with their wonderful calvaries, mortuaries and triumphal arches.

"These," said Monsieur Hellard, our host of the Hotel d'Europe, who had, by this time, fully atoned for the transgressions of that one and almost fatal night—"these must on no account be neglected. Morlaix, more than any other town in the Finistere, as it seems to me, is surrounded by objects of intense interest; monuments of antiquity, both secular and religious."

"Yet you are not the chief town of the Finistere," we observed.

"True," he replied; "Quimper is our chief town; we are only second in rank; but in many ways we are more interesting than Quimper."

"You are partial," cried H.C., but very amiably. "What about Quimper's wonderful cathedral? Where can you match that architectural dream in Morlaix?"

"There, indeed, I give in," returned our host, meekly. "Morlaix has nothing to boast of in the way of churches, thanks to the revolution. But in the neighbourhood, each within the limits of a day's excursion, we have St. Thegonnec, Guimiliau, St. Jean-du-Doigt—and last and greatest of all—Le Folgoet. Besides these, we have a host of minor but interesting excursions."

"The minor must be left to the future," we replied; "for the present we must confine ourselves to the major monuments."

"One can't do everything," chimed in Madame Hellard, who came up at the moment. "I never recommend small excursions unless you are making a long stay in the neighbourhood. It becomes too tiring. We had a charming English family with us last year; a milord, very rich—they are all rich—with a sweetly amiable wife, who made herself in the hotel quite one of ourselves, and would chatter with us in my bureau by the hour together. Mon cher"—to her husband—"do you remember how they enjoyed the regatta, and seeing all the natives turn out in their Sunday clothes; and how Madame laughed at the old women who fried the pancakes upon their knees in the open air; and the boys and girls who took them up hot and buttery in their fingers and devoured them like savages? Do you remember?"

Monsieur Hellard apparently did remember, and shook with laughter at the recollection of that or of something equally droll.

"I shall never forget Madame's look of astonishment," he cried, "as the pancakes were turned out of the poele, and disappeared wholesale like lightning." 'Ah, madame,' I said, 'you have yet to learn the capacious appetites of our Breton boys and girls. It is one of the few things in which they are not slow and phlegmatic.'

"'And have not improved in,' laughed Madame. 'These habits are the remains of barbarism.'

"'Madame,' I replied, 'you must not forget that we are descended from the Ancient Britons.' Ah! that was a clencher, Madame laughed, but she said no more."

"Until she returned," added our hostess. "Then she whispered to me: 'Madame Hellard, those pancakes looked extremely good, and as they are peculiar to Brittany, you must give us some for dinner. I must taste your crepes.'

"'Madame la Comtesse,' I returned, 'Brittany has many peculiarities; we cannot deny it; would that they were all as innocent as these crepes. My chef is not a Breton, and he will not make them, perhaps, quite a la maniere des notres; but I will superintend him for once. You shall have our famous dish.' And if you wish to know how she liked them," concluded Madame, laughing, "ask Catherine, la-haut. Three times a week at least we had pancakes on the menu. But nothing delights us more than when we please our guests. We like them to be at home here, and to feel that they may do as they please and order what they like."

To the truth of which self-commendation we bore good testimony.

"Now about the excursions," said M. Hellard. "I recommend you to go to-morrow to St. Thegonnec and Guimiliau, the next day to St. Jean-du-Doigt and Plougasnou, and the third day to Landerneau and Le Folgoet. The two first by carriage, the last by train."

So it was arranged, and we were about to separate when in came our hostess of that little auberge by the river-side, A la halte des Pecheurs, carrying a barrel of oysters. She had walked all the way, and though the sun shone brilliantly, she was armed with a huge cotton umbrella that would have roofed a fair-sized tent.

"Madame Mirmiton!" cried M. Hellard; "and with a barrel of oysters, too! You are welcome as fine weather at the Fete-Dieu! But why you and not your husband?"

