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small articles over which Bell had charge were now never missing. Whenever she wanted a map, or a guide-book, or any one of the things which had been specially entrusted to her, it was forthcoming directly. she never had, like Tita, to look for a hat, or a shawl, or a scarf, or a packet of bezique-cards. I also began to notice that when she missed one of those things, she somehow inadvertently turned to our Lieutenant, who was quite sure to know where it was, and to hand it to her on the instant. The consequence on this morning was, that when we all came down prepared to go out for an exploration of Oxford, we found Bell at the window of the coffee-room, already dressed, and looking placidly out into the High-street, where the sunlight was shining down on the top of the old-fashioned houses opposite, and on the brand-new bank, which, as a compliment to the prevailing style of the city, has been built in very distinguished Gothic.

It was proposed that we should first go down and have a look at Christ Church.

"And that will just take us past the post-office," said Bell.

"Why, how do you know that? Have you been out ?" asked Tita.

"No," replied Bell, simply. "But Count von Rosen told me where it was.'

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"Oh, I have been all over the town this morning," said the Lieutenant, carelessly. "It is the finest town that I have yet seen-a sort of Gothic Munich, but old, very old-not new, and white like Munich, where the streets are asking you to look at their fine buildings. And I have been down to the river-that is very fine, too-even the appearance of the old colleges and buildings from the meadows-that is wonderful."

"Have you made any other discoveries this morning?" said Queen Tita, with a gracious smile.

"Yes," said the young man, lightly. "I have discovered that the handsome young waiter who gave us our

breakfast-that he has been a rider in a circus, which I did suspect myself, from his manner and attitudes-and also an actor. He is a very fine man, but not much spirit. I was asking him this morning why he is not a soldier. He despises that, because you pay a shilling a day. That is a pity your soldiers are not-what shall I say respectable; that your best young men do not like to go with them, and become under-officers. But

I do not know he is good stuff for a soldier he smiles too much, and makes himself pleasant. Perhaps that is only because he is a waiter."

"Have you made any other acquaintances this morning?" says Tita, with a friendly amusement in her eyes.

"No, no one-except the old gentleman who did talk politics last night. He is gone away by the train to Birmingham."

"Pray when do you get up in the morning?"

"I did not look that; but there was no one in the streets when I went out, as there would be in a German town; and even now there is a great dulness. I have inquired about the studentsthey are all gone home-it is a vacation. And a young lady in a book-shop told me that there is no life in the town when the students are gone-that all places close early-that even the milliners' shops are closed just now at halfpast seven, when they are open till nine when the students are here.'

"And what," says my Lady, with a look of innocent wonder, "what have the students to do with milliners' shops that such places should be kept open on their account?"

No one could offer a sufficient solution of this problem; and so we left the coffee-room and plunged into the glare of the High-street.

It would be useless to attempt here any detailed account of that day's long and pleasant rambling through Oxford. To anyone who knows the appearance and the associations of the grand old city-who is familiar with the various mass of crumbling colleges, and quiet

cloisters, and grassy quadrangles-who has wandered along the quaint clean streets that look strangely staid and orthodox, and are as old as the splendid elms that break in continually on the lines and curves of the prevailing architecture-to one who has even seen the city at a distance, with its many spires and turrets set amid fair green meadows, and girt about with the silver windings of streams-any such brief recapitulation would be inexpressibly bald and useless; while he to whom Oxford is unknown can learn nothing of its beauties and impressions without going there. Our party absolutely refused to go sight-seeing, and were quite content to accept the antiquarian researches of the guide-books on credit. It was enough for us to ramble leisurely through the old courts and squares and alleys, where the shadows lay cool under the gloomy walls, or under avenues of magnificent elms.

But first of all we paid a more formal visit to Christ Church, and on our way thither the Lieutenant stopped Bell at the post-office. She begged leave to ask for letters herself; and presently reappeared with two in her hand.

"These are from the boys," she said to my Lady: "there is one for you, and one for papa."

