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held a profusion of wild roses gathered up in the skirt of her grey ridinghabit, the ivied stone arch forming a fitting frame to the whole.

"The holy monks here must have been a strict order," Jack observed, as they all sat down to luncheon on the mossy turf of what had been the refectory-and as he spoke he rubbed off some dust which had stuck to his sleeve" and not nearly so jolly as the monks of old were in the habit of being. They couldn't have got up and down those narrow stairs if they had, for I'm not a very b-burly man, and look — I

wouldn't have been a monk here!"

"Or anywhere, Jack?" said Miss Stamford, smiling. "No.-Sutton, some chick-chick-chick

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"I shouldn't have been a monk either," said Emily, gravely. "I would have been a Crusader, and won my

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"'Icken and salad ?" concluded Jack Stamford, much after the fashion of the Protestant raven in Barnaby Rudge.

"But, Miss Hope," said Philip, "crusaders often ended in becoming monks. When, for instance, they came home and found their ladyeloves had married some one else in the interval, what was there left for romance-knights to do? What should you have done, Miss Stamford?” And Philip fixed a scrutinising glance on her as he spoke.

"I think I should have died," Helen answered, slowly, but with such suppressed vehemence that she rather startled her questioner, and Mrs. Stamford said, in a slightly annoyed tone,

"How seriously you take things, my dear child! People don't die quite so easily; as my aunt, Lady Coldstone, used to say, it takes a great many such blows to chip even a corner off one's heart."

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"I should marry a w-w-widow!" said Jack; we should be on nearly equal terms, and so console one another. What would you do if you were a knight in such distressed circumstances, Miss Hope? A knight, mind, I say."

"Well," said Emily, with a puzzled look, and her blue eyes showing indications of mischief, "if I were a knight-I-suppose-I shouldget over it in time, as I believe most people do."

Everybody laughed excepting Helen, who seemed at that moment to have taken farewell in spirit of her companions, and to have set off on a voyage somewhere else. And Mrs. Stamford, thinking the conversation was taking a peculiar turn, gave it a different direction, and entertained Philip with the various degrees of kindred which united her family to the Beauforts. It was very odd, her listener reflected, how a woman so really well-born and highly connected as Mrs. Stamford could be guilty of the vulgarity of bringing it perpetually before you, almost as if you had doubted it. "If her aunts and cousins were Smiths and Snookses, she wouldn't always be quoting them," Philip sapiently observed to himself, "though I dare say their remarks would be as well worthy of record as when Mrs. Stamford's sister's brother-in-law, Lord Noodleton, said that Monmouthshire was generally damp in wet weather."

7

But we ourselves, Mr. Sutton, have met with this phase of snobbishness in people who ought to have been equally free from it with Mrs. Stamford, and indeed with many other and individual snobbishnesses in people who might deem the very word breathed in their presence almost an insult. Small weaknesses-oftener small un-christianities.

"I must make friends with Miss Hope," Philip thought to himself, as

he watched the two girls talking together; "perhaps by-and-by a confidante. It would be very good policy, for she is evidently very intimate with Helen Stamford, and looks as if she would be good-natured. That girl interests me very much; she is quite a study. I really think I am beginning to care for her ?" And so, on the ride home, he and Emily were companions, and got on very well indeed. At first Philip thought she was quite a child, and studied nothing but the natural history of a perfect menagerie of pets she had during her life possessed, for she would talk of nothing else. What a flock of pigeons she had, and how a white fantail always perched on her great dog Pilot's back, and how Pilot submitted to peas being strewed all over his shaggy black coat; and how her parrot had learned to stammer from being for some time in the society of a gentleman-who-stammered very badly, and how afraid she was this-gentleman-would think she had taught it on purpose, till Philip, becoming rather tired of zoology, thought he would rejoin Miss Stamford. But from parrots Miss Hope diverged to South America and its forests primeval, sketched scenes of tropical life quickly and vividly, rambled from America to Europe, from South to Northfrom the luxuriant southern vegetation to the pine forests of Norway and the lava plains of Iceland-with such a graphic power of description, that Philip, though he knew she could not have seen all these pictures, said, in some surprise, that he supposed she had been a great traveller already?

