been dismissed to play while he examined mature-time would tell; the description Mrs. Woods' accounts, a superfluous pro- of the father had been but too fully justified ceeding on which she always insisted. by facts. 'Don't you think so? He looks so intelligent, and speaks so sharply.'

'Yes,' said Mrs. Wood, composedly resting her firmly-folded hands upon the table before her; he is a clever child, but of a bad disposition. I never make up my mind quickly, and I have taken time to come to that conclusion; he is an ill-tempered child, and cruel in his ways. I am glad he is not my Alice's brother.'

Glad he is not your own son, you mean, I should think,' said Mr. Eliot Foster. A son can make a mother more unhappy than a brother can make a sister.'

'Yes,' again assented Mrs. Wood; but it does not so much matter for me as for Alice. She is a sensitive child, and will be a very sensitive woman, easily made to suffer.'

6

'I have no particular intentions about the boy,' Mr. Eliot Foster said after a pause; and you must not keep him if you come to dislike doing so.' Then they talked of other matters, and the subject dropped.

The widow and the children had

Time went on with sure, imperceptible speed, and the children grew and prospered under the dull but careful rule of the widow. Mr. Eliot Foster made no sign, and had no sign made to him. He had a vague kind of acquaintance with the affairs and the doings of the Havilands; but his interest in them was very moderate, and easily satisfied with the meagre and infrequent details conveyed to him by his steadily faithful client, Frank Burdett. Time produced its invariable effect on his mind. The keen impression which the charge he had undertaken, and the conduct of the woman he had loved Do you mean,' said Mr. Eliot Foster against his conscience, his judgment, and rather hastily, that you do not like to have his will-thus unconsciously resembling the boy here; that he makes you uncom- Hugh Gaynor, of whose existence he was igfortable and teazes your child? Because norant- and had loved in vain, was fading if so, pray let me make some other arrange-away. ment. What you say about the boy annoys considerable interest for him; but the feelme; I hoped he would prove a good little ing had little reference to the boy's story, fellow; but you must not suffer by him, you and none to the romantic association which must not sacrifice yourself.' had once attached itself to him. Alice Wood found her way to the lawyer's heart after a fashion which he hardly understood. The little girl was beautiful beyond the ordinary beauty of pretty children, endowed with a fragile grace and a sweet pensive loveliness which might have made a less matter-of-fact mother than Mary Wood keenly unquiet― might have filled her with foreboding, and the agony of an inexplicable fear. The child, despite the plain homeliness of her cottage-home, and the humble surroundings and routine of her everyday life, was a perfect little lady; not in the fantastic selfishness to which that term is sometimes applied, but in the natural grace, observance, and consideration of her bearing, as well as in the delicate and refined exterior, in which no resemblance to her mother was to be traced. The little girl's face-not rosy, and yet not pale with the pallor of ill-health, but with a transparent clearness of complexion-was mild and thoughtful, and her slight figure and gentle movements had all the limber, supple ease of childhood without its boisterousness. She was a child whom no one could have passed unnoticed, but whom no keen observer could have seen without perceiving that there was too much sensitiveness, too much fancy, too early a turn for reverie about her, to bode her good in the world,

'Pardon me,' said Mrs. Wood, interrupting him; I did not mean anything. of the kind. I require the money you pay me for taking care of Henry Hurst to enable me to live, and if you remove him I should be forced to seek another boarder in his place; the child's disposition makes no difference in my circumstances or in my duty. If you are satisfied with my care of him, I have no wish for his removal. I only tell you what I do because remember, I am not prying into your present or future intentions about the boy you had better know what he promises to be: handsome, clever, and vicious.'

