her cheeks. A perceptible shudder ran through her as she fell upon her knees, little dreaming that the man before whom she knelt was the man whose influence she dreaded. And Vivian? If there had been any way of deserting the confessional, he would have got clear away the moment he saw his cousin. No such way existed. He was compelled to remain and listen to her confession, and so he resolved to do the best he could under the circumstances. been cross to her father, perhaps, or had neglect- | upon her face, which was seen through her ed some small duty: it was impossible for her quivering eyelids, which changed the hue of to recollect any thing wickeder than that. But on this occasion she had come prepared to confess a terrible crime. She had fallen in loveat least she thought she had-and with a gentleman of high position, whom she had only seen a few times. She was a very simple maiden. She was quite well aware that it was foolish and wrong to listen to Vivian's pleasant words, uttered so musically; knew, indeed, that he really meant nothing at all, but was merely amusing himself. But her pretty bosom fluttered whenever he came near her-and she was terrified by the strange phenomenon of which she had no previous experience. There was no other man in the world whose presence produced any such effect upon her. It took some time, after she had confessed her minor delinquencies, for her to put into words the great crime of all. But at last she did it, and Vivian had the satisfaction of knowing that the foolish little girl was in love with him. "Has he ever spoken of love to you?" asked the pseudo-priest, in a stern tone. "No, your reverence," whispered Mary, "but he said I had beautiful blue eyes and rosy lips." "Eyes and lips, little girl," said the stern voice from the marble niche, "are delusions of the Evil One. Beauty is a misfortune: ugliness is a gift of God. This gentleman of whom you tell me is a wicked person: you must avoid him. Never speak to him if you can help it. Whenever you do speak to him, you must perform a penance." ["Hang it!" thought Vivian, parenthetically; "I wish I knew what sort of penance to inflict in such a case. The silly little thing wants a whipping, but I don't know the priestly way of putting it."] There had been a pause. discourse 66 He resumed his 'Forget this gentleman of whom you tell me-forget all the nonsense he has talked to you. The ugliest men are the most honorable. You are pretty and foolish, and therefore in the way of temptation. If you must marry, my daughter, marry the ugliest man you know." ["That's good advice,” said Vivian to himself, "for John Grainger is the ugliest man she is likely to see, and John is a good fellow, and just the right sort to marry her. Egad, I wish one might smoke a cigar in this close little crib!"] Vivian confessed two or three giggling Avoncliff young ladies after this, and then came his second surprise. Lady Eva Redfern knelt before him. Have you ever seen a beautiful pale blossom of magnolia smitten and burnt through by the sunlight, till its faint fragrance is caught away, and its fair petals are dyed a dark unnatural hue? Beautiful Lady Eva, as she knelt on the stone steps of the confessional, looked to Vivian like such a bloom. Her brown eyes were of a deeper color; there was a strange dark flush Her confession did not surprise him. There was a touch of subtle self-analysis about it. She loved her husband-yes, she was quite sure of that; but she had a cousin who exerted a strange influence over her, and who seemed able to make her do just what he pleased. He took no advantage of this; he treated her just like a child. But she loved him, and was afraid of him, . . . . and what was she to do? ["Well," thought Vivian, "this is a very singular coincidence. Two fair penitents, and both in love with the priest. Poor little Eva! I could find it in my heart to run away with her, if she were not my own cousin. Girls with any brain ought not to marry big men."] This soliloquy took less time to utter than it does to read. Vivian was about to commence a grave lecture to his cousin, when his quick eye caught through the open doorway of the chapel a rapidly-advancing group. He recognized his acquaintance, the tall priest, and he thought one or two of the men with him looked very like members of the rural police. He sprang out of his niche into the vestry, to the amazement of Lady Eva, and several female penitents who waited to be shriven. As the priest and his companions arrived at the church porch, Vivian started towards the Talbot. Swift as a hare, it took him a very few minutes to reach that establishment; he went straight to the stables, got out his mare, and was off at a pretty quick pace before the good priest had quite realized the fact that a Satanic sacerdos had been confessing his pet penitents. He Meantime, Vivian rode away in a merry mood. The adventure had arrided him. thought it singularly amusing, and hoped the two young ladies would recover from their heart-disease. He made the mare travel that day, and, at a late hour in the evening, he reached a solitary roadside inn. It was called the Peacock; had been, in the grand old days of mail-coaches, a famous house; stood now alone, miles from any other dwelling, upon a road which ran through wild