"Because," said James, "I wish I had known you better before."

"That would have been but of little use," said Arthur. "As a fact, nobody did, except perhaps Algernon, who is dead and gone. I was a failure. Try to know me now, and it is quite possible that you will like me."

What simple James answered is not of much consequence. Arthur talked on to him, as the Ancient Mariner talked to the first person he could get hold of.

"The hatred of death-not the fear, mind-which has been hanging over me so long ruined and spoilt me. The doctors in their ignorance, gave me warning that I could not live, a long while ago. They told me that I had organic disease of the heart, and went far to ruin my life. It appears that such is not the case. I am a new man again. What the expectation of death could not do, the removal of that expectation has done. Bear with me a little, and see."

James only half understood him; but he answered:"One thing is plain, sir; you want attending to and looking after; and I will do that for you. Our meeting with you is a great stroke of good luck."

"But you will want to ramble and range about, and I cannot do that."

"We can ramble," said James," all day while you sit at home, and at night we can come back and tell you all about the day's work or the day's play. It shall go hard, between my sketches and my talk, if you do not enjoy the day as much as we do."

So he joined them, and they rambled away together southward through Bavaria towards Saltzburg.

James was at first extremely afraid of the terrible inexorably-tongued Arthur. Then he was surprised and frightened at the great change in him; and at last got perfectly confidential with him, and actually went so far as to tell him one night that he had been utterly deceived in his estimate of his character. I doubt that James had been drinking the wine of the country.

"You mean," said Arthur, "that I am not the priggish bully you took me for?”

"The words are yours, sir. You were never either prig or bully. But you were so hard and inexorable. Now you are so gentle and complacent in everything. A child could not be more biddable than you are."

"Yes; but in old times I was a schoolmaster," said Arthur, "now I am a child. Did I not tell you that I was new-born? I have a new lease of life given me on the highest authority. Life with me is not so enjoyable as it is with you. I am twenty years older than you: I cannot come and go, and enjoy every flower and shadow as you can. Yet life is a glorious good, and death is a terrible' evil: ah! you may make what you like of it, but it is the greatest of misfortunes, that break in the continuity. But what do you know of death? Death has been with me night and day for many years. He is gone now, and I am as much a boy as you are, save that I cannot enjoy the world as you can. Do you understand me?"

"I think I do, sir," said James, gravely.

"This perfect rest and absence of anxiety (for Algernon is in heaven), combined with your kindly ministrations and attentions, are making a man of me again. Is it not so ?" "You gain in strength and colour every day, sir," said James.

"And yet

"And yet, you would say, my old temper does not return. Am I not changed, then?"

"You are your real self now, sir. truth."

That seems to be the

"I think so myself.

"Let us hope so," said Arthur. But, with my returning health, the old Adam is somewhat moving. The lassitude of my illness is going away; and I begin to feel a want for motion, for action, for something to stir me. Take me south, James, and let us see this war. There is sport afield there."

"What war, sir?"

What

"Oh, you young dolt," said Arthur, laughing. "Give me the footstool, that I may throw it at your head. war? Why the grand crash between France and Austria, the stake of which is an Italian kingdom. I see how to enjoy life: to cultivate a careful ignorance on political matters."

"But the Kölnische Zeitung says that they are not going to fight," remarked James.

The Fliegende Blätter may probably say the same," said Arthur. Boy! boy! there is going to be 'a great thing,' as the foxhunters say. Take me south to see it. You can sketch it, and sell your sketches. I want motion, life let

us go."

"We will go, sir, certainly if you really think they will fight, and if you are able for it."

"You shall carry me," said Arthur.

the business, and on the winning side.

ever, in spite of all her faults."

"My brother is in

Old Austria for

Which of your brothers is in the business, sir?" asked

"I remember him," said James, "a kind man with a gentle face. He carried me to Silcotes in his arms once, after I had been beaten by poachers. By the bye, you were there. Do you remember it?"

