brook, and coppice, and many another rural adjunct; and in it (the fairest of Rosamonds, though there was no labyrinth by which her whereabouts could be concealed from virtuous view) Philip Thornleigh installed his mistress. It is not on record that the shade of the small spinster (whose neat, and somewhat old worldlooking person had been wont to occupy those rooms, and tend her flowers in those trim parterres) ever appeared to upbraid her recreant nephew with the desecration of her well-loved cottage; but certain it is, that the cottage itself was a prison-home to her hapless successor. Cautioned by Philip, and warned by her own dread of insulting looks and words, Helen rarely strayed beyond the precints of the tiny shrubberies, which by courtesy were called the grounds;' and so, waiting for and always thinking of Philip, she passed the time away.

Meanwhile Thornleigh's amusements had begun in earnest, for both houses, hearts, and weather were alike open to afford him such sport and entertainment as is attainable during

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an English winter in the country. Thornleigh Abbey was a fine old place, nestled in the snuggest of hollows, and sheltered by the finest of ancestral trees.' 6 It was approachable from various points by many a carriageroad and pleasant bridle-path; but when the heir to all this fine estate returned to visit it from what the old folks called the airmy,' he dismissed his carriage at the lodge, designing to walk along a well-remembered footpath to the house. The season was winter, and the giant oaks were leafless, yet never had he been more impressed with admiration for the fine old place than on that cold, but clear December morning.

Since the day when he had last looked upon it many a glowing scene of beauty had met his eyes-wondrous trees, bending beneath their clustering fruits, and with gorgeous birds nestling in their foliagevast plains and mountains towering to the sky, and hunting-grounds where fierce and noble animals fell victims to his spear-all

this and more had been his to admire and to enjoy; but now, with feet brushing the withered fern, with no trees around more stately than the branching oak, and only harmless living things to note his coming, Philip, with a full heart, acknowledged that the home which in his childhood he had loved was not less dear to him in his manhood.

Sir Edgar Thornleigh, Philip's great-uncle, and the present possessor of the Abbey, was what is called one of the old school;' by which we may infer that in the days when he was young, schools were neither so numerous or so various as they are in these our times, when we have so many different standards of what is the right thing.' He had been sixtytwo years in Parliament, by which also it may be gathered that during a few of those years he had been both too young and too old to know much about his business. He was very

proud of his ancestors, of whom he possessed a plenteous store, both on canvas and in the family vault; and was equally tenacious of

his rights, whether those rights regarded his seat in the loyal county of, or whether they appertained to that which he occupied in the Chamber of her Majesty's most faithful and devoted Commons. Both those seats, it is almost needless to say, were looked upon by him as the sure inheritance of his nephew, the future Sir Philip.

He was a widower, and in the days of his youth had become the father of a son, whose only child had followed his father to the grave some few months before Philip left India. There remained besides, of lineal descendants, only a grand-daughter, the Mrs. Wraxham of whom mention has already been made; and who was now a widow with one son, a boy who was being educated on the Continent, and was about fifteen years of age.

About a week after Helen's establishment at the cottage (her residence in which rural retreat was as yet quite unsuspected by Sir Edgar), the uncle and nephew were seated together before the fire in the spacious dining

room of Thornleigh Abbey. The old man, who was chilly with the winter of his own years as well as with that of a snowy December evening, cowered over the huge logs that lay upon the hearth, the ruddy glow of which shone through his almost transparent hands, and shed a faint rosy tinge over his white hair. He was a handsome old man, small in stature, and beautifully neat in his dress; with a sprinkling of powder on his bald head, and an odour of fresh lavender water pervading his person.

• Will Parliament meet early, uncle?' asked Philip; who recollected that the old man liked being thought a party to the little secrets of Government.

In March, I believe. We shall have hard work this session; it will be a near thing, and I fear the Whigs will run us hard.' And the octogenarian senator pricked up his ears as though scenting the battle afar off.

They say that Fuller will be opposed for the other division of the county, and that