Why need we dwell longer upon this part of our story? why make several chapters of what may be told in one? Did not the marriage of Paul Massey and Anna Lee, followed the next day by the death of Mark Mountford, Esq., form the subject of conversation along the coast for many months? Do not the people thereabouts point out to strangers the house in the valley? Has not many a tourist said to fellowtravellers: "If that story were put into a book one would be apt to say it was unnatural?" You knew nothing about it, you may say. Perhaps you think we have invented the whole affair? Perhaps you think there is no house in the valley? Perhaps you think we have sat by the sea and imagined all we have narrated? 66 Ah, you should have stood, with us, a spectator of that marriage in the fine old drawing-room! You should have seen the sun-light flooding in upon Mark Mountford in his high-backed chair; upon Anna Lee, with her soft gray eyes full of tears; upon Paul Massey, pale and careworn, but handsome still; upon Mrs. Grey, buxom and rosy despite her troubles; upon Joe Wittle, with his hands in his big waistcoat pockets; upon the well-dressed group of servants, with an imperious fellow, in plush, towering above the rest and looking down with a smile of pity upon Joe Wittle; upon the parson in his white gown; upon Winford Barnes standing aloof, as though he pulled the strings of the whole affair. You should have stood by Mark Mountford's bed, four and twenty hours afterwards, as he lay with his hand in Mrs. Massey's. You should have seen how gentle death will sometimes be with a good man! You should have heard the true-hearted old man say: "Paul, you will be kind to her, and protect her?" You should have seen Paul bow down his head, and have heard him, whilst choking with emotion, say 'Always, always." You should have seen those silent tearful groups of domestics outside the room. You should have seen that form which, at length, lay silently on the white bed, with Anna praying by its side! You should have heard the faint whispers of the solemn peal which the silver bells sent to condole with the mourners at Denby Rise. You should have wandered through the great house, and noted the soft tread of its inmates, as though they feared to wake one that slept. You should have walked into the library, and noted the vacant chair where the master had sat with his books. You should have seen how solemn and sad the familiar volumes looked on their tall shelves, waiting the touch of the hand that would turn their leaves no more. You should have seen Joe Wittle sitting on that old bucket in the stable with his head in his hands, bemoaning his master to Harkaway, and you should have noted how the horse, as if it understood that Joe was in trouble, rubbed its nose on the familiar fur helmet. Then you would not have doubted our story. Then you would not have said we fancied it, or that the sea whispered it to us, or that Denby Rise was not in the valley near Helswick. You can hear the silver bells any Sunday morning. When you do bear them rising above the murmur of the sea, think what changes they have rung upon the ears of Anna Lee, and Paul Massey, and Mrs. Grey, and Joe Wittle. Commune with the chimes thoughtfully and they will tell you this story all over again. Tune your fancy to their sweet tones, and they will become merry and sad as you list. They will travel drowsily, yet happily, across yon bend of the coast, climb the rocks and whisper in at the windows of Denby Rise, as they did on a certain memorable Sunday. They will mingle their voices with that of the sea, and tell you about a fair girl sitting at her chamber window. They will tell you of the wreck that followed; whilst the sea washes at your feet, and smiles at you as if it hugged itself on its greater knowledge than the chimes. The bells will not heed the egotism of the waters, but will go on chattering to you, singing, or whispering as you will; until at length they become sad and plaintive and piteous, jangling out of tune, and wailing and touching your heart-strings with their dolorous music, and carrying your thoughts to the churchyard, where a marble slab rests amongst the grass over the mortal remains of Mark Mountford. Fickle bells! Tender bells, babbling bells! Are you really the same that clash forth merry notes on the wedding morn, and make painful peals when graves are opened, beneath the shadow of your mysterious home in the church tower? If so, are ye governed by spirits as various as your varying notes? Are ye inhabited by genii that control your changing voices? Do angelic throngs people your brazen