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mouth-perhaps it would be better to defer it a little."

"No, no! I'll manage about Captain Carthew; and if he is engaged, the more reason why you should not be alone ―eh, mother?"

"I can only repeat, my dear, that it will give me great pleasure to see Miss Carthew; after that we must leave her, I think, to consult her own wishes a little." "Oh, I have every wish to come," said Hero frankly; "but I fear that you may be tired or busy to-morrow, and unless you don't mind me, I might be in the way." "In that case I shall expect you, and I hope to see Captain Carthew with you." And Hero having risen to take her departure, Mrs. Prescott bade her good-bye. "We dine at half-past seven, do we not?" said Sir Stephen. "I shall be back before then."

"I hope so." And the expression of Mrs. Prescott's face made Hero say

"I beg you will not come with me, Sir Stephen. I know my way perfectly fifty times better than you do-But really," she added, seeing him still resolute, "I would rather go alone. It is quite light, and I shall run all the way home. Please, don't come."

But a mocking bow was the only answer he would make; and, feeling that outside he would listen to her more forcibly expressed wishes, she made a final adieu to Mrs. Prescott, and received a frigid shake of the hand from Mrs. Labouchere, who had sat silently observing her during the whole of her visit.

As the door closed, Katherine rose from her seat and went to the window, whence she watched the two figures after a minute's pause outside, pass down the short avenue out of sight. Then she turned round, saying

"Aunt, had you heard any mention of this girl before we came here?"

CHAPTER XV.

A GREAT CATCH.

WHILE Mrs. Labouchere was listening to the little her aunt had to tell her about her previous knowledge of Hero, Sir Stephen was making an appointment with that young lady for a sail together to Winkle, under the feigned anxiety of being wonderfully desirous to see his friend Alice Joslyn.

"But will your mother like it?" said Hero, who, with a woman's sharp instinct, felt a little shadow of distrust about how the ladies of Combe meant to treat her.

Sir Stephen laughed. "I am afraid I have been out of leading-strings for this many a long year," he said; "besides, it will take them all to-morrow to get those wonderful boxes they brought with them unpacked; so do take compassion on me."

"We shall try to get up some picnics while Mrs. Prescott stays here. I hope she will like the place."

"I hope so too, for I have nearly decided upon living here altogether." "Have you? How delighted everybody in Mallett will be!" "And will you be delighted?" "I?"-and Hero's face grew very

rosy "yes; you know" she added with a little confused hesitation — “that if I don't always tell you what I feel, it is because I have been brought up so entirely with papa, that I am afraid of saying too much what I think."

Hero considered this a very subtle way of guarding herself against the misinterpretation which Leo had spoken of; but Sir Stephen knowing nothing of these warnings, read a happier meaning in her words, and looking at her earnestly, he said

"Always say what you think to me, Hero." As he let her name slip she glanced at him with a look of inquiry. "Ah, I did not intend to say that until I had obtained your permission," he said, by way of apology, "but every one calls you Hero, and I think of you as Hero; it is such a pretty name. Miss Carthew sounds dreadfully formal, does it not?"

"Yes, I think so, because I am so seldom called Miss Carthew. Even the village people say Miss Hero." And yet she suddenly felt it would not be right to give him the permission to do so. In the midst of her hesitation it was a relief to see Betsey standing with a smiling face by the gate of Sharrows, as far as which, in spite of all her entreaties and arguments, Sir Stephen had insisted upon coming.

"Baint'ee glad to be breathing the fresh air agen, sir?" she called out with an expression of beaming satisfaction at having her favourite back. "I just took a run to see Combe Gate, and the doin's up there, why 'tis for all the world like Dockmouth streets when the Queen comed there."

"I did not know that you had seen the Queen, Betsey?" said Sir Stephen.

