about a silly joke, may separate you for | be so base as to forget 'the girl he left life." behind him.' Remember, I shall be fit to Marianne hesitated, with changing color kill you if he should jilt me, after what and parted lips. Her susceptible pride you have made me tell you. In the mean and fiery temper had been up in arms a time I'll play that tune in my own honor, moment before. She had forbidden a every day that I can reach a piano till he compromise, yet she might snatch at a comes back. Must he stay away months? reprieve. Her decision would be very A whole year or more? The man should much a matter of chance, as were many not have made me so accustomed to his of the resolutions she formed in her hon- tiresome ways. How will the time pass est but unregulated mind. without them? Shall I grow sick with In the mean time Iris, awaiting Mari-hope deferred? And do all the girls in anne's answer, frightened to look at her my position complain of the cruelty of the for fear of influencing her, looking on the queen and the lord high admiral? Who floor instead, was calling King Lud her would have said I should be a spoon? brother in her heart and remembering How our boys would laugh, and even all that his family had done for her Cathie and Chattie would giggle. But Iris Compton. She was thinking of Mari- they shan't know a syllable till he is a anne's affectionate championship soon af- captain, and able to propose for me to ter they had become acquainted, and what granny or papa in due form. I suppose a different world it had been to a lonely that will not be till he has made a pot of girl, when she had found a bright, frank, money, poor fellow, to keep me with; but young companion, generous and lovable if the ruling powers continue long obdu. even in her transparent follies, constantly rate, we'll know what to do, we'll run by her side. Iris was thinking of Sir straight away to Scotland. Then we'll William and the debt he had already paid have to go into seaside lodgings, and be to Lady Fermor, and the other debt he careful of our coals and never allow ourhad paid to Honor. Iris's mind was even selves an extra pair of boots. Will you recurring to old stories and old wrongs in still acknowledge us, Iris? you ought to, which her ancestor had been the wrong for you have been at the bottom of the doer and Marianne Dugdale's the sufferer mischief even though granny has nothof the wrong. ing more to say to us. By the way, we must not keep her waiting any longer. She will not stand the further delay of this marriage."

"What an excellent idea!" cried Marianne suddenly. "You can play the bride, as you say, as well as I. They will not suppose that I have drawn back only that we have agreed to change places. Indeed, as our hats and travelling-dresses are alike, and the light is none of the best, if we had not been so different in height, they might not have known the one from the other," she ended with a little uncertain laugh, beginning to recover her courage and spirits. "I wonder if he will give a great start and gape, forget all I told him, and not be able to proceed with the ceremony? Won't he look dreadfully foolish? But I shall not have vexed him the very last thing. Iris, it was taking a despicable advantage of me to work upon my feelings and pretend he would not come back safe and sound a great, strong, fearless fellow like King Lud, twice as big as our boys at home, with a face like a full moon. Yes, indeed, it is true; but I hate small faces in men, I think they cannot be too big every way. He has so often gone away, and always returned like a bad halfpenny. I wonder how and when we shall meet next," melting into tenderness, but rushing off at a tangent the next moment. "He can never |

Iris was hardly listening now as they proceeded to put on their travelling jackets and hats of brown tweed, with which they had provided themselves in preparation for what they had been pleased to consider the arctic climate of Scotland. "What a dress for a bride!" cried Marianne in lively disgust.

"But it is a runaway bride," said Iris.

in our

"Yes, but depend upon it if she ran away of her own accord, she had some respect for her own feelings and those of her bridegroom, and put a bridal touch somewhere to her dress. Besides, my dear child, there must be something to mark the difference between us parts. Here, take this bunch of wet bridal roses — I dare say they are the descendants of Jacobite roses which Jeannie brought me from the kailyard. Roses are later in the north than in the south; we are not travelled girls, so we may speak of Scotland and England - all we know, as north and south. Fasten the flowers in your jacket."