domes when Sunday comes, to make your tones prayerful and religious, to tune your voices to the organ's pealing and the choral chant? Do merry sprites whirl and twirl and gambol through your big stone room, and forge those tinkling, ringing, sparkling, trilling, clanging notes that greet the bride as she steps out from the gray old porch upon roses flung by village children? Do the mystic messengers of mighty magicians give meaning to your voices, when boys hear you say strange things such as Dick Whittington heard? Do tricky sprites govern ye when ye tell a man whatever he wishes you should say, when you repeat his own thoughts and make him take your words for omens? Do spiteful, vengeful, demonaic fays influence you when you tempt men to direful deeds with tales of blood at midnight? Do the good angels come back to you when you mourn for the dead, when you preach with such solemn beauty the great sermon of mortality? (To be continued.) 24 THE SNAGGLETON LETTERS: COMPRISING MANY INTERESTING PASSAGES IN THE HISTORY OF THE HIGHLY-RESPECTABLE FAMILY OF THE SNAGGLETONS. LETTER III. MR. SNAGGLETON ON GOING OUT OF TOWN. To Mr. John Cooler, Wine Merchant. THE SHINGLES, SLOPPINGTON-SUPER-MARE, MY DEAR COOLER,-Being left alone by my family (for which, Heaven be praised!) I take the opportunity of telling you a little of our goings-on, and especially of what I've suffered, and had to put up with. It's a real comfort to have a friend like you, Cooler, where I can unbosom myself like, and get advice if I want it; not that I want it just now, unless you can tell me how I can again become master of my own house, for as I am now, I'm as much a cypher as ever was any poor fellow on this mortal earth. I've been struggling, and trying to exert-my what d'ye call it?-prerogative-yes, my prerogative as a husband, and all that. Why, I might as well try to scoop up the sea here with the sugar-tongs! Mrs. S. has got the bit between her teeth, and I may pull till I'm black in the face, and all to no purpose. Well the fact is, my dear Cooler, we've had a breeze, a regular blow up in fact, and I've been beaten-beaten all to nothing. About a month ago Mrs. S. and the girls began about leaving town, I knew they would, for they'd been firing off shots, off and on, several times before, only I wouldn't take any notice. At last one day when the girls were both in the room, Mrs. S. says all of a sudden: “Mr. Snaggleton have you thought about going out of town?" "No my dear," says I, "I can't say that I have." 66 'Well, me and the girls have decided, I think," says Mrs. S. "Oh, have you, my dear?" says I, very quietly. "We mean to go to Folkstone first, and then run over to Boulogne, and perhaps go on to Paris, if there's time," says Mrs. S. again. "Is there anywhere else you'd like to go to, my dear, while you're about it?" says I; "wouldn't Rome and Constantinople be in the way?" Well, my dear Cooler, she wouldn't stand that at all, and said so; and I began to get nervous, though I meant to try and carry it with a very high hand; but the fact is, Mrs. S. is a most extraordinary woman, and I'm not her match, and I don't want to say However, I'll I am. brazen it out, thinks I; so looking very determined, I says: "I don't care about going away at all," I says; "but if I go anywhere it'll be to Margate. Well you should just have heard 'em go on! Margate!" says Mrs. S. "Go to Margate! Go to Jericho! Do you think, S., that I'll take my dear children to a nasty, low, cheap, abominable place like Margate? Why you'd meet anybody there, you might meet your own tailor, Mr. S., in the sea!" says I: "And suppose I did," says I, "he's a very respectable man, and I shouldn't mind meeting him in the sea or out of it." But the girls made more noise than their mother, if that's possible, and abused the place up hill and down dale till I began to get rusty; and “Come, none of your nonsense, girls, you were glad enough to go to Margate for half-a-crown when you lived over a respectable shop in Whitechapel, and glad enough to eat periwinkles with a pin on board the boat as you went down the Thames !" "Mr. S.," says my wife, in an awful voice, "I beg that you will have some respect for our presence, and not lower yourself unnecessarily by such low language. We shall not go to Margate, so that matter's settled." over. Well, they went off for the present; but I knew the breeze wasn't All dinner-time they were as glum as could be, and that fellow Jobling, or Allenby, as Mrs. S. calls him, went about the room as though he were getting out the cake and wine after a funeral. After dinner, Mrs. S. says to