Bell," and I hope you won't impose extra lessons on them just as they have got a pony." 66 "Oh, yes," said Bell, "I was at one time very fond of it. But I never made it so useful as a countryman of mine once sugThey ought not to have had the pony gested it might be. He was a Cumberuntil they had given a better account of land farmer who had come down to our themselves at school," said my Lady, se- house at Ambleside, and when he saw me verely; to which Bell only replied by say-painting on a piece of wood, he looked at ing, in a pensive manner, that she wished it with great curiosity. she was a boy of nine years of age, just become possessed of a pony, and living in the country. We spent a long time in Christ Church, more especially in the magnificent Hall, where the historical portraits greatly interested Bell. She entered into surmises as to the sensations which must have been felt by the poets and courtiers of Queen Elizabeth's time when they had to pay compliments to the thin-faced, red-haired woman who is here represented in her royal satins and pearls; and wondered whether, after they had celebrated her as the Queen of Beauty, they afterwards reconciled these flatteries to their conscience by looking on them as sarcasm. But whereas Bell's criticism of the picture was quite gentle and unprejudiced, there was a good deal more of acerbity in the tone in which Queen Tita drew near to speak of Holbein's Henry VIII. My firm belief is, that the mother of those two boys at Twickenham, if she only had the courage of her opinions and dared to reveal those secret sentiments which now find expression in decorating our bedrooms with missal-like texts, and in the use of Ritualistic phrases to describe ordinary portions of the service and ordinary days of the year- would really be discovered to be but let that pass. What harm Henry VIII. had done her, I could not make out. Anyone may perceive that that monarch has not the look of an ascetic; that the contour of his face and the setting of his eyes are not particularly pleasing, that he could not easily be mistaken for Ignatius Loyola. But why any woman of these present days, who subscribes to Mudie's, watches the costumes of the Princess of Wales, and thinks that Dr. Pusey has been ungenerously treated, should regard a portrait of Henry VIII. as though he had done her an injury only the week before last, it is not easy to discover. Bell, on the other hand, was discoursing to the Lieutenant about the various workmanship of the pictures, and giving him a vast amount of information about technical matters, in which he appeared to take a deep interest. "But did you ever paint upon panel yourself, mademoiselle ?" he asked. “Heh, lass,' he said, 'thou's pentin a fine pictur there, and on wood, too. It's for the yell-house?" "No,' I said, explaining that I was painting for my own pleasure, and that it was not a public-house sign. 666 "To please thysel, heh? And when thou's dune wi' the pictur, thou canst plane it off the wood, and begin another - that's thy meanin', is't?' "I was very angry with him, for I was only about fifteen then, and I wanted to send my picture to a London exhibition." 66 Why, I did see it down at Leatherhead!" said Von Rosen. "Was not that the picture, on panel, near the window of the dining-room? "Come, come!" said Titania to the girl, who could not quite conceal the pleasure she felt on hearing that the Count had noticed this juvenile effort of hers; "come along, and let us see the library before we go into the open air again." In the library too, were more portraits and pictures, which these young people were much interested in. We found it impossible to drag them along. They would loiter in some corner or other, and then, when we forsook our civil attendant and went back for them, we found them deeply engrossed in some obscure portrait or buried in a huge parchment-bound folio which the Lieutenant had taken out and opened. Bell was a fairly well-informed young woman, as times go, and knew quite as much of French literature as was good for her; but it certainly puzzled Tita and myself to discover what possible interest she could have in gazing upon the large pages of the Encyclopædia, while the Lieutenant talked to her about D'Alembert. Nor could it be possible that a young lady of her years and pursuits had imbibed so much reverence for original editions as to stand entranced before this or that well-known author whose earliest offspring had been laid hold of by her companion. They both seemed unwilling to leave this library; but Von Rosen explained the matter when he came out-saying that he had never felt so keenly the proverbial impulses of an Uhlan as when he found himself with these valuable old books in his hand, and only one attendant near. I congratulated the authorities of Christ Church on what they had escaped. "It's that they calls eerly English," said the old lady who showed us over the ancient building. She was not a talkative perOf course we went down to the river son; she was accustomed to get over the some little time after lunch; and had a necessary information rapidly; and then look from Folly Bridge on the various odd-spent the interval in looking strangely at the ly-assorted crews that had invaded the tall Lieutenant and his brown beard. She sacred waters of the Isis in the absence of did not betray any emotion when a small the University men. When the Lieuten- gratuity was given her. She had not even ant proposed that we, too, should get a said "Thank you" when Von Rosen, on boat and make a voyage down between calling for the keys of the church had found the green meadows, it almost seemed as if the gate of her garden unhinged and had we were venturing into a man's house in laboured fully ten minutes in hammering the absence of the owner; but when Bell a rusty piece of iron into the wooden very prettily