desolate moorland. Why it was kept open, and how the landlord managed to live, were grave problems to his neighbors, the nearest of whom lived five miles away; but he, John Pinnell, did keep it open, and seemed to flourish without any appearance of custom. His rooms were kept in order as. complete as when thirty coaches a day stopped at the Peacock to dine. Vivian came hither quite by accident, never A having been in this part of the country previously. He had ridden forward aimlessly, choosing his road by mere impulse, and asking no questions at the two or three wayside inns where he stopped to give the mare refreshment. The latter part of his journey had been singularly desolate; it lay across wild bleak moors which formed the boundary between a county of park and forest and a county of mountain and ravine; and he rode for miles without seeing a human habitation, or even a human being. At length he emerged upon the Great North Road-not so wide a royal highway as in the days before steam, yet still a noble contrast to the lanes and bridle-paths which he had been traversing for hours. He pursued this for two or three miles, wondering whether he should meet with any place of refuge before night came on. By-and-by he beheld most welcome lights, and there was the Peacock inn, its lower windows sending out an inviting blaze upon the dark dull road. "Here I'll sleep," thought Vivian. A primitive kind of hostler took charge of his mare. But Vivian was not going to desert her; she had served him well that day, and many a time previously, and so he saw her comfortably fed and bedded before he thought of himself. "This seems a quiet place for a large inn like yours. But I suppose there are some towns in the neighborhood." "Nothing very near. No, we haven't much custom, but I took the old place for a whim. My grandfather was landlord here in the old coaching times. Well do I remember him when I was a boy; he was six inches taller than me, and bigger every way, and he lived the life of a king here. Lots of coaches stopping, lots of post-chaises too; people, tired on their journey, staying to sleep; young folks running away to get married in Scotland; men with strings of horses from the Yorkshire fairs; why, sir, the old place was as lively as a fair itself. Well, father died young, and grandfather meant me to have the place after him; but when he was close upon seventy he got soft about a little girl of eighteen, and actually married her. She and I, I remember, were born in the same month, and I used to make love to her myself-and grandfather married her! So I thought it was pretty well time to be off out of this; and I got a little money that my poor mother had left me, and went to Australia. There I was lucky; picked up some nuggets; bought a bit of waste land in Melbourne, and sold it ten years after for as many thousands as I gave pounds for it; made money by sheepfarming, and at last came back pretty well off, and anxious to hear what had happened to my Then he walked into the bar, where a good fire was burning-not unacceptably, since the summer evening was cooled by a dry east wind. The sole occupant of the bar was the landlord, a man of middle height, but immense breadth, with iron-gray hair, and a fine robust rosy coun-grandfather. Poor old fellow! His young wife tenance. He was gravely smoking a long pipe, and drinking a hot mixture, whose fragrance revealed the presence of "old Jamaica." "Good-evening, landlord," said our traveller. "I want some supper and a bed." "You can have it, sir," said the landlord cheerily. "Polly, where are you?" he shouted. Polly appeared. She was a thin old woman of about sixty, with a quaint pleasant face. • "What can this gentleman have for supper?" asked her master. "Eggs and bacon," she responded, promptly. "Nothing else?" "Well, there may be some other things, but I thought them Londoners always liked eggs and bacon when they came into the country." 66 Any thing will do for me," said Vivian. "I am as hungry as a hunter." "Ah, you're the sort of gentleman I like," said the old woman-"not like that bagman that was here the other day, and declared he must have roast duck and green peas. I served I cooked him our old drake, that had his leg broke just in time. But you shall have some supper, sir." him out. Pending its arrival, Vivian lighted a cigar, and talked to the landlord. "Your servant seems an original," he said. "She's got odd fancies," was the reply. "If she likes any body, she'll make 'em right snug, Polly will; but if she doesn't, she'll serve led him a terrible life, and spent all the money he had saved, and at last ran away with a commercial traveller. Then came steam, and the coaches left the road; and grandfather found himself without any business. He was so badly off by this time that the bailiffs were in the house, and I think that killed him. "The Peacock was kept open for some time after his death, but of course did not pay its expenses. When I returned it had been shut up about a year. I came back to the old place, sir, and saw grass growing in the yard, where every thing had been so brisk and busy, and all the fine old rooms shut up, and the house going to rack and ruin. I cried about it-fool that I was. I thought of grandfather standing on the steps of the front door-the