Iris did as she was bidden, to please Marianne, and get the sooner done with

the foolish play. The couple hurried laughter, partly of another feeling, in her down-stairs arm-in-arm and entered the voice. room so abruptly that it was not difficult to picture an angry father at their back. Somebody had drawn a table before the corner where Ludovic sat, looking grim. Sir William was standing beside it with a curious mixture of affront- as if doing something preposterous and wistful yearning and pain in his face.

man, who still wore mine host's conven- to take him through the rain and darkness tional red waistcoat. But he was not to the nearest station a few miles off. He skulking, whatever his companions might was far brighter and more animated than be; he held a candlestick with a lit candle he had been all the day, while Marianne in his hand, for the rainy gloaming was Dugdale, on the contrary, became somefast deepening into mirk. He looked ex- what silent, only emitting an occasional cited, as if he wanted to come in and little jet of contradiction and sauciness. either interfere with the performance or He announced confidently that he exjoin in it. pected to see them all again before he sailed, and nobody deprived him of the hope or forbade him the privilege. If he wrung Marianne's hand in saying good

deed, since she did not wrench her fingers away- for that matter she had not flouted him for the last five minutes; but if she cried herself to sleep and bemoaned her former perversity and cruelty, it was in the silence and solitude of her room.

Apparently Lady Fermor had also detected the intruders, for she called out, "There, that will do," and sure enough the group melted and vanished,_pulling|bye, nobody could see and censure the the door close behind them. But her ladyship, who was in high glee, might not so much intend to give a reprimand as to say the scene had been sufficiently represented; for she added immediately afterwards, addressing her own party, "We need not mind signing the register or the bride's 'lines.' Upon my word it has been a very pretty wedding. Let me congratulate you, Thwaite and Iris that is my part of the performance, and a very pleasant part it is, I can tell you. You have given us a good notion of what a runaway marriage is like. I suppose, Iris, you thought, after all, you were the fittest match for the bridegroom."

The hands so lately joined had already dropped asunder. Sir William remained standing alone by the table, as if he were trying to reason with himself, to get rid of a momentary hallucination, to cast off a disordering, maddening impression. He did not go near Lady Fermor. He hardly suffered himself to throw a look after Iris as she rejoined Marianne.

"How stupid you were, Mr. Acton!" Marianne accused King Lud. "It was I, not you, who married them. I must ask Jeannie if that is correct, and if a woman can marry a couple in this improper little Scotland."

Iris left the room with Marianne to put off their out-of-doors habiliments. As the girls did so, the roses fell unheeded from Iris's jacket on the floor, and would have lain there to be trampled under foot if Sir William had not stepped forward, stooped, and picked them up.

When the cousins came back the subject of the acted marriage was dropped as if by common consent. The talk had turned upon the lieutenant's departure, the hour for which was drawing near. He had engaged a trap from the innkeeper

Iris thought it was charity to everybody to adopt Lady Fermor's early hours this night. A sudden sobriety which was al most oppressive, the natural result of contending emotions and of King Lud's going, had fallen upon the young people. As for herself she desired nothing better than to be able to recall undisturbed the whole events of the day, including the grotesque farce in which she had been involved. When she had thought it all over she would dismiss it from her mind at once and forever.

The dismissal was not quite so easy as Iris had anticipated. She felt haunted by the foolish play; she tossed on her bed sleepless and feverish. When she did drop asleep, she dreamt she had married Sir William Thwaite in earnest without intending it, and what was worse, she had not asked his leave and he had not spoken one word, or given a single glance, in renewal of his passionate love-making and proposal to her in the hay-field at Whitehills four years before. Nay, he had seemed at every crisis to turn — with whatever mixed motives to Marianne Dugdale.

At last Iris slept soundly; but even then she was disturbed by the business of the inn, or by the figments of her own imagination. She thought she heard some one calling her name loudly and urgently, and when she started up in bed and listened and failed to distinguish a voice speaking to her, she seemed to hear the noise of wheels driving rapidly from the door.