Mr. Eliot Foster looked serious, and remained silent for a few minutes; he was thinking of the feelings which the child's mother had expressed to him, of the repulsion with which he had filled her, and of the description she had once given him of her husband, this boy's father. No two women in the world could be less alike in outward form, in mind, and in mode of speech than were Julia and Mrs. Wood; but it was a remarkable coincidence that they had both used the same words in speaking to Mr. Eliot Foster-handsome, clever, and vicious. To father and to son this phrase had been applied. The judgment passed upon the child might be rash, might be pre

6

pects of the child from the suggestion of his crude performances on his slate. It was a long time before the matter was again mooted, but in the discussion of that day was traced the vague outline of the disowned child's future career.

where life for one of her condition must, | his lessons,' would probably do well as an unless under strangely exceptional circum- artist, and asked him what he wished the stances, wear a very work-a-day and com- boy to be.' Mr. Eliot Foster replied that monplace aspect. Between Alice and her he had not thought of the matter; that dissurroundings, incongruity existed which cussion of it would be premature while Mr. Eliot Foster did not fail to see, and it Henry Hurst was so mere a child; but that gave him pleasure to procure for her such if he continued to manifest taste and talent small luxuries and indulgences as her moth- in that direction, there could be no objecer's pride did not interfere to forbid her tion to his pursuing an artist's career. There having. The little girl learned to love the would be a small sum of money forthcomgrave kind gentleman next after her mother ing to start him in life, enough to get him and the boy, who presented as remarkable taught, and set him up in paint-pots and a contrast to her in appearance as in dispo- brushes,' said the lawyer, whose compresition. The period of early childhood, all-hension of the requirements of an artist was important as it is, presents but few salient not extensive. Then they both smiled at features of interest in such a narrative as this; the idea of seriously discussing the prosit suffices to note the fact that, as Alice Wood made progress in the regard of Mr. Eliot Foster, Henry Hurst retrograded. He was a handsome boy, dark-eyed, dark-haired, dark-complexioned; and though in time the lawyer ceased to trace in his features the resemblance to his father of which Julia The business which had brought Mr. Peyton had spoken with such strong dis- Eliot Foster to Lane Cottage on this day, gust, his countenance was none the more was also destined to have considerable inpleasing for the alteration. A physiogno- fluence on the future of the widow and her mist would have found nothing reassuring daughter. Among the lawyer's clients was in the shifting, shallow eyes, and the thin, a trustee of one of the numerous charitable compressed, finely cut lips-an artist little institutions at Coventry. This gentleman charm in the undeniable good looks, which had called upon Mr. Eliot Foster, and menhad a certain cachet of vulgarity. He had tioned that the post of matron to this instifair abilities, and profited satisfactorily by tution was vacant. Upon inquiry into the the elementary instruction, at the hands of emoluments and duties of the position, the Mrs. Wood, which he and Alice shared. lawyer had conceived the notion that it The first taste the boy gave any evidence would exactly suit Mrs. Wood, and that she of possessing was a taste for drawing, and would exactly suit it. Here would be a the widow was quick and pleased at per- tranquil and secure home for her, a respectceiving its indications. Among several av-able means of preserving the independence ocations adopted by the deceased Mr. Wood, and severally and successively abandoned by him, in the course of his brief and remarkably-unlucky existence, that of a drawing-master had perhaps been, on the whole, the least complete failure, and his wife had taken some interest in his proceedings in that capacity. She was therefore able to recognise the boy's taste, and it interested her. One day, when she had been watching the two children, seated on the edge of the little grass-plat which bordered the narrow approach to the cottagedoor, the boy busily drawing something meant to represent a tree which adorned the waste land on the opposite side of the road, and the girl sitting beside him, her small hands folded, her little figure perfectly still, her attitude expressive of the absorbed attention and content one sometimes sees in children's faces, - Mr. Eliot Foster arrived. After some general conversation, Mrs. Wood told the lawyer that Henry Hurst, who was not anything wonderful at

which she prized so highly, and certain educational advantages for her daughter. There was nothing in the duties of the position of a menial character; the post had always been filled by reduced gentlewomen; and the institution was one which ranked high among things of the sort. Mr. Eliot Foster explained the matter fully to Mrs. Wood, and told her that his client, being under obligations to him, personal as well as professional, would procure the post for her, should she, on consideration, let him know that she desired to accept the proposition. Mrs. Wood received the lawyer's statement in her usual quiet way, and said she would think over it, and let Mr. Eliot Foster know. But,' she asked, 'what should be done, in case I made up my mind to go, about Henry Hurst?'