"Ah, monsieur!" replied Madame Mirmiton: "Figurez-vous, my husband was running after that naughty girl of mine, stumbled over the cat and sprained his ankle. He will be quite a week getting well again."

"And the cat?" asked our host, comically.

"Pauvre Minette!" answered Madame Mirmiton, with tears in her voice. "She flew up the chimney. We have never seen her since—two days ago."

"Well, whether you or your bon homme bring them, these oysters are equally a propos. I am sure ces messieurs will enjoy our natives for dejeuner. I have it!" he cried, striking his forehead. "You shall have an early dejeuner, and start immediately after for St. Thegonnec, instead of delaying it until to-morrow. You will have plenty of time, and must profit by the fine weather. I will order dejeuner at once, and the carriage in an hour."

So are there times when our days, and occasionally the whole course of our lives, are apparently changed by the turning of a straw.

Having mentioned the oysters, we ought also to record their excellence. Catherine flew about the salle a manger, served us with her own hands, and gave us her whole attention, for we had the room to ourselves. She was proud of our praise.

"There is nothing better than our lobsters and oysters," she remarked. "I always say so, and Mirmiton always brings us the best of the good. But to-day it was Madame who came in. Ah! the Cat!" laughing satirically. "The cat comes in for everything, everywhere. She is a domestic animal invented for two reasons: to catch mice and to furnish an excuse for whatever happens. I dare affirm it was a glass too much and not the cat that caused the bon homme to sprain his ankle."

But we who had heard Madame Mirmiton's chapter and verse, were of a different opinion. Every rule has an exception, and the cat is certainly in fault—sometimes.

We started for St. Thegonnec. Monsieur packed us into the victoria, a heavy vehicle well matched by the horse and the man. We should certainly not fly on the wings of the wind.

"Take umbrellas," cried Madame Hellard, prudently, from the doorway. "Remember your drenching that day, and what fatal consequences might have happened."

But we saw no necessity for umbrellas to-day, for there was not a cloud in the sky.

"Still, to please you, I will take my macintosh," said H.C.; "it is hanging up in the hall."

But the macintosh had disappeared. A traveller who had left by the last train had good-naturedly appropriated it to his own use and service. It was that admirable macintosh that has already adorned these pages, with the cape finished off with fish-hooks for carrying old china, brown paper parcels and headless images; and as the invention was not yet patented, the loss was serious. H.C. lamented openly.

"I only hope," he said, "that the man who has taken it will put it on inside out, and that all the fish-hooks will stick into him." The most revengeful saying his gentle mind had ever uttered.

"C'est encore le chat!" screamed Catherine, who was leaning out of a first-floor window of the salle a manger, quite undaunted by Madame Hellard's reproving "Voyons, voyons, Catherine!"

But Catherine was loyal, for all her mild sarcasm, and we knew that if ever the delinquent turned up again he would have a mauvais quart d'heure at her hands, whilst M. Hellard would certainly enforce restitution.

Some months later on, at a subsequent visit we paid to Morlaix, we asked after the fate of the macintosh and its borrower.

"Ah, monsieur," cried our host, sadly, "his punishment was even greater than we could have wished; two months afterwards the poor fellow died of la grippe."

But to return. We started for St. Thegonnec. It was a longish drive; the road undulated a good deal, and the horse seemed to think that whether going up hill or down a funereal pace was the correct thing. It took us half our time to rouse our sleepy driver to a sense of his duty. At last we tried a severe threat. "If you are not back again by table d'hote time, you shall have no pourboire," we said, in solemn and determined tones. The effect was excellent. We had no more trouble, but the unfortunate horse had a great deal of whip.

