"My mother had no people, except her one sister, who was as poor and as brave as herself. I never refused their assistance, for it was never offered me. They had no means of assisting me."

"No means! I thought-” he began, looking strangely at Bernard, while a dark red color suffused his face. He muttered something to himself and seemed to ponder upon it. Then suddenly looking up again he asked:

me?"

And pray, what do you think of

His choler had subsided, and he looked up into the sombre face above him, with an expression akin to wistfulness.

"Of you? I know absolutely nothing of you, except that one action of yours, which you cannot possibly expect me to think right. For the rest, you are my father's father, and entitled to my outward respect, at least."

"Humph! Then, when your mother refused my offer, what did she do?" he asked suspiciously.

"She went on with her music-teaching and her drudgery. She worked for me, said Aglionby, with passionate though repressed emotion. "And six years ago, when I could have begun to repay her, she died."

No asseverations were necessary to emphasize the feeling that lay beneath this simple and unadorned statement of a fact. It seemed to cause some reflection to the elder man, who, however, presently said :

"How would you like, when next you have a holiday, to come and spend it at Scar Foot?"

Bernard's eyes suddenly lighted. His face changed. Then he laughed a little and said:

"Not at all, thank you."

"No? Why not?" asked the other, in a tone of deep mortification.

"Because I have neither part nor lot in Scar Foot, and will not go near it. I will keep to the friends I know."

"Sirrah! What friends can you have here? What influence have they? How can they help you? What can they do for you ?"

"Nothing; that's just it. I have everything to do for myself, and it is best to remain where nothing can happen to disturb my conviction on that point."

"Then you don't realize that I still could, if I chose, put you out of the necessity of doing anything, could provide. for you amply, without your needing to lift a finger."

Bernard laughed again, more cynically than before.

"If you chose, and if I chose," he said. You seem to forget that I am Bernarda Long's son, but I do not. Nor do I forget your own character, your caprice, your hardness. All the Aglionbys are hard and obdurate as rocks; my mother has told me so, and I feel it in my own breast. You are not one who could put up with being thwarted. If I saw much of you, I should probably do something to thwart you every day. I have hands to work with "-he held them out; "a head to plan with "-he smiled ambiguously;

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health to carry me through adversities, and a will which enables me to restrain my wishes and desires within reasonable bounds. So long as those things are left me, I am my own master, and my own master I will remain."

"A bright life, truly!" sneered the other. "Hard work for a bare subsistence grinding your brains to powder to keep body and soul together; a strong will to be used for nothing but to repress the natural desires and impulses of a young man of spirit-a pretty life, truly, and I wish you joy of it!"

It's not much to boast of, is it? A poor thing, sir, but mine own.' Fortunately there are always things in this world, and especially in a big town like this, to take a man outside himself, or he would be in a bad way."

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Plays, for instance, and concerts. It runs in the blood to be fond of such things."

to.

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As what, for instance ?"

Oh, now he oftenest looks like a lean knave clutching an empty purse, and pointing his finger along a cold road full of milestones that get more and more tumbledown-looking as you go on. I passed the twenty-sixth of them the other day."

"Ha!" said the old man, clutching the round knob of his stick, pursing his mouth, and staring down at the dusty floor with round, open eyes, as he shook his head a little. I know him, I know those milestones too. You've many yet to pass before you get to the one that I tottered by a few weeks ago."

"Which was that?" asked Aglionby in a softer tone.

"The seventy-second."

"Ah! That is a long way from twenty-six."

"Ay, it is. Well; you haven't made yourself out a smooth or delicate character," he said, with sudden quickness. and keenness.

Aglionby shrugged his shoulders.

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Why should I? You would hardly have believed me if I had, seeing that I am one of your own race. Such as I am, I have told you-why, I couldn't say, whatever you were to give me for it." "And your existence here, is it an inspiriting one?''

No at least not that part of it which is devoted to business.'

"It is not a business in which you are likely to rise, then ?''

"Not unless I bought my rise. The heavier you are weighted-with gold the faster you get on in the race, Bernard rather dryly.

said

"H'm! Did you choose it for your self?"

"Necessity and the length of my mother's purse chose it for me. They bound me over to them for five years, and paid me various salaries during that time, beginning with five pounds, and ending with the dizzy eminence of five and twenty. Since then, by screwing hard, I've been able to keep myself."

Is it quite secure, so long as I am the cheapest and hardest-working fellow they can find for it."

But why should you submit to such scurvy treatment? A grandson of mine ! Monstrous! give them a lesson; offer to leave them."'

Again Aglionby laughed the cynic's laugh.

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They would take me at my word at once, and there would be fifty hungry men waiting to step into my shoes, and to thank heaven on their knees for the work that I was too dainty for."

"But you could find something else something more suited-"

"When I can-something more remunerative I shall cut the present concern without scruple, I assure you.' "What would you be if you had to choose?"

"That's a leading question, but I happen to have an answer ready for it. I'd be a politician, with enough money to help my cause forward, and the opposition one backward."

"Your cause being-I saw you at the Liberal Demonstration on Saturday." "Yes, my cause is the Liberal cause, or rather the Liberal cause is mine."' The old man rose.