I have not thought about that,' said Mr. Foster. 'I ascertained that Alice might live with you-in fact, I should not have entertained the idea otherwise - and, by a small deduction from your salary, be admit

ted to the educational advantages of the institution; but I did not think about the boy. However, you must not consider him, I can place him elsewhere.'

I should not like to part with him,' said Mrs. Wood, which was quite a warm expression of feeling for her; could you not send him to some school near where I shall be, if I take this place, and let me still have the charge of him to some extent?of course, without payment; under any circumstances he would soon be beyond my power of instruction.'

That is a capital idea,' said Mr. Eliot Foster; I will make inquiries; I shall see Mr. Ratliff to-morrow, and ascertain what can be done.'

The lawyer's visit came to a close soon after this, and Mrs. Wood was left to think over the proposition made to her. Even on the surface it was a sufficiently-important one, involving a total change in her life, the assumption of new duties, and the formation of new ties. She shrunk from the step, in some respects; being a woman who liked solitude and objected to change and strange faces; but the interests of her child prevailed with her. I shall be able to make friends for Alice, and I cannot do that here,' she thought; to make a home for her, to give her decent companionship, and to secure a humble but certain future for her when I shall be gone.'

reached Coventry, where Mr. Eliot Foster had asked his friend to secure a lodging for the little party in the first instance.

It had occasionally occurred to Mr. Eliot Foster that there was just the possibility of risk in the proximity of the Burdetts' residence to Lane Cottage. Mrs. Haviland might, in process of time, and the success of her plan for amicable family relations, come to her sister-in-law's house, and might, in her drives or walks, see the child she had banished. Suppose she did, and betrayed herself?' Mr. Eliot Foster thought, and then smiled at himself for conceiving the possibility of Julia's betraying herself. He heard nothing of her directly, and but little indirectly, when Frank Burdett occasionally visited him, intent partly on business and partly on gossip, in which Mr. Burdett, who affected to despise such an occupation immensely when indulged in by women, was an adept. But Frank had never brought him the particular bit of news which he had sometimes fancied might produce a contretemps, and of late he had seen very little of him. The time which had elapsed since Frank Burdett had formed a certain suspicion respecting the former state of Mr. Eliot Foster's affections, to which that wary solicitor was wholly unconscious of having furnished him with a clue, had not been uneventful in the Burdett household. Society, the world, had experienced a heavy loss, for which, strange to say, society and the world did not appear to be wholly inconsolable. A Haviland had departed this life, and it is to be hoped found the other good enough, and sufficiently appreciative. Frank Burdett was a widower - a state of things in which he at first found it very difficult to believe, and to which he afterwards found it unaccountable that he was so easily reconciled. He had uneasy misgivings about himself. Had he been a great brute, a horrid unfeeling fellow, unworthy of any woman, not to say of the incomparable Šelina, all this time, without knowing it? Of course, he was very sorry, and all that; and a widower is a lonely, miserable, poor devil always, even supposing he is not the widower of a Haviland; but still he did get on, he did really, a deuced deal too well, and I ought to be ashamed of myself,' the penitent Frank would admit to himself with remorse, which in its turn was only too I can procure him a sound practical ed- transient, after he had emerged from his seucation, I am told, at Mr. Copson's at Beck-clusion de rigueur, and found things in genthorpe, and he will be only a mile or so eral undeniably pleasant. He was very away from you.' Mrs. Wood did not en- glad when sufficient time had gone over lighten the boy as to the arrangements which after his sad bereavement to set his mind at had been made concerning him, it would rest with regard to the unequivocal cheerbe time enough, she thought, when they fulness of his demeanour, for he really

Mrs. Wood was not destined to know the full importance of the decision at which she arrived, to understand that she had lent a helping hand to the structure Fate was rearing, when she signified to Mr. Eliot Foster that she had made up her mind, and gratefully accepted his offer.

Alice Wood and Henry Hurst entered with the pleasure which any novelty brings to children into the preparations for their departure from the cottage, which was the only home they could remember. They had but an imperfect notion of the approaching separation, and to the boy the idea did not convey anything terrible. The preliminaries were not numerous or complicated. Mr. Eliot Foster signified his approbation of Mrs. Wood's decision, and informed her that he had made inquiries, and found that there was a school of the moderate pretensions to which alone he should aspire for Henry Hurst, in the vicinity of Coventry.