"Well, I hav' and I haven't, as the sayin' is, for I looked as anybody else would hav' done to see her with a

"I am going there to-morrow to dinner, and papa too."

crown 'pon her head, and while I stood a gawking after that, lor! her goes by with a bunnet on, and a parachute held up "Aw, that's all right!" and Betsey's over it, like anybody else. But now tone became more cheerful, than when you'd best be going back, sir," she said the doubt was before her that the new arsuddenly to Sir Stephen, “for Mrs. Tuck-rivals had not been all that she desired er told me dinner was to be at half-past they should be to her darling, who in her seven o'clock, and it's nigh on the quar- eyes was the very perfection of grace and ter now." goodness.

"I wanted Miss Hero to stay and dine with us, but she was obstinate, Betsey, and would not be persuaded."

"Well, then, why didn't ee, Miss Hero, I'm sure you had only a lairy dinner at home, for what with one and t'other droppin' in, the cupboard was pretty nigh cleared out afore dinner time and," she added, continuing the subject after they had bid Sir Stephen good-bye, and Hero and she walked together down the path, "there'd ha' bin plenty surely, for I've bin to the house; and down in the kitchen there was a dozen things bein' made, fowls roastin', and tarts bakin', and I don't know what all; nor I didn't stop to see neither, for there was a fire fit to roast an ox, and the cook was a sweatin' like a bull."

"Did you see Mrs. Prescott?" asked Hero.

"Yes, I was stood up to Jope's, and they waited a minute or two there. Sir Stephen spied me out to once- I thought he wouldBetsey,' he calls out, is that you? Why, how are you?' he says, and then the ladies looked."

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"And what did you think of them?" "Well,” replied Betsey, critically, far as I could see, the young one would be pretty if her wasn't so putty-faced." "But don't you think Sir Stephen's mother very nice-looking?"

"Oh! her looks is well enough, but I didn't care for that bunnet her wore. I can't abide 'old rams dressed up lamb fashion.' But that ain't sayin' nothin' agen her ways. How was you took with her?"

"She was very kind and very nice, I thought.”

That evening Hero wrote a long and full account of the day's doings to Leo, not omitting to give a glowing personal description of Sir Stephen's cousin, Mrs. Labouchere, who, she said, was a widow, and had come to stay at Combe with Mrs. Prescott. It was a rule of Leo's to try and find out who people were, and all about them; so he casually mentioned, during a tête-à-tête with a fashionable fellow-guest, that he had been asked by some friend of his to meet Sir Stephen Prescott of Pamphillon and his cousin, a Mrs. Labouchere, a widow, very pretty, they told him.

"What a fortunate dog it is!" ejacu lated his companion ; "I'd give all I know to get a fair start with that woman. Why, she is one of the best matrimonial catches out. Old Labouchere was worth no end of tin, and he left every farthing to her."

"What is Prescott like?”

"I don't know much of him; he's been a good deal out of England. Rather close-fisted, I should say, or else hard-up; for Pamphillon's a fine old place, but you never hear of him doing anything."

"I wonder he does not go in for his rich cousin."

"She wouldn't have him! He has tried his luck there already. His mother brought her up. She's awfully handsome, but has an unpleasant way of making a fellow keep his distance; so you'll have to be on your best behaviour, for of course you mean to go in for the prize." "Not I."

"You'll be a great fool, then."

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Very likely. I am that already, I suppose," he added to himself, feeling confident that under different circumstances he might have secured a prize as readily as any man there; and a feeling which before had sometimes oppressed

"Why didn't 'ee stay there, then, my dear?" asked Betsey, whose devotion to the girl she had tended and watched from babyhood, made her familiar with every expression of her face and each in-him came over him again, making him flection of her voice. say to himself that it was really a great "They were so tired, that I thought it pity, seeing how circumstanced they both best to come home. You know, they have come a long way to-day."