There was very little to notice in the country we passed through. The most conspicuous objects were the large stone crucifixes erected here and there by the roadside or where two roads met: ancient and beautiful; and throwing, as we have remarked, a religious tone and atmosphere over the country. It was wonderfully picturesque to see, as we occasionally did, a Brittany peasant kneeling at the foot of one of these old crosses, the pure white Brittany cap standing out conspicuously against the dark grey stone: a figure wrapped in devotion, apparently lost to the sense of all outward things. It all adds a charm to one's wanderings in Brittany.

St. Thegonnec at last, announced some time before we reached it by its remarkable church, which is very visible in the flatness of the surrounding country. The small town numbers some three thousand inhabitants, but has almost the primitive look of a village. Many of the people still wear the costumes of the place, especially on a Sunday, when the interior of the church at high mass looks very picturesque and imposing.

The dress of the women is peculiar, and at first sight they might almost be taken for nuns or sisters of mercy: a dress which leaves scope for a certain refinement rather contradicted by the physical appearance of the women themselves. Men and women, in fact, belong for the most part to the peasantry, and pass their simple lives labouring in the fields, beating out flax, cultivating their little gardens, so that such an official as the gravedigger becomes an important personage amongst them. We came across him, at his melancholy work, but could make no more of him than we made of the people of Roscoff. He understood no word of French, but spoke his own native tongue, the language of la Bretagne Bretonnante, as Froissart has it, in contradistinction to la Bretagne douce. Nothing, certainly, can be softer and more beautiful than the pure French language; but that of Brittany is hard and guttural, without beauty or refinement of any sort.

The men of St. Thegonnec dress very differently from the women, but the costume is also very characteristic. It is entirely black, and consists of wide breeches, pleated and strapped at the knee; a square tunic; a scarf tied round the waist, with loose ends; a large hat, and shoes with buckles.



To-day few inhabitants were visible. We seemed to be in possession of the place, together with the old gravedigger, who stopped his work and escorted us about, but was too stupid to understand even the most intelligent signs.

The church is very elaborate and fanciful, cruciform and sixteenth century, in the Renaissance style, much decorated with sculptures in dark Kersanton stone. The word Kersanton is Breton for St. Anthony's House; therefore we may suppose that the Saint had his house, and possibly his pig-stye, built of this same stone. For, as we know, St. Anthony had a weakness for pigs, and was famous for recovering one of his favourites from the devil, who had stolen it: recovered it not quite undamaged, as the animal was restored with his tail on fire: a base return for the Saint's politeness, who had offered his petition in poetical terms to which his audience could scarcely have been accustomed.

"Rendez-moi mon cochon, s'il-vous-plait, Il faisait toute ma felicite,"

chanted the Saint, and to restore the pig with his tail on fire was conduct worthy only of fallen spirits.

But let us leave the Saint's pigs and return to our sheep.

The Kersanton stone, of which so many churches in Brittany are built, possesses many virtues, but one great drawback. It defies the ravages of time, yet is admirable for carving, yielding easily to the chisel. But time has no influence upon it. Centuries pass, yet still it remains the same: ever youthful, ever hard and cold. It knows nothing of the beauty of age; it does not crumble or decay, or wear away into softened outlines; it takes no charm of tone; no lights and shadows. A dark grey-green it was originally, and so it remains. Thus, in point of effect, a church built of Kersanton stone two centuries ago might, as far as appearance goes, almost have been built yesterday. This is a great defect; and interferes very much with the charm of some of Brittany's best churches. It is hard, cold and severe, without refinement, poetry or romance.

In some cases it atones somewhat by its richness and elaborateness of sculpture, as in the case of St. Thegonnec. The west front of this church is Gothic, of the fourteenth century. One of the turrets has a small, elegant spire, and at the S.W. angle there is a very effective domed tower bearing the date 1605.

You enter the churchyard by a triumphal arch, in Renaissance dated 1587. It is large and massive, with a great amount of detail substantially introduced, its summit crowned by a number of crosses. On the frieze St. Thegonnec is represented conducting a waggon drawn by an ox: a facsimile of the waggon that is said to have assisted in carrying the stone to build the church. St. Thegonnec is the patron saint of all animals, and to him the peasants appeal for success and good-luck in such matters.

