thing. Each one is thinking about himself, | of her father, whom the Mother knew, and but why talk about myself?" She expressed her satisfaction at becoming acquainted with the Mother. The two ladies smiled when Roland said :: "We went to the church, and from there we came to you, and we think we are much better off here." The wine came, and Eric and Roland drank the health of the Doctor's substitute. Then they went to the study of the Physician, and Eric explained the anatomical charts to Roland. The Mother urged the Doctor's wife, with whom she was visiting, to return her visit soon, and expressed the hope of great good to result to Frau Ceres from her resolute nature. "I should be afraid of being too blunt," answered the Doctor's wife, whose nature was in reality exceedingly gentle and considerate. "I trust you will pardon my boldness; is it true that Manna is to be taken from the convent, and have her education completed by you?" The Mother was amazed. What was to her only a vague thought, was the gossip of the neighborhood. She could not imagine what had given rise to it, and the Doctor's wife could not tell where she had heard it. When the Mother now made particular inquiries about Manna, the Doctor's wife said that Roland was the only one of Sonnenkamp's family whom she knew. She knew nothing at all about Manna; but Lina, the Justice's daughter, had been her friend, and from her something definite might be learned. The Physician joined them, but did not stay long. He waited only to get, as soon as he could, the report from his wife. / The Mother took leave, and Frau Petra did not urge her to remain, saying that she had still to speak with several of the patients before they went. In lively spirits they left the house. They had to wait longer at the Justice's, for wife and daughter must first make their toilet. When they finally appeared, they had many apologies to make for the disorderly appearance of the room, and for their own hurried toilet; yet dress and room were as neat and pretty as one could wish. The messenger was sent after the Justice, who was taking his Sunday's glass; and when at last the Professorin had taken a seat in the corner of the sofa, where one could hardly find room among the embroidered cushions, a pleasant conversation ensued. The Justice's wife had adroitly made mention they gradually established an agreeable intercourse, after the first awkward preliminaries were all over. The Professorin knew how to draw Lina out, and was greatly pleased with her bright description of the conventlife. Lina was encouraged by this, so that she became more and more animated and communicative, to her mother's great astonishment. The Justice made his appearance. He had evidently swallowed down his glass hastily, for nothing ought to be left unfinished. He shook the hand of the Professorin longer and harder than was at all necessary, and assured her humorously-humor seemed very odd on the little man's grave face-of his magisterial protection. He then gave an account to Eric and Roland of the Pole's having broken out of the House of Correction, and of their having put up an advertisement for his apprehension, but they would be glad never to see him again. The Justice's wife and Lina put on their hats, and went with their guests by a circuitous path along the Rhine to the house of the School-director, not without some consciousness, perhaps, of the good appearance they were making. Eric walked with the Justice's wife, the Justice joined Roland, and Lina went with the Professorin. Lina began of her own accord to talk of Manna, of her present melancholy, and of her former liveliness; she had cherished the most enthusiastic love towards her father, so that it seemed as if she could not leave him for a single day; and Lina begged the Mother to use her influence to have Manna return once more. The Mother carefully refrained from making any inquiries, but it struck her strangely that from these visits, made only out of politeness, a new duty seemed to be unfolding before her. If she had been able to imagine that she was only used by Sonnenkamp to play into his own hands, she would have been still more astonished at the various phases which one simple occurrence may assume. They did not find the family of the Schooldirector or of the Forester at home; as they were returning in the carriage and driving by the Doctor's house, his wife was standing in the doorway; she called to them to stop. She came out to them, and said that she had forgotten to remind the Mother to call upon the Major and Fräulein Milch to-day; the Major was very good-natured, but he was very sensitive in regard to the respect shown him, and he never forgave any one for neglecting to pay the proper attention to Fräulein Milch. Fräulein Milch was a very | to send a child of the porter's to Fräulein excellent, respectable person, if they could Milch with the welcome message. overlook one thing. The Mother was very animated, and Eric They returned to the villa in good spirits. expressed his joy that his mother experiThe first person they met in the court-enced something of that exhilaration proyard was the Major. He looked somewhat duced by a sight of the life of the people out of humor, but his countenance lighted and the life of nature along the Rhine. up when the Professorin said that she had intended to call upon him and Fräulein Milch to-day, and to get a cup of coffee, as she unfortunately could not fall into the ways of this part of the country, and drink wine every day. The Major nodded; but he soon went off When Roland came to dinner, he said in a low tone to the Professorin: "I have looked into the ConversationsLexicon, and to-day is Theodore Parker's birthday; to-day is the twenty-fourth of August." The Mother whispered that it