"Hem!" snorted Betsey, "I don't know what they'd got to tire 'em, savin' bein' squatted up together in that coach."

were, that he should care for Hero as he did. His vanity was greatly stimulated by the banter of the smoking-room, where, directly it was known that Leo had been asked down to an out-of-the

way place, described as somewhere near | parture; and though, up to the last mothe Land's End, to meet that rich Mrs. ment, he continued to declare he had no Labouchere, every one took, or pretend- intention of becoming a suitor to Mrs. ed to take, it as granted that a marriage was settled.

"Hang it, Despard," one would say, "if with an open field, a good-looking fellow like you cannot carry off the prize, I shall say you're nothing better than a bungler."

"Don't you alarm yourself," another voice would answer. "Skipwith has offered odds in his favour, and he never risks his money without being pretty sure of his man. I congratulate you, old fellow, and hope you will give me an early opportunity of congratulating the future Mrs. Despard."

This and like idle badinage formed the thin end of a wedge, which from that time forced itself into Leo's heart, and threatened to overthrow the fair image of his early love. "It would be far the best thing for both of us," he would say, reflecting on the temptation which had taken hold of him; "it is not fair to keep her waiting year after year. If she were free she would be certain to get half a dozen better offers." And the assurance that she would be benefited seemed in a measure to justify the sacrifice, he began to tell himself it would be his duty to make. These doubts caused his letters to Hero to be short, constrained, and written with an effort, which made him fling his pen away, and exclaim, "I wish that I'd never come near this place. I can't explain to these fellows, and they'll all vow I tried my luck and failed. Then when any of them meet this Mrs. Labouchere, as they're sure to do, it will all come out about Hero-and Mallett. I should not mind so much if it were an old woman, who'd soon drop off and leave me her money. Money! there's the rub. What is life worth if you cannot enjoy it? and how are we to live on a couple or three hundred a year? What Forster says is quite true -a man who cannot afford it is a brute to drag a woman down by a marriage; far better give the wrench beforehand. There was something between him and Helen Seymour, but he gave her up; and now she has married Dacres, and has more money than she knows what to do with. Forster told me that it was an awful pull to him, and very nearly sent him altogether to the dogs, but he saw it was the only thing to be done."

Thus Leo continued to think, plan, and resolve until the time arrived for his deVOL. II. 92

LIVING AGE.

Labouchere, he laughed at the banter, allowed the bets, and listened to the advice by which she was to fall a victim to his well-planned assiduities; so that when he reached Mallett the nearest approach he had made to a decision was that he would impress more forcibly upon Hero the necessity of their engagement being still kept a secret; and as for the other matter-it was of no use worrying and bothering - he would let things drift, and leave the end to chance.

CHAPTER XVI.

SOMEBODY.

THE day following their arrival was not very far advanced before Sir Stephen set off for Sharrows. He had already learnt a short way of getting there, and as he walked briskly along, invigorated by the bracing air, fresh from the wide expanse of sea to which the place lay open, he felt more determined than ever that, as soon as possible, he would sell his large estate, and settle at Combe. The whole surroundings of the place accorded with his tastes; he had always been fond of the sea, and of the people who lived by it. Their simple lives and outspoken ways interested him. Here he could be of service, identifying himself with all that concerned those to whom he desired to be of use.

From the very reason that Pamphillon had never been aught to him but a clog, and a continual source of dissatisfaction and annoyance, he disliked the place. The land-owners near were not men he cared for; the better class of his tenantry were opposed to a landlord, who did not do as much for them and the land as, in their opinion, he ought to do, and would do, did he live among them. Without troubling themselves to understand his complicated difficulties, they made it a grievance, that instead of looking after his estate, he was roaming all over the world. Whenever he did go to Pamphillon, it was to listen to a long list of complaints and vexatious losses, which he could not redress; and to see abuses which galled and fretted him, without his having the means of remedying the evils by which they were caused. He felt that he was never seen at such a disadvantage as when at Pamphillon, where his advice was treated as interference, and his silence regarded as indifference. One