and urgently added her post. Perhaps she thought it was Bell supplications, Tita professed herself not who had driven down the gate; but at unwilling to give the young folks an air- all events she expressed no sense of gratiing on the stream. There were plenty of tude for its restoration. signs that it was vacation-time besides the Near an old yew-tree there was a small appearance of the nondescript oarsmen. grave-new-made and green with grass There was a great show of painting and on which some careful hand had placed a scraping and gilding visible among that cross composed exclusively of red and long line of mighty barges that lay under white roses. This new grave, with these the shadow of the elms, moored to tall white fresh evidences of love and kindly remempoles that sent a line of silver down into brance on it, looked strange in the rude the glassy and troubled water beneath. old churchyard, where stones of unknown Barges in blue, and barges in cream and age and obliterated names lay tumbled gold, barges with splendid prows and Gor- about or stood awry among the weeds and gon figure-heads, barges with steam-paddles and light awnings over the upper deck, barges with that deck supported by pointed arches, as if a bit of an old cloister had been carried down to decorate a pleasall these resounded to the blows of hammers, and were being made bright with many colours. The University barge itself had been dragged out of the water, and was also undergoing the same process; although the cynical person who had put the cushions in our boat had just remarked, with something of a shrug ure-boat "I hope the mahn as has got the job 'll get paid for it, for the 'Varsity Crew are up to their necks in debt, that's what they are!" grass. Yet this very disorder and decay, as Tita said gently, seemed to her so much more pleasant than the cold and sharp precision of the iron crosses in French and German graveyards, with their grim, fantastic decorations and wreaths of immortelles. She stood looking at this new grave and its pretty cross of roses, and at the green and weather-worn stones, and at the black old yew-tree, for some little time; until Bell-who knows of something that happened when Tita was but a girl, and her brother scarcely more than a child - drew her gently away from us, towards the gate of the churchyard. 66 Yes," said the Lieutenant, not noticing, but turning to the only listener remaining; "that is true. I think your English churchyards in the country are very beautiful- - very picturesque - very pathetic indeed. But what you have not in this country are the beautiful songs about death that we have- not religious hymns, or anything like that but small, little poems that the country people know and repeat to their children. Do you know that one that says When once we had got away from Christ Church meadows, there were fewer obstructions in our course; but whether it was that the currents of the river defied the skill of our coxswain, or whether it was that the Lieutenant and Bell, sitting together in the stern, were too much occupied in pointing out to each other the beauties of the scenery, we found ourselves with a fatal frequency running into the bank, with the prow of the boat hissing through the rushes and flags. Nevertheless, we managed to get up to Iffley, and there, having moored the boat, we proceeded to land and walk up to the old And it ends this way church on the brow of the hill. -- Hier schlummert das Herz, Was weinest denn du? Ich trage nun muthig mein Leiden, Im Grabe ist Ruh'! oar, as we once more proceeded on our voyage; but she definitely refused to endanger our lives by any such experiment. A similar offer on the part of Bell met with a similar fate. Indeed, when this There was one of my comrades in the war little woman had once made up her mind -he was from my native place, but not to do a certain thing, the reserve of physiin my regiment - he was a very good cal and intellectual vigour that lies within fellow and when he was in the camp the slight frame and behind a smooth and before Metz, his companion was killed. gentle face, shows itself to be extraorWell, he buried him separate from the oth-dinary. Place before her some arithmetiers, and went about till he got somewhere cal conundrum that she must solve in ora gravestone, and he began to cut out. der to question the boys, or give her an just with the end of a bayonet, these two oar and engage her to pull for a certain verses on the stone. It took him many number of miles, and the amount of paweeks to do it; and I did hear from one tient perseverance and unobtrusive energy of my friends in the regiment that two she will reveal will astonish most people. days after he had put up the stone, he was In the meantime, her task was easy. We himself killed. Oh, it is very hard to have were going with the stream. And so we your companion killed beside you, and he glided on between the green banks, under is away from his friends, and when you go the railway-bridge, past the village of Kenback home without him-they look at nington, past Rose Isle, with its bowers, you as if you had no right to be alive and and tables, and beer-glasses, and lounging their son dead. That is very hard-I young fellows in white trousers and blue knew it in Sixty-six, when I went back to jackets, and so on until we got up to Berlin, and had to go to see old Madame Sandford Lock. Here, also, we fastened von Hebel. I do hope never to have that the boat to the bank, close by the mill, again." and went ashore for half an hour's stroll. Is there a prettier bit of quiet river- But while Tita made direct, as she genscenery in the world than that around erally does on entering a new village, for Iffley Mill? Or was it merely the glam- the church, the Lieutenant went off in our of the white day that rendered the quest of beer; and when we came back