biggest man in the shire and handing up a large glass of hot brandy-and-water to his old crony, Dick Edgcumbe, that used to drive the early mail. Aye, and couldn't he drive! Well, I blubbered a little, and then I made up my mind to do a very silly thing-what somebody says they call very Rome-antic-though I don't see what the Pope has to do with it. I bought the old inn, and fitted it up just as it used to be in grandfather's time; and here live, and wish the dear old coaches would come back again. "There's one gentleman gives me great pleasure. He comes here regularly once a month, driving four-in-hand. His uncle was a great man for a team, but he didn't care about it; and when the old gentleman died, the nephew found an estate left him on condition of his driving four-in-hand a hundred miles every month in the year. He always brings his drag this way, and generally has a lot of his friends and their ladies with him. I expect he'll be here to-morrow or next day." "I'll stay till he comes," said Vivian. At this moment Polly entered to announce supper. Vivian found that the old lady verified her master's statement about her. She could give a good supper to people she fancied. No meagre fare of eggs and bacon had to content him; he had various viands, which I would willingly describe if my critics did not accuse me of being far too fond of describing coméstibles. The charge is true enough: yet let me ask what Homer would be if the famous feeds of his heroes were omitted. However, as I narrated what Vivian and his sacerdotal guest had for dinner at Avoncliff, I won't say a word concerning the supper which Polly prepared for him at the Peacock. The landlord, with his own massive hands, brought in a bottle of rare old port. Faith! you seldom see such wines in these times of Gladstone claret. In the large thin bell-glass it shone a dark imperial purple, with sparks of violet light scintillating through it. The spirit of the young Conqueror of Asia was imprisoned there. As Vivian drank it there came a calm upon his perturbed brain, and he felt in milder mood than at any time since his early days with Earine in the Greek island. He went to the window, which opened towards the high road. Brilliant sunshine gladdened the wide expanse of barren moorland, and made the little pools amid the blossoming furze look like splashes of diamond fringed with gold. The sun was too much for the east wind this morning-that aërial tormenter of man and beast had his worst sting taken out of him, and actually gave pleasant life to the scene by driving stray clouds at a great rate across the sky, and tossing the foliage of the few trees which were visible. Sunshine and moonlight, each in its way, will glorify any scene. The one gives life and power; the other gives mystery and magic. As Vivian stood at the open window, drinking in the ozone of the moorland air, there came suddenly upon his ear the note of a bugle. I know no sound so exhilarating. It is the music of adventure; it belongs to the soldier and the hunter; it once belonged to the four-horsed coach. Vivian knew what it meant. Only two minutes, and up came a splendid team, three bright bays and a roan, driven, he could see, by a capital whip. Instantly a group formed at the inn door, and hostlers began to unharness the horses, and the passengers prepared to descend. There were ladies among them; but Vivian, being in déshabille, could not stay to look at them. CHAPTER XII. FOUR-IN-HAND. "But put your best foot forward, or I fear That we shall miss the mail." So he finished his bottle slowly, and then Polly showed him to his chamber. That antiquaALACK, Mr. Tennyson, I have missed the ted cameriste was resolved to make him com- mail for more years than I wish to reckon-missfortable. A pleasant fire burnt on the opened the wholesome travel with the wind on your hearth of a vast oak-wainscoted room, wherein the great old-fashioned bedstead seemed to occupy but little space. Wax candles were burning in several silver sconces, and throwing strange gleams of light upon the quaint portraits which hung against the walls. One of these, right opposite the foot of the bed, represented a tall old lady with an immense quantity of dishevelled gray hair. She was in antique costume, with a scarlet cloak thrown over her shoulders. There was a hideous stare in her bright blue eyes, and on her face a mixed expression of rage and terror, while her arms were stretched forward, and her white jewelled hands clenched together as if in agony. Both expression and color showed this to be the work of a great painter. "Nice old lady to have in one's room all night," soliloquized Vivian on his pillow. "She looks as if she'd step out of the canvas and stab me. Altogether this is a queer establishment. I wish I had 'The Castle of Otranto' to read myself to sleep." However, the old lady did not step out of her canvas, or in any way haunt him. He slept most peaceably: and when he looked at his watch in the morning, it was eleven o'clock. face, and the passage swift, but not too swift, through ever-varying scenery, and the gay interchange of welcome and humor, and the stoppages at roadside inns, and the cheery tankard, and all the possibility of adventures. Railways are excellent things, and I wonder how the world got on without