would be well for him to speak of it to no one but her. like to have known the man who first left off the Ir has been a favourite fancy of imaginative | daylight without his pigtail! Yes: I should men, to picture to themselves the persons whom they would like to have known. And they generally name historical personages, or men of literary renown - - such as Dr. Johnson, Milton, Cromwell, Charles I., Queen Elizabeth, Roger Bacon, or Alfred the Great. My fancy runs most amidst the great obscure. I should like to have known the man who first ventured to leave off wearing his pigtail. What a great man he must have been! The pigtail possessed every feature of folly which costume can present. It was ugly, inconvenient, ridiculous; it took up time, it spoilt clothes; it needed assistance. Think of a regiment having their pigtails arranged under the inspection of the prudent captain late at night, in order that his regiment might be the earliest ready for battle, or parade on the ensuing morning! No doubt all knowledge is good, and will eventually prove serviceable to the world. But, speaking for myself—if I had been consulted first-if it had rested with me to decide-I think I should have voted against the invention of the electric telegraph. It appears to me that the electric telegraph chiefly serves to convey the news of misfortune rapidly, inaccurately, act of the tragedy before we know anything of abruptly, and partially. We have now the fifth the preceding ones. Then, again, the system of telegraphing tends more and more to divide official men into two classes-idiots and madonce, and desiring instructions, gradually dwarfs The facility for conveying information at the mental powers and activity of the subordinate in the distance; while the principal man at home is driven into madness by never having a sure moment of peace. men. Author of Friends in Council. What heaps of calumny must have been piled upon the man who first left off his pigtail! If he had a wife, the neighbours doubtless said that he beat her; if he had children, that he starved them; and all agreed that he was an atheist. In moments of depression, and they must have been frequent, how fervently he wished that he had never dismissed his pigtail! But there is no returning in such a course, and to have taken to the pigtail again would not have condoned the original offence. With the deep insight into things which misery gives, he no doubt often said to himself, "Better conform to the foolishest of human follies, than be ever so wise but withal so lonely in the world." Thus he went, staggering under his burthen of eccenWHEN people talk of women's claims, and tricity, sometimes morbidly courageous, some women's rights, I think of the tournaments of times morbidly timid and shamefaced; now former days. If the ladies had descended into thinking himself a presumptuous idiot, and now the arena, most of them would have made but a glorious martyr; but never again enjoying sorry knights; whereas, remaining in the galthat sweet peace which abides with common-lery, it was they who gave the prizes, and it was placedness. We have many pigtails now—moral, physical, metaphysical, and theological. But woe to the man who makes a first appearance in broad to win the meed of praise from them that each knight did his best. There is something of the same kind even in the most unchivalrous ages. Author of Friends in Council. CHAPTER XX. A MOONLIGHT DRIVE. THE next day the storms had all cleared away, and the morning rose looking perfectly mild and innocent, as if it had never known bad weather or ill-temper, and was certainly not repentant. Nature is credited with many of the feelings of man, but no one ever suggested remorse as one of them, the most purely human of all passions. Tony had not been in so great a hurry to dispose of Lettice as his wife, who had taken it into her head that to get rid of the girl was to dispose of the proofs against them of smuggling; but he fetched the little cart in which they were to go, and was ready to start early the spoils of war were, however, being carried off by the coast-guard, and he was kept in attendance on them, on what was to him most distasteful work, till long past mid-day. "They kips me like that to vex me, I really do believe," said he, chafing angrily, with a cut at the shaggy Forest pony when at last he got away, with Lettice sitting by his side, as much oppressed by the responsibility of her father's little bag as if it had been the whole regalia of England. She looked round for the last time on the desolate little settlement as they turned off across the moor, and thought how changed it all was to her since the day when first she came there. The same objects look so strangely different when every hill and bit of coast has a recollection attached to it; and a sort of personal friendship exists with every little bay, and every bush and tree has, as it were, a memory hung round its neck, or an association which makes it interesting. It was a mild November day, and as they reached the forest country the autumn tints of the trees which stretched far and wide -looked gorgeous under the long level rays of the sun, softened by a delicate blue haze. It was the more striking coming from the bare headlands and the evergreen pine-woods among which she had been living the change of the seasons produces scarcely any change on the sea and the shore, or the sand-cliffs and the firs. It had been a very dry season, and the leaves had only just begun to fall, except where the yesterday's storm had brought down a bright carpet of them here and there: the golden yellow of the maple and the elm, the more sober russet of the oak, and the rich fiery tawny reds and browns of the beech, all flamed out in the beautiful sunshine; while the