themselves were closely questioned, as it was next to impossible that any one could have ascended the hill to the castle upon that side without observation from some of the numerous household, and it was still less likely that he should have approached by the avenue and skirted the garden, without being seen by any one. However, no clue to the villain could be discovered, and the evening closed with a vague sense of insecurity, which was really worse than the certain presence of a known danger.

On the next day the count and Marly rode out during most of the day, and the evening was already approaching when they returned to the castle. No occurrence took place to alarm them; and being fatigued with their ride, they retired to rest at an early hour. Somehow or other, however, Marly found it impossible to sleep. I cannot say whether or no his mind was excited by the adventure of the preceding night, or whether there was present to it some foreboding of coming ill, but he lay awake for some time, unable to prevent himself from thinking over all the stirring events in which he had lately played so active a part. Suddenly

he heard a low whisper in the gallery into which his room door opened, and very gently the handle was turned. In an instant Marly slipped out the other side of the bed, close to the wall, and hid himself behind the curtain. Some one entered-stealthily as a cat creeping after a mouse, and Marly held his breath as he heard the low breathing of his visitor drawing nearer and nearer to his bed. It was dark-profoundly dark, and whilst Marly could not therefore see his enemy, the latter could not discover that the bed was empty. Close to it did he creep, and the next moment a dagger

was plunged into the place where Marly's body had lain not five minutes before, whilst a low, savage whisper was heard at the same moment hissing through the room these words-' Die, traitor.' Upon that instant it flashed through the brain of Marly that the face he had seen in the avenue and among the servants the day before, the voice he had heard from the lady's maid's friend, and that which he now heard, belonged to one and the same man, and that Griper was upon him. But there was no time for thought; action, immediate action, was the only chance for him under the circumstances in which he now found himself, unarmed as he was in the presence of a merciless ruffian. Without the loss of a second, he sprang upon the robber, who had buried his dagger in the mattress, and was for the instant overbalanced by the force of his own blow; and as he closed with him the young steward shouted loudly for help. A shrill scream from the gallery answered his appeal, but he had no leisure for listening; for Griper having recovered himself, though, fortunately, he had left his dagger in the bed, grappled furiously with his adversary. Both were strong men; and whilst Marly had the advantage of youth, his opponent's chances were brought pretty nearly equal by the fact of his being dressed and armed, and fighting, as he knew he did, with a halter round his neck. They rolled over together on the floor, and Griper made the most desperate efforts to release himself from Marly's hold, and to draw a weapon. Fortunately, however, the young steward was able to prevent this, and in a few moments more Ferdinando, half-dressed, and with his sword in his hand, rushed into the room, followed by several servants. The assassin was securely bound, and great

was the delight of the count to find that the valuable life of his faithful steward had been saved from such great danger. The lady's maid was found fainting in the passage, and when she recovered vowed that she knew nothing of her sweetheart's intention, and begged and prayed that she might not be punished for it. As Ferdinando partially believed her, she only received a month's wages and was sent off next morning without a character, which was a great deal better fate than she deserved. Griper was placed in a strong room, and left there bound until the next morning, when Ferdinando would determine upon his fate. He was, however, spared the trouble, for the wretched man succeeded in getting one of his hands loose, and, finding escape impossible, frustrated the unpleasant death which probably awaited him, by plunging a knife into his own breast, and there he perished, and with him the last of the forest-robbers. I cannot tell you any more at present about the other personages of my story, save that they all lived happy and died respected. Rosalie made Ferdinando a wife as good as she was beautiful. Ferdidinando was as tender as a husband as he was brave as a man; and as to George Marly, I do not at this moment recollect whether he ever married or not, but I know that he was generally considered to be a careful steward and an excellent man, and that everybody in that part of the world felt very much obliged to him for the determined part which he had taken in breaking up and destroying the notorious robber-band.

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IV.

THE BATTLE OF THE STOATS AND RATS.

FOR many years past the relations existing between the two great families of stoats and rats had been the reverse of friendly. Tradition told of many members of the latter race brutally assassinated by the former, whilst the stoat literature was full of accounts of injuries suffered by their people at the hands of plundering rats. The fortress of the latter race, famed in the history of the glorious past, sung by ancient bards, and chronicled by grey-bearded writers of the olden time, was situate in the back premises of a certain noble mansion, inhabited by mere men and women, and was familiarly termed the rat-place.' The stoats held their principal habitation in Bockhanger wood, scarcely more than a mile distant from the stronghold of their enemies. There might be found old pollard trees in abundance, containing many a sly hole and corner in which an honest stoat might make his comfortable home. There, too, were far-stretching rabbit earths—grand hunting-ground for the sportsman stoat,-whilst the fern which grew so thickly wherever there was open space enough for it to

thrive, sheltered the innocent victims upon whom these crafty little animals delight to prey. Many a hare, crouching in her woodland form, and dreaming lazily of the young and tender shoots of the green grass, and the sweet-tasting clover in the field by the side of the wood, had been rudely awakened by the cruel fangs of the eager stoat fastened in her luckless throat, and starting madly from her quiet resting-place, in her headlong flight had carried with her the relentless foe, who, having once seized upon his prey, never relinquished his hold until the poor victim sank fainting on the ground, her strength exhausted, and her life forfeited to his wily craft. Many a rabbit, too, nestling in the fern, or curled up in the tufts of grass, had been startled from his fancied security by the approach of his dreaded enemy; and, rushing off hastily at first, had become palsied and paralyzed with fear, as the stoat gradually, but surely, followed him, and had yielded up his life with a parting squeak of despair. Oh, it was a fine place for stoats when the boys were at school, and their terriers shut up, and right proud were the little animals of their grand old wood and its beauties.

So far as any one can tell, there was no earthly reason why these two great families of stoats and rats should ever have fallen out, for there was no necessity at all for their interests clashing. They did not live so near to each other as to make their constant meeting a matter of certainty; and, indeed, as stoats do not generally approach nearer than they can help to the dwellings of mankind, there did not exist any apparent cause why they should see much of the tribe of rats, who always made their abode as near as they conveniently could to a kitchen, and found it both comfortable and

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