of his reasons for keeping away from Mallett was the fear lest the circle of his evils should be enlarged. But in this he had been agreeably disappointed, and from the moment Hero and Captain Carthew introduced him to Mallett, his life had brightened; for he found himself welcomed with trust and confidence by his neighbours, while in the village his presence was hailed as the forerunner of good, and the sure remedy against existing evils. Consequently, his eyes rested with far more pleasure on the old-fashioned house of Combe than they had ever done on stately Pamphillon. The cheery looks and voices of the cottagers, as they ran to their open doors to greet him, pleased him. Their free inquiries as to where he was going amused him, according with his own straightforward and genial disposition.

As, with a smiling face, he turned into Sharrows, the swinging to of the gate caused Hero, who was sitting on the window-sill below, to look up, and wave her hand. Sir Stephen returned the salutation, saying in his heart

"God bless her. I believe she is the chief cause why I feel so happy."

He had come to claim her for their sail to Winkle, and after he had spoken to her and the Captain, he asked her how soon she would be ready to start, and whether they were to have Jim.

"I want to establish a boat of my own," he said to Captain Carthew, "if you'll tell me how best to set about it, and recommend me a man to look after it."

"Joe Bunce would do exactly, papa," exclaimed Hero; "he doesn't want, and Betsey doesn't want him, to go to sea again."

"We couldn't find a better man, nor a smarter sailor," said Captain Carthew. "I've had my eye on a little craft at Clarkson's that will, I think, just hit your fancy. We'll go round to-morrow, and see it. Here, Betsey!" he roared out, "where's that fancy chum of yours to be found? I saw him busnacking about here when I turned out this morning."

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Well, 'tis more than I did, sir, or I'd ha' given 'un a job to do, and no mistake; but if you wants 'un for anythink, I dessay I could find 'un for 'ee."

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Sir Stephen is going to have a boat,” said Hero, "and he will need a man to look after it, and I thought it would just suit Joe."

"I dessay 'twould," returned Betsey, trying not to betray her pleasure. "The

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parlour suited the dunkey, only he was rather out of place there."

"Why, there's not a sharper sailor in the service than Joe, Betsey," said Hero, standing up for her favourite. "No, not when they pipes to grog, know there bain't."

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Ah, well, he's just the man I want, Betsey," put in Sir Stephen; "so you tell him to come to Combe, and speak to me, and he shall have the management of my boat the Hero, I mean to call it." "What, after me?" said Hero, with a pleased face.

Sir Stephen nodded assent.

"Is it not a pretty name, Betsey?" "Oh, 't does well enuf for a boat, Sir Stephen; but what for anybody should choose such a outlandish name for a Christian, I couldn't tell 'ee if you was to pay me. And then to call it a maid's name. Tine a by!" she added with infinite contempt, "if a 'ero ain't a man, why what is he?"

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"That is what she always says," laughed Hero. Now, is it not a proper woman's name, Sir Stephen?

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"Certainly it is, and a very celebrated one among the heathens, Betsey," he added slily.

"The heathens !" repeated Betsey. “Aw' well, I'll give in to it bein' their fancy; though why for ever anybody should want to follow lead to a passel o' Turks and niggers, is more than I can tell. But there, as I allays says, the mercy is 'taint no worse; for if by chance the Cap'en had had the Harrythoosa or the Billyruffian, 'twould ha' bin all one to he, and a nice handle that had a bin to 'av' fitted anybody else's name on to, surely."

"I'm afraid that Betsey's familiarity will shock Mrs. Prescott," said Hero, when they were out of her hearing. "She has been so long with us, that we never mind her. I hope you don't; for she says that she never remembers you are not a common gentleman."

Sir Stephen laughed.

"I like to have a chat with Betsey. Her queer speeches amuse me immensely. How wonderfully fond she is of you!