them; but twenty or thirty miles on the best line in England thrills every nerve in my body, and makes my brain throb, and causes me to feel so grimy that I abhor myself. Then the hideous smell of the engine, the dust and ashes that attack your eyes and nostrils, the fustiness of the carriages, the maniacal scream of the steam-whistle, the grinding and groaning noises of the whole machine-are not these abominations? The Poet Laureate has ventured to versify the visions of those who expect that the air will be the highway of the future. I hope it may. Those who have never sailed in a balloon can not conceive how perfect a mode of motion it is. In calm weather the car seems stationary; the earth seems to be descending from it or approaching it, as the case may be. then the exquisite silence of the mid-ethersound of the world below reaching you with increasing faintness as you rise into the serene And realm of air. And consider what a blessing the balloon system would be to those who don't travel and don't want to. What can be more irritating to a quiet man, leaning over his garden gate than to see restless people whirling by in all kinds of vehicles, raising clouds of dust and making an objectionable noise ? A landscape photograper once told me that he had never taken a picture in any part of England without discovering a clothes-line in it. Is there any spot between the four seas where you may not sometimes hear the scream of the locomotive? And, to make matters worse, the highways and by-ways are now infested by the agricultural engines. When Vivian came down stairs he found the driver of the four-in-hand talking to the landlord in the bar. He was a good-looking, smoothfaced, florid man of forty, getting a trifle stout, and with the most amiable expression of countenance. He wore a blue coat with brass but tons. "Your breakfast is ready as soon as you like, sir," said the landlord. "I hope you slept well. I quite forgot to tell you that Polly was going to put you in the haunted room—it's the best in the house." "Haunted by that fierce-looking old lady, no doubt. She didn't trouble me, Mr. Pinnell. I slept most virtuously." "Excuse me, sir," said the man of the fourin-hand, "but isn't your name Vivian ?" "Certainly it is." "Aye, and mine's Eastlake. Don't you remember Jack Eastlake, at old Giles's ?" Old Giles, the gentleman thus irrreverently mentioned, had kept a preparatory school whither Vivian went to be made ready for Eton. Eastlake, though some years his senior, remembered him, but the recollection was not reciprocal. There are men whose physical development is fluent, and who change so completely during each stage of life that they are scarcely recognizable after an absence of four or five years. There are also men whose physical character is unchangeable in essence through all changes of accident. If you had known Vivian in his babyhood, you would recognize him in the prime of life-ay, or at the age of a hundred. "By Jove!" exclaimed Eastlake, cheerily, when the recognition had been verified, "I am so glad! What a mischievous little fellow you were at old Giles's! Let us all breakfast together. There's nobody but my daughter and my companion, a jolly little girl, and my secretary. I never could spell, you know, or write grammar; so, now I've got a lot of money, I keep a secretary. He saves me heaps of trouble." "Your secretary has a very easy time of it, I suspect. And your daughter-how old is the young lady ?" "Upon my honor, I don't know. Somewhere between seventeen and five-and-twenty. A nice-looking girl, you'll say; but, by Jove! you should see Miss Delisle, her companion." "Ah, Jack, Jack,' said Vivian, gravely, "You are falling in love with Miss Delisle ! You will be committing matrimony a second time, as if once were not enough." Jack Eastlake laughed in his customary cheerful way. "Come along," he said; "let us go and find the girls, and have some breakfast. Polly means to give us a good breakfast, I hope, Pinnell." "No fear about that, sir," responded the landlord. They went to the room designed as their breakfast-room, and found no one there save the secretary. If secretaries were always chosen for their acumen, he would never have found a place. His capacities were threefold-curly hair, clerk-like hand, and a miraculous appetite. However, he was a sufficient secretary for Eastlake, whose correspondence had no complexities, and the majority of whose letters came from people who knew he was wealthy, and wanted to get money out of him. The begging-letter-writer has a recognized vocation in this country. I wonder he does not call himself a solicitor. A man has only to be supposed rich-only to build a church, provide dwellings for the poor, win a Derby, start a racing-yacht, and he will have hordes of these fellows after him. Eastlake's secretary hadn't much sense, but he had sense enough to burn all letters of this character. It may be convenient to mention that his name was Haynes. Presently entered the two young ladies. Clara Eastlake was a nice plump little person, with the very best of tempers-in fact, her father's own daughter. You would not suspect her of much character, but doubtless she would make an excellent wife (especially being an heiress) to any man who falls into the current belief that