"You have had no letter?" said Tita. "No," answered Bell, somewhat gravely as I fancied; and for some time after she seemed rather thoughtful and anxious.

As we paused underneath the archway in front of the sunlit quadrangle of Christ Church, the letters from the boys were read aloud. This is the first one, which shows the pains a boy will take to write properly to his mother, especially when he can lay his hands on some convenient guide-book to correspondence.

"COWLEY HOUSE, TWICKENHAM. "MY DEAR MAMMA,-I take up my pen to let you know that I am quite well, and hope that this will find you in the engoyment of good health. My studdies are advancing favably, and I

hope I shall continue to please my teacher and my dear parents, who have been so kind to me, and are anxious for my wellfare. I look foward with much delight to the aproarching hollidays, and I am, my dear mamma, "Your affectionate son,

"JACK. "P.S. He does gallop so; and he eats beans."

Master Tom, on the other hand, showed that the fear of his mother was not on him when he sat down to write. Both of them had evidently just been impressed with the pony's galloping; for the second letter was as follows:

"COWLEY HOUSE, TWICKENHAM.

"MY DEAR PAPA,-He does gallop so, you can't think [this phrase, as improper, was hastily scored through] and I took him down to the river and the boys were very Impertinent and I rode him down to the river and they had to run away from their clothes and he went into the river a good bit and was not afraid but you know he cannot swim yet as he is very young Harry French says and Doctor Ashburton went with us yesterday my dear papa to the ferry and Dick was taken over in the ferry and we all went threw the trees by Ham House and up to Ham Common and back by Richmond bridge and Dick was not a bit Tired.

But

what do you think my dear papa Doctor Ashburton says all our own money won't pay for his hay and corn and he will starve if you do not send some please my dear papa to send some at once because if he starvves once he will not get right again and the Ostler says he is very greedy but he his a very good pony and very intelgent dear papa Doctor Ashburton has bawt us each a riding-whip but I never hit him over the ears which the Ostler says is dangerus and you must tell the German gentleman that Jack and I are very much obled [scored out] obledg [also scored out] obbliged to him, and send our love to him and to dear Auntie Bell and to dear Mamma and I am my dear papa your affexnate son. "TOM."

"It is really disgraceful," said the mother of the scamps, "the shocking way those boys spell. Really Doctor Ashburton must be written to. At their age, and with such letters as theseit is shameful."

"I think they are very clever boys," said Bell, "and I hope you won't impose extra lessons on them just as they have got a pony."

"They ought not to have had the pony until they had given a better account of themselves at school,” said my Lady, severely; to which Bell only replied by saying, in a pensive manner, that she wished she was a boy of nine years of age, just become possessed of a pony, and living in the country.

We spent a long time in Christ Church, more especially in the magnificent Hall, where the historical portraits greatly interested Bell.

She

entered into surmises as to the sensations which must have been felt by the poets and courtiers of Queen Elizabeth's time when they had to pay compliments to the thin-faced, red-haired woman who is here represented in her royal satins and pearls; and wondered whether, after they had celebrated her as the Queen of Beauty, they afterwards reconciled these flatteries to their conscience by looking on them as sarcasm. But whereas Bell's criticism of the picture was quite gentle and unprejudiced, there was a good deal more of acerbity in the tone in which Queen Tita drew near to speak of Holbein's Henry VIII. My firm belief is, that the mother of those two boys at Twickenham, if she only had the courage of her opinions-and dared to reveal those secret sentiments which now find expression in decorating our bedrooms with missal-like texts, and in the use of Ritualistic phrases to describe ordinary portions of the service and ordinary days of the year-would really be discovered to be but let that pass. What harm Henry VIII. had done her, I could not make out. Anyone may perceive that that monarch has not the look of an ascetic; that the contour of his face and the setting of his eyes are not particularly pleasing; that he could

not easily be mistaken for Ignatius Loyola. But why any woman of these present days, who subscribes to Mudie's, watches the costumes of the Princess of Wales, and thinks that Dr. Pusey has been ungenerously treated, should regard a portrait of Henry VIII. as though he had done her an injury only the week before last, it is not easy to discover. Bell, on the other hand, was discoursing to the Lieutenant about the various workmanship of the pictures, and giving him a vast amount of information about technical matters, in which he appeared to take a deep interest.

