MERCER'S GARDENS.

BY

THE AUTHOR OF "FOUR MESSENGERS," "ECHOES,'

ETC.

LONDON:

GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET,

COVENT GARDEN.

1876,

251. d. 343.

IN LOVE OF HER LOVINGKINDNESS

AND UNFAILING SYMPATHY,

THIS VOLUME IS OFFERED TO

MISS CONSTANCE DE ROTHSCHILD,

WITH THE AUTHOR'S SINCERE AFFECTION.

MERCER'S GARDENS.

CHAPTER I.

IN Mercer's gardens there is an enchanted silence that the soft and melancholy note of a near wood pigeon rather intensifies than breaks.

"Now and then," he seems to repeat to a girl who loves to read a sort of prophecy in his song.

"For now and then" her eager heart has echoed, "where many fail, one may succeed." A vague future contains many possibilities, and early youth seizes probable happiness rather than disappointment. And so she kept herself in readiness for all sorts of wonderful contingencies by expecting everything. So for her the wood pigeon's pretty music enhanced the charm of the tranquil, leafy solitude; defined the character of the unbroken space, and adapted to its pensive utterance the harmony of old memories, the air

B