that they might be saved from destruction hereafter; brought back to right reason and self-respect before they had committed themselves irrevocably to the degradation of clerical despotism.

All the same, reason it out as he might, it was unpleasant; and no one could have more disliked the office which he had imposed on himself than did poor Ringrove, who, the soul of loyalty and honour, had yesterday consorted as one of themselves with Richard's enemies and to-day was considering how to compass their defeat.

Riding along the road, he caught the outline of a well-known figure walking with an easy undulating movement, and at not too break-neck speed, between the frosty hawthorn hedges. It was pretty Bee Nesbitt, swathed in furs up to her dimpled chin and acting as chaperon to two of her younger sisters, inasmuch as she was taking them out for their morning walk in default of Miss Laurie the governess, who had gone home for the Christmas holidays. For Bee, as the eldest, was her mother's right hand and second self, and held capable of any amount of chaperonage and protection over the younger ones. And as she was a good, true-hearted girl, she justified her mother's expectations and answered to all the demands made on her.

When Ringrove came up to her he dismounted, took the bridle on his arm, and joined the girl who, next to Virginia, seemed to him one of the sweetest of her kind, and who, if less his ideal, was more his companion. Of all the girls known to him he always said that he would have liked Bee Nesbitt best for his sister. She, on her side, always said that Ringrove Hardisty was just like one of her own brothers-her eldest brother, say; more to be trusted and less teazing than either Fred or Harry; and that she wished he had been in fact what he was in feeling. They were certainly great friends :-and they made a charming contrast together.

"Why, Ringrove, is that you?" said Bee with affected surprise; arching so much of her eyebrows as could be seen for the tangle of curls and fluff of fur that came so low on her broad white forehead.

She meant to express the "mild surprise and gentle indignation" of her present state of mind; for news had come to them even before breakfast to-day of Ringrove Hardisty's appearance at Churchlands last night, and of how he was now accounted a member of the new school. No longer the sturdy defender of parochial liberties, the champion of the independence of the laity, he was to be henceforth ranked as a partisan of ecclesiastical domi

nation, and might be expected to be soon seen carrying a "Mary" banner in the wake of Cuthbert Molyneux swinging his incense-burner. And though Beatrice knew that half of what they had been told this morning by their maid-who had heard it from the butcher, who had heard it from the Churchlands cook herself—was exaggeration; yet that other half? or even that other quarter? The smoke might be excessive, but it argued some fire underneath; and with Ringrove Hardisty, the Crossholme Samson of Erastianism and lay freedom, there should be neither smoke nor fire.

"Are you going to the Vicarage, or have you been to Mattins? You spell Mattins with two t's in your school, do you not?" she asked, her not very profound sarcasm seeking to clothe itself in affected simplicity.

"The Vicarage? Mattins? No!" he answered, laughing and shaking hands with her cordially.

She was the person of all others whom he wished to see. He could open his heart to her more freely than to anyone else; for she was one of those people who, without superiority of intellect, have the good judgment which comes from purity of character, ready sympathy, and the absence of disturbing passions; and at this moment he