"But did you ever paint upon panel yourself, mademoiselle?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," said Bell, "I was at one time very fond of it. But I never made it so useful as a countryman of mine once suggested it might be. He was a Cumberland farmer who had come down to our house at Ambleside, and when he saw me painting on a piece of wood, he looked at it with great curiosity.

"Heh, lass,' he said, 'thou's pentin a fine pictur there, and on wood, too. Is't for the yell-house?'

"No,' I said, explaining that I was painting for my own pleasure, and that it was not a public-house sign.

"To please thysel, heh? And when thou's dune wi' the pictur, thou canst plane it off the wood, and begin another -that's thy meanin', is't?'

"I was very angry with him, for I was only about fifteen then, and I wanted to send my picture to a London exhibition."

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Why, I did see it down at Leatherhead!" said Von Rosen. "Was not that the picture, on panel, near the window of the dining-room ?"

"Come, come!" said Titania to the girl, who could not quite conceal the pleasure she felt on hearing that the Count had noticed this juvenile effort of hers; "" come along, and let us see the library before we go into the open air again."

In the library, too, were more portraits and pictures, which these young people were much interested in. We found it impossible to drag them along.

They would loiter in some corner or other, and then, when we forsook our civil attendant and went back for them, we found them deeply engrossed in some obscure portrait or buried in a huge parchment-bound folio which the Lieutenant had taken out and opened. Bell was a fairly well-informed young woman, as times go, and knew quite as much of French literature as was good for her; but it certainly puzzled Tita and myself to discover what possible interest she could have in gazing upon the large pages of the Encyclopædia, while the Lieutenant talked to her about D'Alembert. Nor could it be possible that a young lady of her years and pursuits had imbibed so much reverence for original editions as to stand entranced before this or that well-known author whose earliest offspring had been laid hold of by her companion. They both seemed unwilling to leave this library; but Von Rosen explained the matter when he came out-saying that he had never felt so keenly the proverbial impulses of an Uhlan as when he found himself with these valuable old books in his hand, and only one attendant near. I congratulated the authorities of Christ Church on what they had escaped.

Of course we went down to the river some little time after lunch; and had a look from Folly Bridge on the various oddly-assorted crews that had invaded the sacred waters of the Isis in the absence of the University men. When the Lieutenant proposed that we, too, should get a boat and make a voyage down between the green meadows, it almost seemed as if we were venturing into a man's house in the absence of the owner; but then Bell very prettily and urgently added her supplications, and Tita professed herself not unwilling to give the young folks an airing on the stream. There were plenty of signs that it was vacationtime besides the appearance of the nondescript oarsmen. There was a great show of painting and scraping and gilding visible among that long line of mighty barges that lay under the sha

dow of the elms, moored to tall white poles that sent a line of silver down into the glassy and troubled water beneath. Barges in blue, and barges in cream and gold, barges with splendid prows and Gorgon figure-heads, barges with steam-paddles and light awnings over the upper deck, barges with that deck supported by pointed arches, as if a bit of an old cloister had been carried down to decorate a pleasure-boat-all these resounded to the blows of hammers, and were being made bright with many colours. The University barge itself had been dragged out of the water, and was also undergoing the same process; although the cynical person who had put the cushions in our boat had just remarked, with something of a shrug―

"I hope the mahn as has got the job 'll get paid for it, for the 'Varsity Crew are up to their necks in debt, that's what they are!"