From The Quarterly Review.
COUNTRY LIFE.*

will be looked for in vain for some time to come.

As regards the other class - the people who are fortunate enough to have capital to spare they have a natural desire to invest it in something which they will be permitted to call their own after the lapse of a few years, and it is clear that by one powerful party of the day, at present the governing party, land is not looked upon as a commodity of this kind. It is intended that the rights of ownership shall be made an open question. Although the direct confiscation demanded by so many persons may not at present be attempted, everything will be done to render the position of the landlord as irksome and disagreeable to him as possible, and to make him feel that-like - he exists upon the House of Lordssufferance only. The bargains which he

has made with his tenants will be altered

for him by Act of Parliament, his leases
will be carefully revised against his own
interests, and the old privileges of his
position will be lopped off one after an-
other. Thus, the political and social con-
ditions of the time are such as to discour-
age the prudent and far-seeing from in-
curring the risks and responsibilities
incidental to the care of an estate.
no longer yields a certain and remuner-
ative income; it is let with difficulty for
purely agricultural purposes, and at rents
which are sometimes little more than

Land

WE are inclined to think that it was never so difficult as now to find an advantageous market for large estates in the country. This is owing partly to the great and all-pervading depression in trade; partly to the fact that people who have money to spare like to put it in a safe place, and land does not look very safe at the present moment. The manufacturers, and the trading classes generally, have been taught by the founders of their special school of politics to regard the land-owner and the agriculturist as their hereditary enemies as persons belong ing to a class which must be impoverished and brought low, by natural causes, if they were strong enough to do it; if they were not, by hostile legislation. This warfare has now been waged, entirely on one side, for about forty years, and at last the manufacturers and tradesmen begin to see that, if the landed interest is to go to ruin, it will infallibly drag down other interests with it. The losses of landlords and farmers were regarded with great equanimity in Lancashire, and the sufferers were told that they had no right to complain; that economic laws were in operation, injurious to them, but beneficial to the rest of the nation. After a time, the whole of our trade was seen to be languish. ing, and then the manufacturers and traders began to have grave doubts whether economic laws were always infallible, and whether it might not turn out that we had pushed them so far as to threaten to bring about a national disaster. They will find these doubts greatly strengthened by the events of the next few years, and meanbusiness, and to leave themselves an amThis farm while they have been compelled to aban-ple provision for their old age. don the ambition to become large land- is now being offered in vain at 4007. a owners themselves; for a park, with a few year. The prospects of the farmers, even farms round about it, is a costly luxury, if they turn fruit-growers and jam-makers, and the owners of cotton mills or of iron- are anything but brilliant, for a good harfoundries have not more money just now vest of wheat cannot be of any benefit to than they see their way to dispose of. them when no more than from 325. to 355. The liberal patrons of art, who came from a quarter can be obtained for what it costs the north and swept off the "great pic- at least 40s. to grow. The great "states"" "orators,' "tribunes," and other tures" of the year, have been absent from men,' the neighborhood of Piccadilly and Bond friends and champions of the people, who Street for several seasons past, and they market for everybody but the English are all for foreign competition and an open producer, will find the tables turned upon them if they live a few years longer; and if they do not, the next generation will have something to say about a policy which has left three-fourths of the people dependent on foreign nations for their bread.

1. The Country Housewife's Garden. By William Lawson. London, 1618.

2. British Field Sports. By W. H. Scott. London, 1820. 3. The Woodlands. By William Cobbett. London,

1825.

4. My Garden. By Alfred Smee, F.R.S. 1,250 Engravings. London, 1872.

With

5. The English Garden. By W. Robinson. London, 1884.

nominal.