'She does not mind the others much,' said Frank.

'No, she likes to have little Madeline all to herself. And she is a nice child, Frank,' and here Julia smiled significantly, which is odd, considering how much less of a Haviland she is than the others.'

'Isn't it odd?' replied Frank, with a suspicious artlessness; poor Selina said, when the baby was three days old, She's not the least like a Haviland; quite a plain, com

66

could not be doleful. A perfect Macchiavel in the vanished days of his domestic blissit is surprising what a tendency to make one tricky and insincere the household society of very superior people has- Frank Burdett lost the faculty of feigning when Selina was removed,' as the Havilands, who objected to death, and slurred over all mention of it as much as possible, designated the occurrence. That Selina was mourned as much and as long as a Haviland ought to be mourned by Havilands, none but ill-monplace child; in fact, a perfect Burdett." regulated minds could possibly doubt; but they had got it pretty comfortably over before the widower returned from the continental tour which had been unanimously prescribed as the best means, combined with time, to restore him.' The combination had not only restored him, but rendered him a more pleasant fellow' than he had ever been. Whether the security that nothing could restore Selina had anything to do with the happy result, was a question between Frank and his conscience; and he simply did not ask it. Mrs. Burdett had died a few days after the birth of a daughter, and in consequence, some ignorant persons affirmed, of her practical adherence to certain ideas prevalent among the Havilands, and not enforced by the Faculty of Medicine. It's no use talking to her about herself; indeed it's no use,' Frank Burdett had said when the doctor had appealed to him; ‘if you knew what the Havilands are you wouldn't try.'

.

But I do know what the Havilands are,' was the answer; and I really must try.' The rash man did try, and failed. Selina had her own way about her food, her drink, and her sitting-up,' and Selina died; a consistent ending of a consistent life. It's a good thing she did not live another week,' was the mental comment of the doctor; or the child would have gone too.' But the child, a pretty baby, whose name was Madeline, stayed, and found great favour in the sight of Stephen and Julia Haviland, who had not taken much notice of Selina's elder children. When it was decreed that Frank was to go away to foreign climes, and be restored,' the child and her nurse were taken to Meriton, and after his return, as time went on, it became an understood thing that the little Madeline was to remain there. Stephen and I wish it,' Julia had said to Frank, who had never wavered from the allegiance into which she had at first fascinated him; and our mother wishes it. She is very fond of the child, and it grows more and more difficult to amuse and interest her.'

·

'Let us hope she may improve,' said Julia, who longed to ask him how he dared to mention even a dead-and-gone Haviland as poor;' but was restrained by good taste. So, with very few more words, the matter was arranged, and Frank soon began to experience much satisfaction from the sort of vested interest he thus acquired at Meriton. Mesdames Marsh and Fanshaw made many objections to each other to this disposition of dear Selina's precious legacy to them all,' by which .fancy name they designated little Madeline. It is needless to recapitulate these objections, but opportune to remark upon the advantage of belonging to a faultless family. Had they been any but Havilands - Burdetts, for instance- these ladies might have been suspected of regarding the precious legacy with envious eyes, as likely to avert from Marsh and Fanshaw channels an undue proportion of the childless Stephen's considerable and increasing wealth.

Of all these events Mr. Eliot Foster had been made aware, in outline, by Mr. Burdett, and the only point in the narrative upon which he had bestowed much thought was that of Julia Haviland's affection for the child. I don't understand her thoroughly,' he thought; I suppose I never should understand her, or any woman, thoroughly. I should have imagined the very sight of any child would be intolerable to her. It is inexplicable; but I suppose the "liking" she talked about feeling for her rich husband has subsided, and even her vain, strong, selfish nature feels the absolute need of some disinterested human interest in her life; and she has debarred herself from the true and natural one. Yes,' — and Mr. Eliot Foster nodded his head emphatically at the conclusion of the mental pause—that's it, that explains it.'

Only one circumstance worthy of record took place before the removal of Mrs. Wood, Alice, and Henry Hurst from Lane Cottage, and this was the manner of it. The flitting was to take place in the early autumn, and the weather was extremely

'No,' said Julia absently; what children?'