to place so lovely, and made us linger in the the boat, he had a wonderful story to tell open stream to look at the mill and its us. He had made friends with some innsurroundings? As I write, there lies before keeper, and had imbibed from him a legend me a pencil sketch of Bell's lightly dashed which was a curious mixture of fact and inhere and there with water-colour, and the ference and blunder. Von Rosen had doubtwhole scene is recalled. There is the less mistaken much of the Oxfordshire padilapidated old stone building, with its red tois; for how could any man make a reatiles, its crumbling plaster, its wooden sonable narrative out of the following? projections, and small windows, half-hidden "And he told me it was a farmer's amid foliage. Further down the river house in the village - the village of Sandthere are clumps of rounded elms visible; ford, I suppose - and while they took it but here around the mill the trees are down to repair it, they were lifting up the chiefly poplars, of magnificent height, that floors, and many strange things were stretch up lightly and gracefully into a there. And he said among the nonsense quiet yellow sky, and throw gigantic lines and useless rubbish they were finding of reflection down into the still water. there, was a hat; and the man brought Then out from the mill a smail island runs the hat down to him; and he saw it was a into the stream; the wood-work of the chevalier's hatsluice-gates bridges the interval; there is a red cow amid the green leafage of the island, and here again are some splendid "Then the farmer went up to the house, poplars, rising singly np from the river- and he found some hidden letters, and side. Then beyond there is another house, one was to Ettrick-to some soldier who then a wooden bridge, a low line of trees; was then on a campaign at the river and the river, in a sharp curve, glimmers Ettrick in the north. And they found in the light and loses itself behind low-that it was in this very house that King lying meadows and a marginal growth of Charles the First did cut off his beard and willow and flag. moustache - I suppose when he was flying from the Parliamentary army; but I am forgetting all about that history now, and For very shame's sake, the big Lieutenant was forced to offer to take Tita's "A cavalier's hat," suggested Bell; and the Lieutenant assented. ant at. "To be sure it was " returned Tita, with a gesture of impatience; "and he couldn't have come this way, for he went to Bristol. But Charles the First was continually at Oxford he summoned the Parliament to meet him here the inn-keeper was not sure about the with the king, and yet you have been able battle. Well, then, the news was sent to to keep a balance and not let the lowest London; and a gentleman came down who classes run riot and destroy your freedom. is the only surviving descender-descend- They were ambitious? Yes. If a man is - of King Charles, and he took away in politics, does not he fight hard to make the hat to London, and you will find it in his side win? If he is a soldier, does not the British Museum. It is a very curious he like to be victorious? And if I could story, and I would have come after you, be King of England, do you not think I and showed you the houses; but I suppose should like that very well, and try hard it is a new house now, and nothing to look for it? But if these men had their own But do you know when the King was ambitions, and wanted to get fame and in this neighbourhood in escaping?" honour, I am sure they had much of rightHere was a poser for the women. eousness and belief, and would not have "I don't remember," says Tita, looking fought in that way and overturned the very profound, "to have seen anything king if they believed that was an injury to about Oxford in Lord Clarendon's narra- their country or to their religion. And tive of the King's escape after the battle besides what could this man or that man of Worcester." have done except he had a great enthusi "Mamma!" said Bell, in accents of re-asm of the nation behind him - if he did proach, "that was Charles the Second." not represent a principle? But I have no right to speak of such things as if I were telling you of our German historians. That is only my guess - and I have read not much about it. But you must not suppose that because we in Germany have not the same political system that you have, that we cannot tell the value of yours, and the good it has done to the character of your people. Our German historians are many of them professors in universities; and they spend their lives in finding out the truth of such things; and do you think they care what may be the opinion of their own Government about it? Oh, no. They are very independent in the universities - much too independent, I think. It is very pleasant when you are a very young man, to get into a university, and think yourself very wise, and go to extremes about politics, and say hard things of your own country; but when you come out into the world, and see how you have to keep your country from enemies that are not separated by the sea from you (as you are here in England), you see how bad are these principles among young men, who do not like to be "And pray," says Queen Tita, taking obedient, and always want to hurry on her seat, and putting her oar into the row-new systems of government before such lock, "will you please tell me what you think of those men of Cromwell and Hampden and those and what your historians say of them in Germany?" "And shaved off his beard to curry favour with them," it is suggested. "You needn't laugh. Of course, when he was finally defeated he fled from Oxford, and very probably disguised himself." 