Ah, well! wouldn't you really like to run over to Scar Foot? I can tell you it is a place well worth visiting-the fairest spot, I say, in the fairest county in all fair England."

"I dare say; it would do me no good to see it under the circumstances," replied Bernard curtly, while an intense longing to look upon it rushed over him. Had he not heard its every room described by his father, till he felt that were he dropped down before it, he could find his way through it blindfold! He had heard the doggrel old verse which that father had repeated in his last hours, as he lay senseless and "babbled of green fields."

"To fair Scar Foot my thoughts I turn,
Whence late I walked with you,
Through fields bedewed-"

There the recollection always broke off short; but Aglionby, from his earliest childhood, always thought of Scare . Foot as surrounded with "fields be dewed." His father, exiled and banished, had never ceased to love his home, and return to it in fancy, with a dalesman's deep and ineradicable love. If he, Bernard, were thus disturbed at the mere idea of seeing the much-loved spot, what might the extent of his weakness be, should he ever really behold it? No; he would keep firm while yet he could; and he added nothing to his last words, though his lips were parted.

His grandsire watched him keenly. "Can you unstiffen your fingers, so as to shake hands with me?" he asked. Bernard paused. Then, literally carrying out the old man's words, he did unbend his obstinate joints, and put them within the old, knotted hand held out to him.

Their eyes met; there was plenty of dogged obstinacy in both their faces, plenty of self-opinionatedness, pride, determination; rugged, twisted characters, both of them, but honest. As their fingers touched, Bernard remembered and the recollection seemed to throw a new light over his mind-that his father had not been strong and sturdy like this; who was to say what provocation this irascible old man might not have received at the hands of his beloved? What passionately cherished hopes might not have been blighted when Ralph Aglionby left "Fair Scar Foot," at strife with his father, and after sulking in London for six months took to wife Bernarda Long, from among what must have seemed to the retired country squire the daughters of Heth-the ranks namely of poor musical professional people?

As if by one impulse their hands closed upon one another, in a mighty grip; then, without a word, were unclasped again.

Old John Aglionby walked erectly away, nor turned to look back, whatever his secret yearnings might be. His grandson, left to a few moments' solitude, stalked to a dingy window, and looked out upon the throng in the busy

street below. The din became vague in his ears; the sights blurred before his eyes. What had passed seemed like a dream. Never to any human being, save to his mother, when he had been a boy, had he laid bare so much of his secret heart, or spoken so freely of his thoughts and feelings. Why had he done it? He was roused by a touch on his elbow. Looking round he confronted the boy Bob, holding up a coin, no less an one than a golden sovereign.

He gave me this!" he exclaimed breathlessly.

That old He met

"Who? Old Jenkinson ?" "Lord, no catch him! gentleman that was with you. me as I was coming back, and he said, was I any friend of yours, and—”

"I know what you said, simpleton,' replied Aglionby, in his softest tone, and in his voice there were notes of the gentlest music.

"I said the truth. I said you were the best friend I had, and that I'd die for you, and he said: 'That's right, lad; he's worth it!' and gave me this.

Mr. Aglionby, wanted!" sang out a voice at the other end of the room, and Aglionby, having missed his dinner in the parley which had taken place, advanced to attend to the requirements of two specimens of that shy and rara avis, the buyer.

CHAPTER V.

OUT OF HARMONY.

WITH a vague yearning for sympathy and the comments of some fellow-creature, Aglionby that night called Lizzie aside, telling her he had something important to relate to her. They retired into the empty back parlor, and sitting side by side in the firelight, he made his first great confidence to her. She was the woman he loved; she was to be the partner of his life, his companion for better, for worse. To whom else could he have turned more appropriately?

He felt that it was not right to conceal his true history from her any longer. When he sat down beside her, and began, it was out of a full heart that he spoke, and he looked eagerly for her words of sympathy; half his trouble would be removed when she should say to him, Dear Bernard, you have done right, and I approve of your conduct."

Then your father married some one whom this old gentleman did not like ?" "Exactly. My mother was poor; she gave music-lessons; she was half English, half Spanish. She had nothing but her goodness, her cleverness, and her good looks, which last, you must confess she has bequeathed to me in overflowing measure.

Oh, nonsense! But was the old man so hard as all that? Did he never get over it ?"

"You see he had wished my father to marry his own cousin, a Miss Arkendale, with whom he had been brought up all his life. My father would not. They quarrelled about that first, and my father left home, and very soon afterward sent word that he was married to my mother. That brought the matter to a climax. He was forbidden ever to go near Scar Foot again. My father was not a particularly powerful character, but he held out for several years, and would neither compromise nor temporize. Then he died, rather suddenly, as I have told you. My mother went on with her teaching, and kept herself and me. She told me once, when I asked about my father's relations, that she had only once received any notice from the old man, and that notice took the shape of a proposition that she should part with me, give me to him, you know, and not see me, or have anything to do with me again, in which case she was to be handsomely provided for for life. She never told me how she received the proposition, but I can well imagine with what rage it would be. She always told me simply, that it was of course quite out of the question. From that day to this no notice has been taken of her or me. My grandfather turned to his niece, the niece whom he had wished my father to

marry. She married, too, a clergyman, I believe, and she and her daughters have become all in all to him. They are his heiresses, quite the heiresses of the country side. One of them will no doubt have the old house-Scar Foot." "Is it a family mansion? Have they lived there long?"