deep green of the hollies and yew with which the Forest is studded, made the 66 colour still more striking. Some trees seem to lose their lives so gaily, putting on their greatest pomp of beauty before they die, like the beech, while others part with their leaves one by one, greyly and sadly, like the ash. And yet there is a melancholy in all this brilliancy, in the perishable beauty which every breath of wind helps to destroy; even the most cheerful sunshine in November has a certain sad look of a dying year. "The autumn's pretty nigh at an end," said Tony at last; for all that flare and glare o' them trees, they'll be stripped naked afore many days now. We was out o' luck to be sure this time! and poor Caleb took like that when he might have cut away 'asy, if it hadn't been along o' yer father." Tony was not troubled with fine feelings himself, and had no notion of giving poor Lettice pain, while she was wincing under the thought so that she could hardly sit still. "I did feel queesy and queery I did,” went on the imperturbable Tony, "when Sally locked me in o' that fashion, and the coastguard fund me like a bird in a cage; but twere all for the best ye see. And maybe Caleb 'll get off even now," continued his affectionate brother with much calmness. "He's so lissom and so spry he may give 'em all the slip still, who knows? How they have a-kep' us so late now as 'twill be very ill convenient for me to get home again." Lettice did not answer, and they drove on across the wide heaths and forest-glades, by cross-cuts and byways apparently exceedingly well known to her conductor. They passed by troops of deer and droves of brown wild pigs, which were feasting up and down on the harvest of beech-mast and acorns, followed by a guardian: "Gurth the swineherd " is not extinct in the Forest. Tony looked enviously from one to the other. "I'm sure I don't know how I shall get me a livin'; the deer and the little porkers won't serve, for I never could larn Sally to do for 'un, not as she should: the fair trade won't do now; and there I'm just left stranded like seaweed o' last springtide." They had reached a bare, rushy, boggy, broken bit of ground, covered with furze and heath, and with a number of old neglected gravel-pits with a good deal of water now lying at the bottom, where the hill broke off. The sun was just going down when they passed a little upland pool, with the wind chasing the tiny waves across it. It looked very wild and lonely: a plover flew by them with a faint "peewit;" two or three lean mouse-coloured cows with deerlike heads, and almost as active as the deer themselves, galloped out of the way. Let deaf ear to everything, and jolted on to the hard road. tice was struck with the solitary look of the place. Great bars of black cloud were coming up against the wind, urged on by "Don't ye see there's a waggon coming some strong contrary current in the upper up as they can stop if they like? And it's air; for whereas there was a brisk breeze no business o' mine, and I won't go near and a rustling of leaves in the opposite di-'um; so there's an end on't," he replied, rection, the long dark bands came solemnly doggedly, in answer to all Lettice's enup as if moved by a determined conscious treaties, as he urged on the tired horse will, as it were in the very teeth of the wind faster than before in the fast gathering twiwhich is always very striking. They light. spread gradually over the upper sky; a pale orange light streamed out between them, while the moon was rising, and shone brightly on the little tarn. Suddenly, the black figure of a man, running at his utmost speed out of a little wood beyond, came out distinctly against the moonlit water, followed in a minute or two by another in hot pursuit. The distance grew less and less between them as they rushed on, stumbling among the hollows and "tumps" of the broken ground. 46 -- "Look oh, look!" cried Lettice. "What's the matter about that poor man?" There, he's down again, and he'll be cotch: the more's the pity," answered Tony, whose sympathies were all against the side of justice, as a matter of principle; and he drew up for a minute, and watched anxiously for the result. "The other t'other's the more lissom o' the two, I'm afraid, and first 'un ha'n't got start enow. Nay, there, he's up again, I do declare. Hoora! He'll win away yet." There was an imperious cry for assistance from the pursuer, who was near enough to catch sight of the cart; but Tony did not stir. "Nay, thou'lt get nought out o' me," muttered he to himself. I'll crawl into no thorns for thee. I don't know, and I don't ho anything about the matter!" And he turned towards the road, where the line of deep gravel-pits, edged with a fringe of red and orange beech brushwood, dipped down over the hill; and into which the two figures now suddenly disappeared one after the other. 66 "Oh, Tony, see you?" cried Lettice, eagerly. Where are they gone to, so sudden ? They've fallen over the pits. Can't ye help 'um? Ain't he one of our people, p'r'aps? Oh, go and see." And she laid both hands earnestly on the reins and attempted to get out of the cart. "I've got into trouble once this month, and I won't again not for nobody," said Tony with an oath, pushing her hands away, and driving on most determinedly. There were angry cries for help in the distance, and a shrill whistle or two, but he turned a 66 Amyas was standing at the door of "The Bugle," looking anxiously out as the little cart drove up. Why, how late ye are! I was a'most afraid ye wouldn't come tonight," said he, going to fetch his horse out of the stable. 