"I have never been out of my own country yet," she answered, "but I intend to, soon-at least when I can find somebody to go with." And she gave a half-sigh.

"Poor child," Philip thought, "I hope she isn't going to be a governess, or anything of that sort! Perhaps," he said aloud, "the Stamfords be your escort some day."

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"Yes," Emily answered; "I shouldn't mind travelling with Helen." "You are great friends?" Philip suggested.

"Friends!" Thereupon ensued an outburst of praise the most enthusiastic, and to which her companion, as may be imagined, lent a most. willing ear. Few people thoroughly understood Helen, but there was nobody in the world like Helen-such a loyal, constant friend, such a noble, truthful soul!

And yet, with all her enthusiasm, Miss Hope was also to a certain extent guarded on the subject, and Philip, had he sought to gain more particular information about her, would have found his curiosity baffled. But he was quite satisfied with hearing her praised, and thought how pleasant it must be to have such a warm advocate enlisted in your behalf as this pretty Emily Hope.

Sir Henry Clayton arrived in time for dinner; a fair, pale-complexioned man of about eight-and-twenty, not handsome, but with that peculiar air of high breeding which women prefer in a man to mere good looks. And Sir Henry Clayton's manner betrayed to a certain extent that he was accustomed in society to carry all before him, and without being actually conceited, seemed to intimate that he received every attention as his due, and thus compelled most people to pay the tax. Representative of one of the oldest baronetcies in England (his father had refused a peerage on this account), talented much above the average, and possessing great charm of manner, Sir Henry Clayton had generally found himself

successful with very little trouble in anything he had considered it worth while to undertake. He had " un talent pour le succès," and was perfectly well aware of it.

But from some unaccountable impulse, Philip took a dislike to him long before dinner was over, which was unfortunate, as Sir Henry was so popular with all the Stamford family, and would probably remain in the house as long as Philip.

One comfort was, he did not interfere with Miss Stamford, but devoted himself during the evening to Emily Hope (after having had various members of his aristocratical connexions inquired after by Mrs. Stamford), sat by the piano while she sang, and made her sing all his favourite songs; talked to her in his easy, quiet way, which, however, was far more amusing than many a more vivacious one, and in short seemed very good friends indeed with Miss Hope.

So Philip had plenty of opportunity for furthering his acquaintance with Helen, and made good use of it. But in a pause of the conversation, as he looked up and saw Emily very decidedly, as he considered, flirting with Sir Henry Clayton, he could not help remarking to himself how odd it was women could care about such a prig as that, without a trace of good looks to recommend him, and such an insufferably conceited manner! But what wouldn't a woman do for position? He had known women marry-oh, infinitely worse men than that!-and this poor dependent girl of course would not be so difficile, though it was very unlikely Clayton would commit such an imprudence. But he hoped she was not the kind of girl to marry without love he should be sorry to think Helen's friend could. It really was a horrible idea a woman having interested motives in marriage-and-" Though why poor Sir Henry Clayton should not have been married for love it would have puzzled any one but Mr. Sutton to say. And why motives to a certain degree interested in Emily should be so very much worse than in Mr. Sutton himself, seemed equally unintelligible.

"Who is going to Southwold with me to-morrow ?" Jack Stamford asked of the company in general. "Sir Henry has only just arrived, so I won't carry him off. Sutton, I think you would be-nefit much by my lecture, and I know you take an interest in agriculture, so I shall enlist you as my supporter."

Now if Philip had known how very entertaining Stamford's lectures were, and with what admirable ingenuity he invariably divagued from whatever the subject might be to talk about everything un-connected with it, his distinguished self in particular, he would probably not have looked so blank at the proposal as he now did. As it was, he looked so disinclined to agree to it, that Helen hastened to say,

"That will never do, Jack! Mr. Sutton is engaged to lunch at Silvermere with us, and we can't let him off. You must bear your honours alone-and mind you're back in time for the ball on Friday."