"Yes, but not more fond than I am of her, dear old soul! Still, I know that strangers might think she made rather free, although it is only her manner. She has no thought of being disrespectful. If Mrs. Prescott or Mrs. Labouchere should make any remarks on her, please

explain how it is. I don't wish them to have a wrong impression of her."

"I'll make it all right," said Sir Stephen. "What a lovely day it is! There is not a ripple on the water."

"Yes, it is smooth enough to satisfy any one. Did you ask your cousin to come?"

"No, I did not; I didn't want her," he answered, "I only wanted you. You promised to teach me to row and steer, and we must not have an audience so long as I am in danger of catching a crab. Here is Jim and the boat. Let us jump in, and be off."

"You see I have kept my word, Jim, and come back again," he said, nodding in acknowledgment of the old seaman's silent greeting.

"Iss, so I sees, sir, and I'm main glad of it, and so is somebody else, too, I reckon." And, his hand and his hook being employed in steadying the boat, he jerked his head in Hero's direction.

"I wonder if that is a true supposition on Jim's part?" Sir Stephen asked as they settled into their places.

"I don't know. What did he say?" "That somebody would be glad that I have come back."

"Somebody! I don't know who he

means."

"Don't you? I must ask him. Jim, Miss Hero wants to know who you mean by somebody?"

"Do she? Then you tell her, sir;" and his eyes twinkled with significance. "Lord love 'ee," he said with a quiet chuckle, "I knows more than you thinks for. Why, I had a somebody o' my own once upon a time-ah! and as likely a maid as you'd see in a day's walk. 'Twas all plain sailing afore me, as, I thought. Howsomedever, close into port, for I'd bought the ring, and was going to put up the bains, I missed stays, and I never managed to get in the right tack after

upon Sir Stephen. "Why, when her was six her'd handle the oars or the tiller as fitty as another little maid would a dolly."

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Do you remember her then, Jim?” asked Sir Stephen.

"Remember her! I should think I do. Why, I've a got her in my mind's eye from the time her was a dinkey thing hoisted up on the Cap'en's shoulders, till now. Don't 'ee take her from us altogether, sir," he cried out, as the fear of losing her swept over him, "though, as far as a human eye can judge o' a human 'art, you're the one I hopes to see standin' in somebody else's shoes."

"What is that old stupid talking about?" Hero exclaimed, her face getting scarlet at these delicately-conveyed hints. "Jim," she called out, "if you don't hold your tongue this minute, I'll throw the tiller at you."

"No, don't 'ee, Miss Hero, I don't mean nothin' by what I says. Marriage is a honourable institootion in all. Ye know

The Lord o' weddins did approve,
And smiled on wedlock's happy love;
In token of - he gived a sign,
And lo! the water turned to wine."

-

From The Cornhill Magazine. NOTES ON GHOSTS AND GOBLINS.

THERE are few subjects more perplexing, on a close examination, than the ideas of men about the supernatural (as distinguished from the religious). Whether we analyze particular superstitions and endeavour to understand what is actually believed respecting them, or whether, taking a wider view, we consider the origin of the widespread belief in supernatural agencies, we find ourselves beset with difficulties; and these are only preliminary to the great difficulty of all"What does he mean?" asked Sir that of determining how far it is reasonaStephen, with a puzzled expression. ble or likely that any of the common ideas Why, that just before they were go-about the supernatural have any basis of ing to be married he offended her, and he fact whatever. could never set things right again. I am sure it is plain enough to understand; and if you keep so in shore, we shall get under the lea of Combe Point, and lose the wind, and then before we can make Winkle you'll have a practical illustration."

wards."

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"You bain't so handy in a boat as Miss Hero," said Jim, who watched with great pride the instruction she was bestowing

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But the first difficulty to be encountered resides in oneself. I, who write(the usual "we" will not now serve)who write have my superstitions. If I simply had them and believed in them, there would be little difficulty. But I do not believe in them. I know that they exist, because on certain occasions I have felt them in operation. Every reader of these lines must have had similar experi

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