Jobling: "I want you to take a note to Dr. Chatterby presently." "What's the matter now," says I, "I'm not going to have any advice gratis business here, and there's nobody ill, is there ?" Well, it appeared that Mrs. S. wasn't feeling at all well, and as they were to stay in town during the summer it would be necessary to begin a course of medicine! Begin a course of humbug! thinks I, and asked Mrs. S. why she intended to stay in London. Then they opened their batteries again in fine style. Hadn't I suggested Margate, the sink of London, the resort of the lowest of the low? Had I the feelings of a parent, or had I not? "I only wish I hadn't," says I, "and then, perhaps, you'd let me alone!" Well, my dear Cooler, I was badgered about, and run into a corner, and obliged to consent to give up Margate, though very much against my will. "Isn't there the pier, my dear," says I, "and the donkeys, and the shops, and capital oysters and shrimps every morning?" But it was of no use; they jeered at the pier, and turned up their noses at the shrimps. One thing I stuck to, I wouldn't go abroad; we haven't come to that yet; but I've little doubt we shall, some day. I suggested Brighton. 1!" "Lor', Pa," says Jemima Olivia, "what, go amongst the shopkeepers out for nine hours by the sea-side for 3s. 6d. No, thank you! or two, Mrs. S. generally The matter was left undecided for a day blowing up a bit at dinner-time, till at last they all came galloping into my snuggery, where I keep the old golden tea-pot that used to hang over the door in Whitechapel, and all of 'em began talking at once. Well, I let 'em go on, without taking much notice, and at last made out that Lady Green Turtle was going to take the old Alderman, who's half mad with the gout, down to Sloppington-super-mare, and nothing would do but we must go too. It seems that Lady Turtle had never been there, but had heard it highly spoken of, as being very select and most respectable. Well, I got no peace till I said we'd go; and wishing Lady Turtle at the bottom of the Serpentine, I finally agreed to it. We're here, my dear Cooler, and the best joke in the world is, that Sloppington isn't at all a fashionable place; and after the girls have brought down enough fine dresses and hats to stock Alison's big shop in Regent Street there's nobody here to show 'em to, except a few quiet parties like me, or like what I was when I was in-the East. I'm very glad it is so, because I think I shall enjoy myself here very well, and I think it'll teach Mrs. S. a lesson about running after fashion. I like, for my own part, to lie on the beach and smoke my pipe in the mornings, and see the children puddling about in the water, and the nursemaids abusing their missuses to each other, and the lazy old boatmen chewing their quids and talking about the weather. That's what I like, Cooler, and then about eleven or so, I get a cool pot of porter and a bit of lobster or something of the sort, and read my paper and see how trade's getting on, and wonder how the old shop is where I passed the best part of my life, and hang me, Cooler, if I don't think it was the happiest too, for being fashionable is an awful tax on a man. Mrs. S. and the girls, who are as cross as two sticks, only come out at certain hours, and then march up and down the parade in no end of a grand get-up; and the people here, who dress in comfortable blouses and slouched hats, look at 'em as if they wondered who the dickins they can be, and I dare say they do. A fine thing happened the other day. Mrs. S. had been bothering to go to some old castle or other, six miles off, a ruin too, it appears. Well, I didn't want to see the old place, especially as it was so dreadfully out of repair, and so I said; upon which Maria Alexandrina says: "Have you no respect for the antique, Pa?" "To be sure I have, my dear," says I, "the greatest possible respect for him, but I don't want to go calling on him when his house is all out of order!" I thought she meant the party as owned the castle, you know. However, as usual, Mrs. S. gained the day, and the time was fixed for going, but there was no carriage to be got, only donkeys. Well, Mrs. S. was very savage, and said she wasn't going on a plebeian animal like a donkey; whereupon, says I, "If we don't go to-day, we don't go at all, so take your choice, Mrs. S." So we went on donkeys, and very good fun it was to see the girls and Mrs. S. sitting on the beasts, and frightened to death whenever the brutes brayed, which they always did if they recognized a friend in a field. Well, we'd got about half-way, when we found the water had |