When once we had got away from Christ Church meadows, there were fewer obstructions in our course; but whether it was that the currents of the river defied the skill of our coxswain, or whether it was that the Lieutenant and Bell, sitting together in the stern, were too much occupied in pointing out to each other the beauties of the scenery, we found ourselves with a fatal frequency running into the bank, with the prow of the boat hissing through the rushes and flags. Nevertheless, we managed to get up to Iffley, and there, having moored the boat, we proceeded to land and walk up to the old church on the brow of the hill.

"It's what they calls eerly English,” said the old lady who showed us over the ancient building. She was not a talkative person; she was accustomed to get over the necessary information rapidly; and then spent the interval in looking strangely at the tall Lieutenant and his brown beard. She did not betray any emotion when a small gratuity was given her. She had not even said "Thank you" when Von Rosen, on calling for the keys of the church, had found the gate of her garden unhinged, and had

laboured fully ten minutes in hammering a rusty piece of iron into the wooden post. Perhaps she thought it was Bell who had driven down the gate; but at all events she expressed no sense of gratitude for its restoration.

Near an old yew-tree there was a small grave-new-made and green with grass -on which some careful hand had placed a cross composed exclusively of red and white roses. This new grave, with these fresh evidences of love and kindly remembrance on it, looked strange in the rude old churchyard, where stones of unknown age and obliterated names lay tumbled about or stood awry among the weeds and grass. Yet this very disorder and decay, as Tita said gently, seemed to her so much more pleasant than the cold and sharp precision of the iron crosses in French and German graveyards, with their grim, fantastic decorations and wreaths of immortelles. She stood looking at this new grave and its pretty cross of roses, and at the green and weather-worn stones, and at the black old yew-tree, for some little time; until Bell-who knows of something that happened when Tita was but a girl, and her brother scarcely more than a childdrew her gently away from us, towards the gate of the churchyard.

"Yes," said the Lieutenant, not noticing, but turning to the only listener remaining; "that is true. I think your English churchyards in the country are very beautiful-very picturesque-very pathetic indeed, But what you have not in this country are the beautiful songs about death that we have-not religious hymns, or anything like that-but small, little poems that the countrypeople know and repeat to their children. Do you know that one that says

Hier schlummert das Herz,
Befreit von betäubenden Sorgen;
Es weckt uns kein Morgen
Zu grösserem Schmerz.

And it ends this way—

Was weinest denn du?

Ich trage nun muthig mein Leiden,
Und rufe mit Freuden,

Im Grabe ist Ruh'!

There was one of my comrades in the war he was from my native place, but not in my regiment-he was a very good fellow-and when he was in the camp before Metz, his companion was killed. Well, he buried him separate from the others, and went about till he got somewhere a gravestone, and he began to cut out, just with the end of a bayonet, these two verses on the stone. It took him many weeks to do it; and I did hear from one of my friends in the regiment that two days after he had put up the stone, he was himself killed. it is very hard to have your companion killed beside you, and he is away from his friends, and when you go back home without him-they look at you as if you had no right to be alive and their son dead. That is very hard-I knew it in Sixty-six, when I went back to Berlin, and had to go to see old Madame von Hebel. I do hope never to have that again."

Oh,

Is there a prettier bit of quiet riverscenery in the world than that around Iffley Mill? Or was it merely the glamour of the white day that rendered the place so lovely, and made us linger in the open stream to look at the mill and its surroundings? As I write, there lies before me a pencil sketch of Bell's, lightly dashed here and there with water-colour, and the whole scene is recalled. There is the dilapidated old stone building, with its red tiles, its crumbling plaster, its wooden projections, and small windows, half-hidden amid foliage. Further down the river there are clumps of rounded elms visible; but here around the mill the trees are chiefly poplars, of magnificent height, that stretch up lightly and gracefully into a quiet yellow sky, and throw gigantic lines of reflection down into the still water. Then out from the mill a small island runs into the stream; the wood-work of the sluice-gates bridges the interval; there is a red cow amid the green leafage of the island, and here again are some splendid poplars, rising singly up from the river-side. Then beyond there is another house, then a wooden bridge, a low line of trees; and

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