Mrs. Stamford smiled at her daughter, and approved graciously of the veto that had been put on Philip's departure even for a day.

Philip smiled mentally. "Soh! she cares already about my staying,' he thought." Vogue la galère !"

243

THE LORD PROTECTOR'S GHOST.

A BALLAD.

BY W. CHARLES KENT.

[Immediately after the Restoration the dead body of Cromwell was removed from its place of solemn sepulture at Westminster, and having been drawn upon a common hurdle to Tyburn, was there dragged out of its coffin and suspended, with fiendish exultation, upon the gallows by the hands of the public executioner.]

SAUNTERING o'er the moorland lonely-
Darkness dappling into day-
Lo! one courtly gallant only,

Humming a blithe roundelay.

Ringlets trailing on his shoulders;
Tufted lip and tufted chin;
Eyes that seem to seek beholders-
Love for handsome looks to win.

Less than love were niggard payment,
Music as each footfall stirs,
Rustling in that broidered raiment,
Jingling in those burnished spurs.

"Tis a thing of silken splendour,
Perfumed lace and velvet gear,
Flourished with the gauds that render
Gay the roystering Cavalier.
'Tis a pampered lord of revels
Loitering from a banquet home,
Fearing neither God nor devils

Where his wayward pathway roam.
Drinking deep from flagons brimming,
Wine has flushed his cheek and brain;
Yet with heated senses swimming,
Calm he lounges o'er the plain.
Whim-inspired, his sleek roan scorning,
And his gaily liveried groom,
Quaffs he here afoot the morning,

Brushing through the flowery broom

Brushing through the dewy brambles
Leisurely as o'er a lawn,

Not yon dismal scene of rambles
Darkling at the glint of dawn.

Sudden sounds of doleful anguish,

Ghastly gleams of lurid light

Gleams that, fitful, rise and languish-
Glimmer through the gloom of night.

Startled, pale, aghast, affrighted,
Lo! the gallant plain doth see,
By the ghostlike radiance lighted,
Grim and gaunt-the Tyburn tree.

And beneath the gibbet standing-
Horror in its lifeless eyes-
On each lineament the branding
Token of a form that dies-

Rotting, mouldered, blue, abhorréd,
Yet with aspect calm and grand,
He who though uncrowned his forehead
Reigned-the Ruler of the land.

Hark! the Awful Phantom uttering
Woeful words and dire to hear,

Words that breathed through black lips muttering,
Chill the Reveller's bones with fear.

"Minion!" cries the dreadful Spectre,
"I am he who once did wield
Mighty England's glorious sceptre ;
Led her armies to the field;

"Scattered all her ills and terrors

As the winnow drives the chaff;
And for all her tyrant's errors

Gave her right with scorn to laugh.
"Traitorous knaves with plots designing
Trembled at my sheathless sword,
Knowing that its splendrous shining
Was the glory of the Lord!
"Nations awed before my power,
Monarchs shrinking from my blow,
At my coming, cursed the hour
Britain first became their foe.

"Arbitrer of peace and battle,
In my grasp the bolts of war
Routed warrior-hosts like cattle,

Hurled the victor from his car.
"Holland, with her navies scattered,
Saw our banners sweep the main,
Saw them flout where low lay shattered
In the dust the pride of Spain.

"Scotland's ancient brand fell broken
When it crossed my iron rod;
Erin knew her doom was spoken
When my foot was on her sod.

"Distance, impotent to sever
Britons from my sheltering fame,
Found them guarded, wheresoever,
By the terror of my name.

"We were scathless, free, defiant-
Bent to none but God the knee,
On His holy aid reliant,

Perilous though the path might be.

"Now! with tarnished standards lowered, Draggling at the heels of France: Fallen-not with fate untoward,

Cloven helm and splintered lance:

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