girls acquitted themselves not ungracefully in the dance, but he was speedily convinced of his error; the voice of the world was against him. He recanted; he confessed that the poetry of motion, degenerated into halting prose, was only to be revived by the light fantastic toe' of the incomparable Mercœur. Dudley, there is but one professor in any art, science, or branch of learning: secure his services, the pupil must be highly finished; lose them, and it matters not, in the eyes of the fashionable world, who directs the forlorn one's studies."

"Every sacrifice should be made to engage the man." Mrs. Ward paused; she had a dim perception that her uncle was quizzing her.

With all her foibles, and their name was legion, Alice Ward was a kind-hearted woman. She had spent a little fortune in hoops, battledores, skipping-ropes, and every toy which could make time pass less heavily to a solitary child, with the good-natured motive of providing amusement for Florence in her future home. With infinite pains she had taught the little lady the mysteries of tent-stitch; nay, she would have added knitting, netting, and crochet to the list of her accomplishments, had not her pupil proved wholly intractable. Florence dropped the stitches, broke the needles, entangled the cotton, and, worst of all, made the discovery that the balls of worsted, provided for the nonce, were charming playthings for Puck.

The worsted was wound in inextricable confusion around the legs of every chair and table in the drawingroom; Puck, in his gambols, rivalled the mischievous spirit of his elfin namesake, of shrewd and knavish memory.

Mrs. Ward sighed, and wisely dropped the knitting; unfortunately, she was not equally discreet in dropping an unpalatable subject of conversation. After a pause, she recommenced her attack upon Mr. Dudley by asking, where he would find suitable companions for his daughter.

"In the rocks, woods, and mountains," he replied

D

"Our daily tasks at an end, we shall seek for no other companionship in our daily rambles."

Mrs Ward shook her head and made some unintelligible remark about Arcadia, and Utopian schemes, but the Rector smiled and said decisively,

Many an accomplished young lady is ignorant as dirt, but Florence will be a superior woman."

"The saints forfend!" ejaculated Mr. Dudley, with a look of comic dismay.

The Rector persisted: "Brought up in the heart of the Welsh mountains, she cannot grow into the stereotyped copy of a model young lady. Free and unfettered in her movements, the mind will take a tone from the elasticity of the body. A mountain maiden rejoices in a physique denied to a town-bred damsel (in which definition I include every girl trained in the vapid code of polite society). Our fashionable young ladies are living commentaries on the famous line of Pope—

"Most women have no characters at all.'

Reared in a purely conventional atmosphere, they pass through life, the shadows of a shade; empty caskets, without one original idea, one distinctive feature

Here the Rector was interrupted by the vehement protestations of Mrs. Ward, and the more calmly expressed disapprobation of Mr. Dudley. The latter asked, with covert satire, whether the Doctor were an admirer of strong-minded women.

"The Lord forbid! I see I must recant my heretical opinions, and be content with the dear creatures just as they are. But if the judicious Locke, instead of supposing the mind to be first of all as white paper, void of all characters,' had limited his theory to the female mind, he might have extended the application through each phase of feminine existence."

"For shame, Doctor!"

But the Rector persisted: "You disdain philosophy; will you listen to poetry? I pass over Pope, and appeal to Tennyson

"Weakness to be wroth with weakness! woman's pleasure, woman's pain

Nature made them blinder motions, bounded in a shallower brain :

Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, match'd with mine,

Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine.'

Alice, excuse my ungallant quotations; you provoked the discussion. Believe me, a girl trained by such a man as my friend Dudley, will enjoy advantages denied to many of her sex."

Mrs. Ward was silenced, if not convinced; she had lost the drift of her argument, which, if the truth must be confessed, had escaped the Rector in his strictures upon womankind. Dr. Leicester, satisfied with having silenced opposition, resumed the train of his own thoughts,

66 6

Trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Give nature fair play, and, with God's blessing, the good seed which lies dormant in every child of Adam, will spring up and bring forth fruit, in some thirty, in some sixty, and in some an hundredfold.'"

"God grant it!" said Mr Dudley, fervently. He added, in a lighter tone, "Doctor, you preach well on a favourite text

'God made the country; man, the town.'"

"Do you remember Wordsworth's fine Address to a Highland Girl?" said the Rector, abruptly.

Mr. Dudley answered in the negative. Dr. Leicester took up a volume which was lying on the table, and without further preface read the poem aloud.

There was a long silence after the Rector closed the volume. Mr. Dudley was thoughtful, if not melancholy. The future rose before his mind's eye; but, alas! in his case the pleasures of hope paled before the pleasures of memory. He felt with secret bitterness

"That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things."

Florence, in her mountain home, might shadow forth the bright vision of the Highland Girl, but what was such companionship to one who had wooed a congenial mate in the sunny Vale of Arno?

Mr. Dudley was not wont to succumb to fruitless regrets; he shook off his moody thoughts, and, calling Florence to his side, gaily told her that Dr. Leicester prophesied she would grow up a pattern of wisdom and goodness among the Welsh hills; thereby shaming every town-bred demoiselle in the kingdom.

"A pattern of goodness, but not of wisdom," cried Florence, with an arch glance at Dr. Leicester. And forthwith she and Puck commenced a series of gambols, which put an effectual stop to anything like rational conversation. Mrs. Ward confessed, with a goodhumoured smile, that she had overlooked a very important auxiliary when she feared Florence would suffer from the lack of congenial companionship. Before the party separated, it was arranged that Mary should precede her master to Wales. Dr. Leicester proposed leaving home at the same time; he declared that he had business at Shrewsbury, and would escort her to that

town.

Mr. Dudley protested against this arrangement. "I would not give a brother such unnecessary trouble," he urged.

Dr. Leicester persisted in his resolution.

66

'Ah! Doctor, you are determined to prove the truth of the proverb, E' meglio un buon amico che cento parenti.5"

"I am determined to have my own way," laughed the Doctor.

After some further debate, it was arranged that Mr. Dudley should start on his journey upon the day originally fixed; and the Rector promised, if possible, to pay him a visit at the castle before he returned to the Rectory.

CHAPTER V.

"THE roofless cot, decay'd and rent,
Will scarce delay the passer-by;
The tower by war or tempest bent,
While yet may frown one battlement,
Demands and daunts the stranger's eye;

Each ivied arch, and pillar lone,
Pleads haughtily for glories gone."

BYRON.

THE day fixed for the departure of Mr. Dudley and his daughter came at length. It was a bright October day-warm and sunny, with the parting smile of summer. By one of those singular coincidences, which are of more frequent occurrence than we are willing to admit, the same day was appointed for the reception of the new lord of the manor.

This important personage was no other than Sir Harry Pembroke, whom we have already cursorily introduced as an unwelcome intruder at the Wilderness.

He and his bride were expected on this same sunny autumn day, to take possession of their future home. Mr. Dudley, as he drove through the village on his way to the adjacent railway station, noted with surprise the extent of the preparations which had been set on foot for the reception of the new landlord. The unwonted stillness which reigned in every cottage, excited the astonishment of Florence.

A triumphal arch reared its head near the entrance of the village, bearing the appropriate mottoes: "Welcome to the Wilderness;" "Long life to the Squire and