66 And when did he fly, and whither?" "To Scotland," said Bell triumphantly, "and after the battle of Naseby." "Good girl. And where is Naseby?" "Well, if he fled north-east from the Parliamentary army, Naseby must be in the south-west; and so I suppose it is somewhere down about Gloucester." Herr Professor Oswald, where is Naseby?" "I do not know," says the Lieutenant; "but I think it is more in the north, and not far from the country of your great man Hampden. But he was killed before then, I think." things are possible. But you do not see much of those wild opinions when a war comes, and the young men are inarched together to save their country. Then "Why, they say all kinds of things they forget all the democratic notions of about them," said the Lieutenant, lightly this kind-it is their heart that speaks, -not knowing that he was being ques- and it is on fire and not one is ashamed tioned as a representative of the feudal to be patriotic, though he may have aristocracy of a country in which the di- laughed at it a week before." vine right of kings is supposed to flourish —“just as your historians do here. But we know very well that England has got much of her liberty through that fight It must be very hard," said Bell, looking away at the river, "to leave your home and go into a foreign country, and know that you may never return." "You have got your letter at last,” said Tita. "Oh, no; not much," said the Lieuten- honour and sound limbs; to be o on a ant; "for all your friends go with you. careless holiday through the most beautiAnd you are not always in danger you ful country, take it for all in all, in the nave much entertainment at times, espe- world; and to be lying lazily in a boat on cially when some fight is over, and all a summer's evening, on a pretty English your friends meet again to have a supper river, with a pretty English girl showing in the tent, and some one has got a bottle her friendly interest and attention in of cognac, and some one else has got a let- every glance of her blue eyes? ter from home, full of gossip about people You should have seen how naturally you know very well. And there is much these two fell behind us, and formed a fun, too, in riding over the country, and couple by themselves, when we had left trying to find food and quarters for your- the boat and were returning to our inn. self and your horse. We had many good But as we walked up to Carfax, Bell sepaparties in the deserted farmhouses, and rated herself from us for a moment and sometimes we caught a hen or a duck that went into the post-office. She was a conthe people had neglected to take, and then siderable time there. When she came out we kindled a big fire, and killed him, and she was folding up a letter which she had fixed him on a lance, and roasted him well, been reading. feathers and all. Then we were very lucky to have a fire, and good meat, and a roof to keep off the rain. But it was more dangerous in a house- for it was difficult to keep from sleeping after you had got warm and had eaten and drunk perhaps a little too much wine- and there were many people about ready to fire at you. But these are not heroic stories of a campaign, are they, Mademoiselle?" Nevertheless, Mademoiselle seemed sufficiently interested; and as Tita and I "Who?" I asked, in blank amazement. pulled evenly back to Iffley and Oxford, "Why, that young fellow at Twickenshe continually brought the Lieutenant ham-it is quite monstrous, his impertiback to this subject by a series of ques- nence. If I were the guardian of such a tions. This modern maiden was as anx-girl, I would kick him-I would throw ious to hear of the amusements of patrols, and the hair-breadth escapes of dare-devil sub-lieutenants, as was Desdemona to listen to her lover's stories of battles, sieges, fortunes, and moving accidents by flood and field. "Yes," said Bell, gravely, but showing no particular gladness or disappointment. At dinner she was rather reserved; and so, curiously enough, was the Lieutenant. After dinner, when we were allowed half an hour by ourselves for a cigar, he suddenly said 66 Why do you not interfere with that stupid young fellow?" him into the river and cool him there," "What in all the world do you mean?" "Why you must know. The letter that Miss Bell did ask for more than once, it is from him; and now when it comes, it is angry, it is impertinent she is nearly crying all the time at dinner. It is for some one to interfere, and save her froin this insult this persecution "Don't bite your cigar to pieces, but tell me, if you please, how you happen to know what was in the letter." "She told me," said the Lieutenant, with a stare. "When?" That was a pleasant pull back to Oxford, in the quiet of the summer afternoon, with the yellow light lying warmly over the level meadows and the woods. There were more people now along the banks of the river- come out for the most part in couples to wander along the pathway between the stream and the fields. Many of them had a good look at Bell; and the Radley boys, as they sent "Just before you came down to dinner. their long boats spinning down the river It is no business of mine-no; but when towards Sandford, were apparently much I see her vexed and disturbed, I asked her struck. Bell, unconscious of the innocent to tell me why. And then she said she admiration of those poor boys, was attend- had got this letter, which was a very cruel ing much more to the talk of our Uhlan one to send. Oh, there is no mysterythan to her tiller-ropes. As for him none. I he has a right to marry suppose but what man would not have looked con- her very well; but he is not married tented under these conditions to be yet, and he must not be allowed to do this." strong, healthy, handsome, and only "Bell at least might have told me of it, twenty-five; to have comfortable means or have confided in Tita and an assured future; to have come out of a long and dangerous campaign with --- "Oh, she is telling her now, I dare say. And she will tell you too, when there are |