where she was, and would have wandered away in a purposeless manner, Heaven knows where, had she not been accompanied by her faithful servant. Clever as the Swampington people and the Kemberling people might be in finding out the business of their neighbours, they never knew that Olivia Marchmont had been consentient to the hiding away of her stepdaughter. They looked upon her, indeed, with considerable respect, as a heroine, by whose exertions Paul Marchmont's villany had been discovered. In the hurry and confusion of the scene at Hillingsworth Church, nobody had taken heed of Olivia's incoherent self-accusations. Hubert Arundel was therefore spared the misery of knowing the extent of his daughter's sin.

Belinda Lawford came home in order to be present at her sister's wedding; and the old life began again for her, with all the old duties that had once been so pleasant. She went about them very cheerfully now. She worked for her poor pensioners, and took the chief burden of the housekeeping off her mother's hand. But though she jingled her keys with a cheery music as she went about the house, and though she often sang to herself over her work, the old happy smile rarely lit up her face. She went about her duties rather like some widowed matron who has lived her life, than a girl before whom the future lies, mysterious and unknown.

It has been said that happiness comes to the sleeper-the meaning of which proverb I take to be, that Joy generally comes to us when we least look for her lovely face. And it was on this September afternoon, when Belinda loitered in the garden after her round of small duties was finished, and she was free to think or dream at her leisure, that happiness came to her,unexpected, unhoped for, supreme; for turning at one end of the sheltered alley, she saw Edward Arundel standing at the other end, with his hat in his hand, and the summer wind blowing amongst his hair.

Miss Lawford stopped quite still. The old-fashioned garden reeled before her eyes, and the hard gravelled path seemed to become a quaking bog. She could not move; she stood still and waited while Edward came towards her.

"Letitia has told me about you, Linda," he said; "she has told me how true and noble you have been; and she sent me here to look for a wife, to make new sunshine in my empty home,-a young mother to smile upon my motherless boy."

Edward and Belinda walked up and down the sheltered alley for a long time, talking a great deal of the sad past, a little of the fair-sceming future; and it was growing dusk before they went in at the oldfashioned half-glass door leading into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Lawford and her younger daughters were sitting, and where Lydia, who was next to Belinda, and had been three years married to the Curate of Hillingsworth, was nursing her second baby.

VOL. X.

X

"Has she said yes?" this young matron cried directly; for she had been told of Edward's errand to the Grange; "but of course she has. What else should she say, after refusing all manner of people, and giving herself the airs of an old maid? Yes, um pressus Pops, um Aunty Lindy's going be marriedy-parriedy," concluded the curate's wife, addressing her three-months old baby in that peculiar patois which is supposed to be intelligible to infants by reason of being unintelligible to every body else.

"I suppose you are not aware that my future brother-in-law is a major?" said Belinda's third sister, who had been struggling with a variation by Thalberg, all octaves and accidentals, and who twisted herself round upon her music-stool to address her sister. "I suppose you are not aware that you have been talking to Major Arundel, who has done all manner of splendid things in the Punjaub? Papa told us all about it five minutes ago."

It was as much as Belinda could do to support the clamorous felicitations of her sisters, especially the unmarried damsels, who were eager to exhibit themselves in the capacity of bridesmaids; but by and by, after dinner, the curate's wife drew her sisters away from that shadowy window in which Edward Arundel and Belinda were sitting, and the lovers were left to themselves.

The evening was very peaceful, very happy; and there were many other evenings like it before Edward and Belinda completed that ceremonial which they had left unfinished more than five years before.

The Sycamores was very prettily furnished, under Belinda's superintendence; and as Reginald Arundel had lately married, Edward's mother came to live with her younger son, and brought with her the idolised grandchild, who was now a tall, yellow-haired boy of six years old.

There was only one room in the Sycamores which was never tenanted by any one of that little household except Edward himself, who kept the key of the little chamber in his writing-desk, and only allowed the servants to go in at stated intervals to keep every thing bright and orderly in the apartment.

This shut-up chamber was the boudoir which Edward Arundel had planned for his first wife. He had ordered it to be furnished with the very furniture which he had intended for Mary. The rosebuds and butterflies on the walls, the guipure curtains lined with pale blush-rose silk, the few chosen books in the little cabinet near the fireplace, the Dresden breakfast-service, the statuettes and pictures, were things he had fixed upon long ago in his own mind as the decorations for his wife's apartment. He went into the room now and then, and looked at his first wife's picture, a crayon sketch taken in London before Mary and her husband started for the south of France. He looked a little wistfully at this picture, even when he was happiest in the new ties that bound him to life and all that is brightest in life.

Major Arundel took his eldest son into this room one day, when

young Edward was eight or nine years old, and showed the boy his mother's portrait.

"When you are a man, this place will be yours, Edward," the father said. "You can give your wife this room, although I have never given it to mine. You will tell her that it was built for your mother, and that it was built for her by a husband who, even when most grateful to God for every new blessing he enjoyed, never ceased to be sorry for the loss of his first love."