Adjoining the triumphal arch is a Flamboyant ossuary or mortuary chapel, dated 1581, richly gabled, in perfect preservation, and of two storeys. The first consists of semicircular arches supported by small pillars with Corinthian capitals. A short staircase within leads to a crypt converted into a small chapel, in which is an entombment formed of life-size figures carved in wood, gilded and painted, bearing date 1702. The calvary in the churchyard, a remarkable monument, completes the history, by a multitude of small statues representing all the principal episodes of the Passion. Its date is 1610. Even the crosses are surmounted by statuettes, as if the designer had not known how to heap up sufficient richness of ornamentation. The carved pulpit in the interior of the church is also remarkable.

We could only devote an hour to St. Thegonnec; Guimiliau had still to be seen, and we wished to be back in Morlaix by a certain time, for "the night cometh." Fortunately the drive was not a long one.

Guimiliau is a village not half the size of St. Thegonnec, and is even less civilized. Into the inn, which no doubt is respectable, but was rough and primitive, we did not venture. The driver and the landlord were apparently on excellent terms, and whilst they fraternised over their glasses, we inspected the church.

The place takes its name from Miliau, a king of the Cornouaille, who was treacherously murdered by his brother Rivod, who then proclaimed himself king about the year 531. The church and the people canonised him, and he has become the patron saint of many a Breton village.

The church of Guimiliau dates chiefly from the sixteenth century. The aisles and the south porch are Renaissance, richly ornamented by delicate sculptures representing scenes from the Old and New Testament; statues of the Apostles. The triumphal arch and ossuary are very inferior to St. Thegonnec, but the calvary is a magnificent monument, unequalled in Brittany, richly sculptured and ornamented. It rests on five arches, and you ascend to the platform by a short staircase in the interior. Here are crosses bearing the Saviour, and the thieves, quaintly carved, but with a great deal of religious feeling. The Evangelists, each with his particular attribute portrayed, are placed at the angles: and the whole history of the Life of Christ is represented by a countless number of small figures or personages dressed in costumes of the sixteenth century. The effect is occasionally grotesque, but very wonderful. A procession armed with drums and other instruments precedes the Bearing of the Cross; and another scene which does not belong to the Divine Life, but was introduced as an accessory, represents Catel Gollet (the lost Catherine) precipitated by devils in the form of grotesques into the jaws of a fiery dragon emblematical of Purgatory.

Catel Gollet was one who concealed a sin in confession, was condemned to suffer, and returning miraculously in 1560 announced her condemnation to her companions in these terms:

Voici ma main, cause de mon malheur, Et voici ma langue detestable! Ma main qui a fait le peche, Et ma langue qui l'a nie.

The bas-relief represents the Adoration of the Magi, and bears date 1588, whilst the upper part bears that of 1581.

The interior of the church possesses some wonderful and almost matchless carved wood, which surprised and delighted us. There were sixteenth century statues, full of expression, of St. Herve and St. Miliau; an elaborate and beautiful pulpit, a font with a canopy supported by twisted columns, magnificently carved and thirty feet high, dated 1675; a matchless organ case, with three bas-reliefs, representing David, St. Cecilia and a Triumphal March, the latter reproduced from one of Alexander's battles by Lebrun.

In short, Guimiliau was a treasury of sculptured wood, which alone would have made it remarkable amongst churches. It was almost impossible to leave its fascination, and I fear that we more than envied the church its possession. It also came with a surprise, for we had heard nothing of this treasure of refined carving, and had anticipated nothing more than the wonderful calvary. It still lives in our imagination, almost as a dream; a dream of beauty and genius.

We lingered as long as we dared, but knew that we should not travel back at express speed, and that our coachman, after his indulgence in Breton beer or spirit, would probably be more sleepy than ever.