I

"Hundreds of years, my dear. have heard about it till I know it as well as if I had lived there, but I shall never look upon it."

"Then, of course, that girl we saw with him, whom you admired so much, will be his favorite niece; perhaps he'll leave her all his money, and then won't she be a catch?" observed Miss Vane, unconsciously hitting right and left at Bernard's susceptibilities. With one of those flashes of intuition which are often most surprisingly brilliant in the most stupid persons, she had hit upon a solution of the question (which Aglionby had been almost unconsciously revolving in his mind, ever since he had parted with his grandfather that morning)—a solution so exceedingly probable, so à priori recommending itself to the superior masculine understanding, which had not yet arrived at it by the slower but more infallible route of a process of reasoning, that the possessor of the said masculine understanding, jumping from his chair, cried with emphasis:

By Jove, I expect you are right! I wish I had taken more notice of her!" 'Well, I think you took about as much as you could. I know I felt quite cut out. By the way, was he very disagreeable to you this morning?"

"Not at all. He has a rough manner, because he has a rough nature. But if I had encouraged him he would soon have become quite amiable. He invited me to go to Scar Foot in my holidays."

"Bernard !" her eyes sparkled. "You will come into your rights in the end of all. If you make yourself agreeable to him while you are there, you will soon thrust these nieces aside, and he'll leave all the money to you, as he ought. That will be grand !"

Aglionby experienced a kind of shock in thus suddenly discovering how entirely he had failed in his effort to win her sympathy. She understood that he had a grandfather who was rich, and

who appeared favorably disposed toward him, and she took it for granted that he would at once endeavor to secure possession of some of that wealth. He patiently endeavored to put her right, quite sure that she had misunderstood; he had not explained clearly.

"My dear child, do you imagine that I could or would stoop to him after his years of cruelty and injustice? I declined utterly to have anything to do with him or his caprices. He can confine his attentions to those who are willing to subject themselves to him and wait for what they can get. I am not one of them."

"Well, I never ! If you call that playing your cards well, I don't. I call

it idiotic."

"My dear !" "Yes, I do. To think of throwing away a chance like that! It's all very well to be clever, and to know all about politics, and so on; but if it makes you neglect your own interests, and behave like a simpleton, I've done."

She spoke with temper, and added: "You're not so tremendously rich that you can afford to fling rude words at a grandfather with money. And you might have thought of others that you profess to care for—"

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"My dearest Lizzie," said he, gravely taking her hand, and looking earnestly at her, hear me ! You have misunderstood. I have told you this story because I wish you to learn all about me and my belongings, not because I wish to take any part in the matter. I have no interests to look after, no cards to play in the case, as you appear to think. My intention is to remain perfectly neutral, just as I always have been. My grandfather treated my father tyrannically and shamefully. I don't say he was utterly without provocation -he may have been provoked to a certain extent; but, after all, it is not a sin for a man to wish to marry a good, and clever, and amiable woman, whom he loves. There was no crime in the matter. It simply did not please him, and his nature was so despotic that unless everyone gave way to him, he behaved atrociously. He would have been the first to challenge any man who had disputed his own right to choose in such a matter. I have nothing to thank him

for, save utter neglect. There are such things as manliness and honor, Lizzie. If I had consented to enter his house, or stooped to accept favors flung at me as you'd fling a bone to a dog, I should have suffered sorely in my honor and self-respect. Understand me-I have nothing to do with this inheritance; it is no more to me than if it did not exist-"

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But if he left it to you, you'd take it?" she interrupted eagerly.

He laughed. "Take it? oh, yes, fast enough! And when the first grape harvest comes off on the Yorkshire moors which surround Scar Foot, I'll take you there, to partake in the rejoicings, and try the vintage. That's a bargain!"

'How can I understand such stuff as that? But I cannot see what harm there would have been in a little civility to an old man like that, for he must be old to have a grandson twenty-six."

"He's seventy-two-he told me so. I don't know that I behaved uncivilly to him after the first interchange of compliments. But you have never served under a tyrant, or you would know that civility is a small portion of what they require from those who are beneath them. To serve a tyrant for gain, to wait for dead men's shoes, generally means slavery of the most degrading description while your tyrant lives; and when he dies, to be kicked out by his successor penniless and barefoot still."

"That sounds very grand, but I know that money is a very good thing."

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So it is; and being fully conscious of that fact, I am going to set about earning some as speedily as may be.

"Why earn it, when you could have had it given you?" she said, pursuing the topic with an obstinacy and an urgency which he had never known her display before.

"No one has offered to give me any, that I am aware of," he answered very gravely. "And I think, my love, as we don't appear to agree upon the subject, we had better let it drop. I do not intend to make the slightest advance to Mr. Aglionby of Scar Foot; nor does he intend taking any further notice of me, unless I am much mistaken; or unless I am ready to lie down and let him trample on me—which I am not."