They were close to the inn, just by the hedge- a boy and girl.'

And I showed the little girl my Rosalie,' said Madeline Burdett, hugging her doll.

Pretty children, were they?' said Julia. I did not notice them.'

'Quite lovely,' said Mrs. Fanshaw; really picturesque. It is extraordinary what handsome faces one sometimes sees among insignificant people.'

CHAPTER II.

IN THE CITY OF THE THREE SPIRES.

fine. The children, who had been granted what was passing. Leaning back in her on one occasion, when their absence much carriage, with her accustomed grace, but facilitated the operations of Mrs. Wood, more than her usual listlessness, her dark the boon of a whole holiday,' had set off eyes gazing out upon the horizon, and her to enjoy it in Epping Forest. Early in the hands folded, Julia Haviland had been afternoon their rambles brought them to quite unconscious of the children's presence certain wide, shady cross-roads, branching in her vicinity. As they drove away from off from a smooth, circular village-green, the inn-door, her companion, who was Mrs. on one side of which stood an old-fashioned, Fanshaw, said to her, 'Did you remark prosperous, comfortable coaching' inn. those children's faces ? At the inn-door was a handsome open carriage, at which the children gazed with great delight, attracted particularly by the impatient horses, who tossed their heads, and champed their bits, like Pharaoh at the Red Sea,' as Alice remarked, in reference to the book of Bible pictures whence her chief ideas of art and, indeed, nature were derived. The carriage contained two ladies and a child, and as Henry Hurst and Alice Wood crept into the open space, through a hedge of holm oak, the attention of the elder lady was caught by the little girl's beautiful, pensive face, and the timid, elegant attitude in which she stood, with her straw hat, full of autumnal wild flowers, held loosely in her hand by its broad yellow strings. As the lady looked steadily at THE home in the old city of Coventry in Alice, taking little heed of the sturdy figure which Alice Wood passed the years which and bronzed dark face of the boy by her concluded her childhood, and ushered her side, the child was gazing with wondering into the enchanted realm of girlhood, is but pleasure at a little girl who occupied the little altered since her slight figure and penfront seat of the carriage. She was a beau-sive beautiful face used to be seen by the tiful child, younger by three or four years passers-by, as she moved through the long than Alice, a nut-brown lassie, with care- grass which grows upon the disinterred fully-curled ringlets and rosy cheeks, with ruins of the ancient church of St. John. dark-brown sparkling eyes and animated In an angle of the great square of which countenance, and as she sat swaying herself the church of the Holy Trinity, with its back and forwards, as she feigned to lull to splendid spire, forms one side close by sleep a large wax doll which she held tight- the tranquil, sunny, shady 'God's acre,' ly clasped to the bosom of her richly-em- where the acacia and the yew, the aspen broidered white pelisse, she presented a and the ash, blend into a wonderful combitrue picture, which the other little girl in-nation of form and colour, where the breeze stinctively felt, of happy, prosperous, petted childhood. Their eyes met in a moment, and the brown girl nodded to the fair one, and with a pretty, pardonable triumph, held up her doll. Alice started a step forward, her face glowing, her lips parted; but the boy who had been glowering at the occupants of the carriage with an expression of mingled admiration and envy, pulled her back behind the sheltering hedge, and said angrily, Come away! They're ladies; they don't want us!" The next moment a footman came out of the inn, placed a parcel, for which he had been sent to inquire, in the carriage, and mounted the box; and then the impatient horses carried the ladies and the child rapidly out of sight. During this brief scene, the younger of the two ladies had been wholly unobservant of 420

LIVING AGE.

VOL. X.

and the birds make mysterious ever-sounding music, and every shadow flung upon the grass above the silent sleepers is the reflection of some bit of architecture majestic in beauty and antiquity-still stands the house to which the widow and her child came. A quaint house, with peaks and gables and cloisters stretching out above and behind the ruins of the colossal pillars beneath; a house which harmonizes with the ancient memories of the place, and shares its peaceful, sunny brightness; a house within sight of which is no mean or sordid object, to which the hum and stir of common life come rarely and remotely, into whose walls are built the cunningly-sculptured stones of the ancient dwelling of the great Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, whose turret-chambers are fash