And so I leave my soldier-hero, to repose upon laurels that have been hardly won, and secure in that modified happiness which is chastened by the memory of sorrow. I leave him with bright children crowding round his knees, a loving wife smiling at him across those fair childish heads. I leave him happy and good and useful, filling his place in the world, and bringing up his children to be wise and virtuous men and women in the days that are to come. I leave him, above all, with the serene lamp of faith for ever burning in his soul, lighting the image of that other world in which there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage, and where his dead wife will smile upon him from amidst the vast throng of angel faces,-a child for ever and ever before the throne of God.

What Ralph Halkett hid.

I HAVE seldom spent four days so happily as those I passed in Dorsetshire three years ago. I went prepared to find a howling, scowling desert, inhabited by close-fisted landlords, and poverty-stricken, grounddown labourers; and I found a free-spoken, independent, cheerful people, a light, healthy climate, and miles of breezy, open heath-land, over which every change of light and shade produced new beauty, and the air from the sea blew with a freshness that seemed to remove years from one's age. Then, too, we had splendid weather: it was the shooting season; game was unusually abundant, and my friend's dogs were at least in his estimation-the very best in the whole sporting world.

My hosts, Ralph Halkett and his charming young wife, were delightful people. Halkett had passed his early life in roaming from country to country, visiting England rarely. I believe he and his father were not kindred spirits; but directly the old squire died he returned home, settled steadily on his estate, and rigidly fulfilled the duties of county magistrate, poor-law guardian, and even-handed landlord. Amongst his neighbours, who were at first inclined to regard him with suspicion as a rolling stone, he soon became a prime favourite; and I, who had last seen him in the East, years ago, a whimsical, dissatisfied, romantic youth, was greatly surprised to find him transformed into a model husband, and a happy, generous-hearted country squire.

Our sport for the first three days consisted of hard walking through high "fuz" bushes, and of soft walking-if a series of hops can be called walking-over boggy soil of which Ireland might be justly proud. Both were uncomfortable, especially the latter, which brought on a slight return of my old enemy, rheumatism. So on the third evening, after dinner, when the ladies' withdrawal permitted us to accommodate our weary limbs with two chairs apiece, I could not refrain from assuring my host that another edition of such rough work would certainly finish me.

"Ha! ha!" he laughed. "Looby was right after all. When you stepped so gingerly over that spongy bit where the snipes were, he said, 'He's an old 'ooman, maister; ask un if I s'ud gi' un a leg over."" And again Ralph indulged in a hearty laugh at my expense.

I did not relish the idea of being laughed at by "the long keeper;" besides, I knew Ralph would repeat the anecdote, with illustrations and additions, to his pretty wife, who, dainty little woman though she was, held dirty walking in sovereign contempt, that very day having walked over the heath, clad in miniature hobnailed boots, to meet us. Considering this, and being anxious to leave a good impression behind me, I consented to remain for another day's sport; and Ralph, satisfied with the concession, became more reasonable, and agreed to strike out in a different direction, in compassion to my weakness.

On joining the ladies, we discussed our plans with them.

"Why don't you go to Leighley, Ralph?" said Mrs. Halkett. "You will preserve that game too long; the poachers will have it all before you."

"No fear of that," he replied evasively, "while old Dugdale and his sons are there."

Mr. Hazledon, an old friend, and Halkett's nearest neighbour, laughed at the idea of "keeping" the game at Leighley. "There ought to be good sport there for the whole season," he said. "My father used to give wonderful accounts of the bags he and your father made there in old times. But I wonder you don't take your friend there. It is a lovely place, is it not, Mrs. Halkett ?"

The latter answered eagerly:

Will

"Don't ask me!-I don't know the place at all. Will you believe it, although I have been married four months, Ralph has never taken me there? Every one says, 'Is not Leighley charming? is it not romantic?' and positively I have not a word to say. Have I not a neglectful husband?"

Halkett looked admiringly on the sparkling upturned face, as he exclaimed, though his voice was slightly constrained:

"What an impetuous young woman you are! Has not your time been completely occupied in receiving and paying visits, showing off your new dresses, and copying wonderful recipes? You know when I wanted to take you, you said it was too far."

"Well!" she replied. "You only asked me once, when it was four o'clock, and we expected people to dinner at six. I appeal to you,"-and she turned to me,-" would it not have been madness to start for a drive of twelve miles at that hour?”

"Certainly," I said. "Were I you, I should suspect him of designedly keeping you away."

"Bluebeard's closet, eh?" she cried, laughing.

The end of our long discussion was, that we should shoot at Leighley the next day.

Mrs. Halkett stood at the door in the morning to see us start. The guns and dogs were stowed away in the light dog-cart, and she smilingly inquired where the long keeper was expected to put his legs.

"Looby is not going," said Ralph. "The Dugdales are enough for us; and we shall trot along lighter without him: twenty-four miles remember."

“I think Mrs. Hazledon and I will drive over to you this afternoon: shall we?"

"No, no!" he replied quickly, evincing more temper than the occasion warranted. "Don't do any such thing. The weather is very uncertain, and the damp woods would bring your cough back." Then noticing her surprise at his warmth, he added softly, "It is my duty to take care that you don't run any risks, little woman.”