66 Mr. Saul Saull received Tony and the girl with rather a glum countenance. "We haven't a heerd nought o' yer father? no, certainly. How should we hear?" he said, very shortly, in answer to Lettice's inquiries. "A chap running away, was there? We don't know nought o' fellers running away here." And he looked askance at å man like a gauger in disguise who came out of the house as they spoke, and turned up the road by which they had come, on hearing the whistle dimly in the distance. "We'd best be off, Lettice," said her uncle, coming back hurriedly: "'tain't well to be out so very late in these parts. Get in quick; you can't do aught with such like things as these. You don't know who it is you've seen that you should go for to make or to mar." She was transferred to the other cart, and they drove on again. The clouds were beginning to disappear, and the moon was reigning triumphantly with a single star at her side, as they drove silently on along the bylanes and the crosscountry tracks: sometimes shining behind a group of great trees on a knoll whose boughs and trunks stood out dark against the sky, and threw long shadows far down the hillside; sometimes the light lying cold and still on the flat grass of the moonlit glades which opened before them, with a tracery of the lines of the branches across it. Why, child, what a time it is since I saw thee; seems as 'twere an age like," said Amyas, affectionately, when they had reached the high-road; and she had inquired after every one at home. 66 "Have ye seen young Wallcott sin' you been away?" added he, after a pause. "On'y once, the day but one back," answered Lettice, shyly, "as he came up with uncle Ned to the Puckspiece when the cutter and the coast-guard was after our people as had got in a cargo o' run goods." "He were youngest brother to Tony, what yer saw brought me to The Bugle,' and to Master Jesse Pilot and aunt Mary." "Yes, but what were he to my little Lettie ? that's what I wanted to know," said her uncle, tenderly. But Lettice did not answer, and they drove on the great silent shadows of the trees crossing the road and the broad open spaces, and their own shadow moving along, now beside them, now in front, as the road turned and wound about, with a curious sort of living motion almost uncanny in its pertinacity. 66 "Oh, uncle Amyas," she burst out presently, sobbing as she spoke, why is it things allays goes so contrairy like when one can't like 'um again, and it's all so cross, and don't fit, as 'twere? There there's that there moon and star: a week ago and they seemed a-coming together so nice, hurrying up so fast for to meet, and now to-night there she's hurrying away just as much the t'other way.' They had left the woodland and had reached a wide, open common, over which shone the great broad moon: it glinted on the wet heath pools and the puddles left by the yesterday's rain, and traced out the line of road, which stretched distinctly before them, white against the dark heath, winding up and down. "Look, Lettie," said Amyas, pointing to it with his whip; "it goes in and out, and there's toilsome hills, and lower down comes the ford, what's sometimes very deep waters; and we only see a bit o' it at a time, and must just only travel on upo' that, ruts and all, as we have before us; but it goes on home all the same, we know." Yes, uncle Amyas," answered she, meekly, but with a dissatisfied sadness in her tone. He looked down at her, for his quick ear caught her expression of doubt, and even in the moonlight he could see her troubled little face. But you think as I can't understand what it is you're feeling now?" he said. 66 'Why, you're old, uncle Amyas," answered she, gently, "and never knowed, most like, what 'twere about loving folk, ye know." He smiled a little bitterly at the hoar antiquity implied in this estimate of his fortyfour years. "No, I'm not old," he said slowly, "though I seem so to thee; and if I were, I have been young and had the heartache. 'Tis queer, too, how the young ones think theirn's a quite new smart, as no one in this weary world has ever a had before. I've a been through that bitter river," he went on musing. "To me it seems like yesterday, and I know what 'tis. I half broke my heart for one as threw me off, and took to another man as were a better one, she thought. And I've a lived to be glad, Lettie—and that's worse nor' being sorry- not only to have lost her, but to know as she I fancied never was at all, but only just as 'twere in my own thought. So ye see we've had neighbour's fare, you and me," he ended with a sad smile, "and" I can feel for ye too, little one." The girl looked up anxiously into his face, worn and sad, with the fixed lost look of one gazing into the past. With his extreme reserve, she knew the effort which such a confidence must have cost him, and she was very grateful, though her heart went on saying, "But it ain't happened so a bit with me, like what he says." She pressed affectionately up to his side, but they neither of them spoke again. The lights in the distant cottages shone out like stars far over the wild heaths, and they looked in at the unshuttered casements as they passed one quiet little home after another, and could see the firelight shimmering and glimmering fitfully on the whitewashed ceiling, or the one candle shining here on a young mother's face as she held her baby closely to her and rocked it to sleep; or on an old, worn, bent figure stooping over the low fire, full of years and rheumatism, - and there seemed as if whole stories of lives were told by that single glimpse as the cart drove on, -SO much in such a little space. At length, having crossed the ford and passed the "dark lane" and the avenue, they reached their own door at the Woodhouse, where Mrs. Wynyate appeared with a light in her hand, shading her eyes as she looked out from the porch, while Job stood at the wicket with a halter over his shoulders, as if he were taking himself up from |