"I do, now you mention it," said Arthur. "And you are that poor little thing in the smock-frock that Tom brought in his arms. I never exactly realized it till now. How things come round through all kinds of confusion! My silly old aunt took you to bed that night; and you made your first acquaintance with Dora, and Anne, and Reginald. Well, then, it is settled that we are to go south, and see this war."

"I glory in the idea, sir," said James. "I have never looked on war."

"Nor I," said Arthur.

of us.

"It will be a cold bath for both

The accessories will not be pleasant; but it will do us both good. A review on a large scale, with the small and yet important fact of death superadded; and a kingdom of twenty millions for the stake. A University boat-race, in which the devil actually does take the hindmost. Let us go, by all means."

CHAPTER XLVII.

ARTHUR DEALS WITH KRIEGSTHURM'S ASSASSINS.

ARTHUR, with his two pleasant companions, James and Reginald, went pleasantly on southward past Coblentz, past Heidelberg, Stuttgard, to Munich, where perforce there was a little delay. Arthur was for pushing on as quickly as possible, and indeed grumbled good-humouredly at being taken so far eastward at all; but the boys were too strong for him. They had made the acquaintance of Kaulbach at the Apollinaris Kirche, and also in the Cathedral windows at Cologne; and they were determined to go to the home of the man whom, after Landseer and Tenniel, they placed as the greatest living master in Europe. They talked Kaulbach, and imitated him, Arthur, with a calm smile always in his face, laughing at them, and measuring their human figures with an inexorable pair of compasses which he had, greatly to their discomfiture.

"If you can draw the human figure correctly and rapidly at thirty, boys," he used to say, "you will be able to do as much as any Englishman, save six, can. Patience and work first; freedom afterwards. Nevertheless, go it! This man's right leg is longer than his left, but it will shorten in time. There are men at the top of the tree who can't for the life of them draw a man's legs of the same length. So go it. Who knows what you may do by hard work? You may be able to draw as well as a fourth-class Frenchman some day. Go it!"

They were thoroughly happy these three on this journey, and they took notes of one another to their mutual surprise.

Arthur, of course, never dreamt that James was his own nephew only four people knew that as yet. May I call the reader's attention to this fact?-Silcote's extremely slight attentions to James had all taken place before Silcote knew that James was his own grandson. Rumour, dealing

with an unaccountable man like the Squire, had developed these few growling attentions into a theory that Silcote would make him his heir. Lord Hainault, surely a safe man, entirely believed this preposterous fiction. To worship properly the goddess Fama you must live in the country. She gets pretty well worshipped in town, at clubs and in drawing-rooms; but her temples are in the counties.

"Reginald," mused Arthur, "is an ass. The only redeeming point in him is his respect and love for this peasant boy James. And the most unfortunate part of the business is, that now dear old Algy is dead it is more than probable that Reginald will be made heir. And he will marry that silly little Anne. Confound it all the property shan't go like that. There has been sin enough and bother enough in getting it together and keeping it together. There is some sentimental feeling my father has toward Algernon's mother, which will come into play now the dear old boy is dead. And he will leave everything to Reginald on condition of his marrying Anne. I wish to heaven that this Jaines Sugden was a Silcote and heir.

"But I will not stand this," he added aloud, rising up and pacing the fifth room of their long suite of apartments at Munich. "No," he went on, throwing open the door and bursting into the fourth room-"I will be heir myself sooner. He offered the place to me once. I will hold him to his bargain.".

Kriegsthurm and the Princess never were further at sea than he was just now. His wits were somewhat got together by noticing that James was sitting upon the floor, and his painting tools were scattered far and wide.

'What is the matter, James ?" he asked. 'Why I was just thinking of you!"

"I should hardly have thought it, sir," said James, laughing. You have knocked me and my apparatus over so cleverly that I should have thought that you were thinking of some one else."

"Did I knock you over?" asked Arthur, earnestly. "Well, with the assistance of the door you did, sir." "I am extremely sorry, my good fellow," said Arthur,