We have heard of a farm which has hitherto never let for less than 1000l. a year, and at that rate enabled the holders to bring up their families in comfort, to settle them handsomely in

There can be no doubt that many land

This, however, though well enough in its way, is not what we mean by country life. The pleasures which are peculiar to that cannot be understood by the dwellers in the suburbs, and they are not always felt by the man who actually lives in the veritable country, and who is, perhaps, dissatisfied there, or who finds his desires and thoughts turning round one narrow circle-field sports, for instance. Sport is an adjunct of country life which is not by any means to be despised, but it is not the whole of that life, although some men make it so. All their surroundings are to them meaningless, unless they can rise up in the morning, as the Frenchman put it, and "kill something." This taste is not essential to the true enjoyment of the country, which is often reserved for persons who have none of the instincts of a sportsman in them-who have absolutely no desire to "kill," and who are utterly unable to understand what can be the gratification derived, for exam. ple, from hare-hunting, which is among the least manly of English sports. Foxhunting is a very different thing; it is fair sport, it is amusing, and it is useful. As we all know, the great duke preferred foxhunters for his aides-de-camp, "because they knew how to ride straight to a given point." It is not in these pages, where the pleasures of "The Chace were celebrated in so memorable a strain by "Nimrod," that anything in depreciation of fox-hunting would be seemly. Yet it may be questioned whether even this sport is not declining in many parts of the country, except among the wealthiest class. should hope that the day is still far distant, when the fox-hunter in England will meet with a reception similar to that which has lately been accorded him in Ireland

lords have been selling: that a great many | what is more, flowers are sometimes more would do so if they could, must be grown in the stunted gardens, which obvious to everybody whose business or would astonish many a man who employs curiosity leads him to examine the adver- “skilled labor " and is not quite sure what tisement pages of the Times, or the is growing in his own garden at any seamonthly lists of estate agencies. In one son of the year. such list alone, nearly two thousand properties were lately offered for sale or hire, but among them there were very few which could be considered as coming within the range of persons with limited incomes. The love of rural life has not diminished among Englishmen; on the contrary, as London and other large cities constantly grow larger, the demand for "little places in the country," with a garden and perhaps a paddock, is becoming more and more difficult to satisfy. The immense increase in the number of sub urban "villas" testifies to the popular craving for a home a little removed from the smoke and noise of a huge city. It is not long ago since the drive to Richmond ran partly through the country, such as it was; now it is almost wholly shut in between streets, with perhaps the partial break of coarsely manured cabbage grounds. It appears not unlikely that Croydon and London will one day meet a result apparently half foreseen by Cob bett, who described the land between the two places as a "poor spewy gravel, with some clay." Perhaps, therefore, the sooner it is covered up the better. Beyond Hampstead there is still a wide expanse of open country, but from St. Paul's to the Heath there is not a square yard of vacant space, except that which is not at present to be bought or sold. London almost touches Wimbledon, and there is a part of the once rustic village where a population of ten thousand persons have settled down within a period of ten years. Most of these suburban houses are put upon the grouud before it has been drained sometimes upon a reeking marsh; there is no cellar beneath, and no precaution is taken against damp striking up from the sodden soil into the walls. The few yards of garden are generally filled with clothes hanging out to dry, or with crying children; a wooden fence divides the allotments, but does not serve to keep out the cats, which overrun all such regions in vast and mysterious hordes. The ground is sour and harsh, and the proportion of sunshine which falls upon it, hemmed in as it is by other houses, is so small and so uncertain, that we might almost imagine it was measured out for sale by the speculative builder. And yet these habitations all find tenants, and,

We

poison for the hounds, and a pitchfork for the hunter. But we scarcely expect to see again the palmy days of Assheton Smith, who would ride two-and-thirty miles to cover and back again at night, and who could boast that in his time he had cut off fifteen hundred brushes with his own pocket-knife. No wonder that a field of upwards of two thousand mounted men, "one-third in pink," turned out on one great occasion to welcome him. The present generation is not so enthusiastic about anything as were these mighty hunt