The sun was declining as we left Guimiliau, the church and its monuments forming a very singular composition against the background of the sky as we turned and gave it a farewell look. One scarcely analysed the reason, but there was almost an effect of heathendom about it, as if it dated from some remote age, when visible objects were worshipped, and the sun and the moon and dragons and grotesques took a prominent place in religion.

The sun was declining and twilight was beginning to creep over the land. It threw out in greater relief the wayside crosses that we passed on the road, solemnising the scene, and insensibly leading the mind to contemplation; all the beauty, all the mystery of our faith, the lights and shadows of our earthly pilgrimage, so typified by the days and nights of creation; and the "one far-off divine event" which concerns us all.

When we entered Morlaix the sun had set; table d'hote was not over, and we knew that Catherine had our places and our welfare in her special keeping; and the driver having done his best on the road, and having fallen asleep not more than five times on his box, we forgot our threat, and dismissed him with a pourboire, for which he returned us a Breton benediction.



Once again the next day was kindly, the sun shone, the sky was unclouded. These are rare days in Brittany, which, surrounded on three sides by water, lives in an atmosphere that is always damp and too often gloomy and depressing.

Mindful of our host's wise counsel to profit by the fine weather, we started for St. Jean-du-Doigt.

This time our drive lay in a different direction. Yesterday it had been inland, to-day it was towards the sea-coast. The country for some time was sad and barren-looking, but as we approached St. Jean and the coast it became more interesting and fertile.

Lanmeur, a small town not far from St. Jean, lies in a rather sad and solitary plain, and is said to occupy the site of a city of great antiquity. Here runs the river Douron, a small stream that, considerably higher up, separates the Department of Finistere from Les Cotes du Nord. The ancient city was named Kerfeunteun, and possessed a wonderful church which was destroyed by the Normans in the eleventh century, but of which the crypt still remains. In the centre of this crypt springs a fountain or well, dedicated to St. Melar, a Breton prince put to death in the year 538, by that same Rivod who murdered his brother Miliau, and then had himself proclaimed king. The crypt also contains a statue of St. Melar of the fourteenth century, representing him minus a hand and foot, which Rivod had had cut off before putting him to death, in order that he should not be able to mount a horse or use a sword. Of the church built in the eleventh century only a few arches in the nave and the south porch remain. The rest of the existing building is modern.

The coast beyond Lanmeur is extremely broken, rugged and rocky, full of small bays and sharp points of land jutting out into the sea. The whole neighbourhood is interesting. Especially remarkable is the Pointe de Beg an Fri, the fine and rugged rocks of Primel and of Plougasnou; whilst on the land the pointed roofs of many an old manor rise above the trees.

St. Jean-du-Doigt is four miles from all this. It is a very pretty and fertile village watered by the Dounant, which passes through it on its way to the Bay of St. Jean, where it loses itself in the sea.

The village lies between two high and barren hills, which shelter it from the cold winds, and make the valley laughing and fertile. Here you find well-grown elm trees, and hedges full of the whitethorn, honeysuckle and wild vines; hedges surrounding rich and productive orchards, amongst which, here and there, you will see rising the thatched roof of the small cottages inhabited by the Breton peasantry.

As at Roscoff, so the moment we reached St. Jean-du-Doigt, we felt its fascination. Its situation between the hills is extremely picturesque. Approaching, its rich gateway, leading to the churchyard, stands before you with fine effect; and beyond it rises the church.

The gateway is Flamboyant gothic, of great beauty and refinement. The church is fifteenth century gothic. Its wooden roof is beautifully carved and painted. The interior has no transept, but is composed of three naves under one roof. The west aisle has been shortened to make room for the tower; and in the north nave is a closed-up pointed doorway, which must have belonged to the earlier chapel dedicated to St. Meriadec. The apsis is terminated by a straight wall. The three naves are separated below the choir by prismatic pillars supporting light and bold arches.