characterless women are the best. It is an excellent creed for men who have not much character themselves. But Clara's companion was quite another kind of creature. She was perfect in form, like a Greek statue. She had the wondrous lines of brow and nose, of bust and waist, that men see in the old marble, and wonder if there ever were such women. Ау, and even now there are such women. Earine was one. For Miss Eastlake's companion was Earine. How her sea-blue eyes opened as she looked upon Valentine Vivian, her hero of the Ægean! Vivian, for his part, was even more amazed; he thought her safe at Rouen, learning the politest French; he had heard Eastlake mention "Miss Delisle," but it had aroused no suspicion in his mind, seeing that the name is one of uncommon commonness. But now Earine entered the room, dressed (goddesses of Paris fashions help me!) in the precise style of the precise moment. Earine, a trio of years older than when he saw her first, when she wore nothing save the scanty crocus vest-scanty, yet sufficient apparel for a Greek island. Earine, though taken by surprise, was of course less surprised than Vivian-she knew him to be in England, so that there was a possibility of her meeting him. But Vivian, after his first sudden start of amazement, carried the matter with his customary coolness. "Glad to see you looking so well, Miss Delisle," he said. "I have met Miss Delisle before, Eastlake." CHAPTER XIII. EARINE. "White and sweet, white and sweet, Is the hawthorn bloom round the cushat's nest: White and sweet are my true love's feet, And the song of spring's in her fragrant breast." WHEN Vivian escaped from his friend Eastlake, and found himself alone, he began to wonder how the deuce Earine came into the position wherein he found her. He had left her to be "Old friends, eh ?" said that amiable individual. "I am very glad. We shall get on together all the better. Come, let us have break-educated at Rouen; and now he had sent Mark fast." So they sat down to the most artistic matutinal meal which Polly could produce, and got into gossiping conversation over it. "So you have met Miss Delisle before, Vivian," said Eastlake. "What a very curious coincidence!" "Very," replied Vivian. "Two coincidences together, in fact," continued Eastlake, "meeting me and meeting Miss Delisle. Very remarkable, I call it. Let me give you some lobster salad." As they chatted over the breakfast - table, Earine looked on in a state of strange silence; and even Miss Eastlake, with a dim instinctive | perception that there was something inexplicable in the air, ate rather less than usual. That is to say, she could not contrive to eat more than a couple of kidneys, half a haddock, the tail and major claw of a lobster, a couple of eggs, and two or three slices of Canterbury brawn. Her affectionate papa noticed the smallness of her appetite, and asked if she did not feel well. "Let's have a smoke," said Eastlake, when breakfast was over, "and just a drop of brandyand-soda to freshen the palate. What are you going to do with yourself, Vivian ?" Walsh to look after her; but here she was, unexpectedly, in England, acting as companion to the rather silly daughter of a very good fellow, who was an unquestionable muff. However, Vivian was a cool hand, and knew that most things have a tendency to explain themselves, and was well accustomed to a waiting game; so he was singularly patient until it should please Earine to tell him how it was that he met her in such a place and under such circumstances. The time soon came. Earine herself-but I must let her tell her story as she told it to Vivian; at any rate, she managed to get hold of him very soon after breakfast, in a long room of the old hostelry which had once been an assembly room. He, in a wandering humor, was investigating the premises; she (by instinct, doubtless) knew where he was, and rushed into his arms. He kissed her red ripe lips and tremulous eyelids, and then, putting her at arm's length with a humorous smile, said "Well, child, so you have run away from school?" Can Earine. "Shall I tell you all? Are you what you were on the island two years ago? you be patient? Do you love?" Vivian. "Foolish child! I thought you knew me by this time. Tell your story and I will listen." Earine. "It was very cruel to put me in that place, you know. But I have read books, (and I have thought, and I see that both men and women are cruel. Men are cruel from thoughtlessness or selfishness: women are cruel because they love cruelty. The women there were cruel to me; they humiliated me with menial offices; they even used the scourge. I am your slave; I submitted, since it was you who placed me there. I should have remained till now, and endured every thing, but the convent was suddenly closed. Something was wrong-some wickedness had been done; every one was to go home. I could not send to you, for I did not know where; I was to wait, you remember, till Mark came for me. There was a young English lady there who was a great friend of mine; she asked me to come with her, and I was glad to accept. Her father is a great friend of Mr. Eastlake's, and knew that he wanted a companion for his daughter. That is how you find me here." Vivian. "Thank all the gods for this, and especially Aphrodite. of Olympus To her will |