paused for a moment with a little start, for at the far end, looking towards him, but a little upward, with the faint reflected glow that entered through the tall row of windows, on the side of his face and figure, stood the handsome young man of whom he was in pursuit.

The baronet being himself only a step or two from the screw stairs, and still under the shadow of the overhanging arch in the corner, the stranger saw nothing of him, and to announce his approach, though not much of a musician, he hummed a bar or two briskly as he entered, and marched across and about as if thinking of nothing but architecture or the picturesque.

"Charming ruin this, sir," exclaimed he, raising his hat, so soon as he had approached the stranger sufficiently near to make the address natural. "Although I'm a resident of this country, I'm ashamed to say I have never seen it before."

The young man raised his hat too, and bowed with a ceremonious grace, which, as well as his accent, had something of the foreigner in it.

"While I, though a stranger, have been unable to resist its fascination, and have already visited it three times. You have reason to be proud

of your country, sir, it is full of beauties."

The stranger's sweet, but peculiar, voice thrilled the baronet with a recollection as vivid and detested. In fact this well-seasoned man of the world was so much shocked that he answered only with a bow, and cleared his voice, and chuckled after his fashion, but all the time felt a chill creeping over his back.

There was a broad bar of a foggy red light falling through the ivy-girt window, but the young man happened to stand at that moment in the shadow beside it, and when the baronet's quick glance, instead of detecting some reassuring distinction of feature or expression, encountered only the ambiguous and obscure, he recoiled inwardly as from something abominable.

"Beautiful effect--beautiful sky!" exclaimed Sir Jekyl, not knowing very well what he was saying, and waving his cane upwards towards the fading tints of the sky.

The stranger emerged from his shadow, and stood beside him, and such light as there was fell full upon his features, and as the baronet beheld he felt as if he were in a dream.

IN fact Sir Jekyl would have been puzzled to know exactly what to say next, so odd were his sensations, and his mind so pre-occupied with a chain of extremely uncomfortable conjecture, had not the handsome young gentleman who stood beside him at the gaping window with its melancholy fringe of ivy, said

"I have often tried to analyse the peculiar interest of ruins like these-the mixture of melancholy and curiosity. I have seen very many monasteries abroad-perhaps as old as this, even older-still peopled with their monks, with very little interest indeed, and no sympathy; and yet here I feel a yearning after the bygone age of English monasticism, an anxiety to learn all about their ways and doings, and a sort of reverence and sadness I can't account for, un

less it be an expression of that profound sympathy which mortals feel with every expression of decay and dissolution."

The baronet fancied that he saw a lurking smile in the young man's face, and recoiled from psychologic talk about mortality.

"I dare say you're right, sir, but I am the worst metaphysician in the world."

He thought the young man smiled again.

"In your liking for the picturesque, however, I quite go with you. Do you intend extending your tour to Wales and Scotland ?"

"I can hardly call this little excursion a tour. The fact is my curiosity is pretty much limited to this country; there are old reasons which make me feel a very particu

lar interest in it," said the young man, with a very pointed carelessness and a smile, which caused the baronet inwardly to wince.

"I should be very happy," said Sir Jekyl, “if you would take Marlowe in your way; there are some pictures there, as well as some views you might like to see. I am Sir Jekyl Marlowe, and own two or three places in this county, which are thought pretty-and, may I give you my card?"

The snowy parallelogram was here presented and accepted with a mutual bow. The stranger was smiling oddly as Sir Jekyl introduced himself, with an expression which he fancied he could read in spite of the dark, as imp'ying "rather old news you tell

e.

"And and what was I going to say?-oh! yes--if I can be of any use to you in procuring access to any house or place you wish to see, I shall be very happy. You are at present staying at my occasional quarters, the “Plough." I'm afraid yuli think me very impertinent and intrusive; but I should like to be ade to mention your name to some of my friends, who don't usually allow strangers to see their places."

This was more like American than English poleness; but the baronet was de temned to know all about the stranger, commencing with his rime, and the laws of good breeding, though, he knew them very well, were not 1 key to stand long in his ad made up as m.nd

to a

.

My ne as Guy Strangways,"

** () TO i's very odd "" exe'aimed the hat re, in a stap sani, quite 11 kehispevious Tuk I think the

distance between them was a 'tie

pere sed, and he was looking with a cat ged e un ferat e, askatze up n tley ng gentleman, who made à m avvw fore gn bow.

There was a slence, and just then a deep miela 1.0 voice from below cu ei, “ Gny - too “

"Lxus me just a moment," and the young man was gone.

"He be back," muttered Sir Jekvi, “in a minute.”

bat the taponet was mistaken. He wited at tteon window, whisthug cat ng twilight,

till the edges of the ivy began to glitter in the moonbeams, and the bats to trace their zig zag lines in the air; and at last he gave over expecting.

He looked back into the gloomy void of that great chamber, and listened, and felt rather angry at his queer sensations. He had not turned about when the stranger withdrew, and did not know the process of his vanishing, and for the first time it struck him, "who the plague could the fellow who called him be!"

On the whole he wished himself away, and he lighted a cigar for the sake of its vulgar associations, and made his way out of the ruins, and swiftly through darkened fields toward the Old London-road; and was more comfortable than he cared to say, when he stepped through the porch into the open hall of the

Plough," and stopped before the light at the bar, to ask his hostess once more, quite in his old way, whether Mr. Stiangways had returned.

"No, not yet; always uncertain; his dinner mostly overdone. "His he a friend with him ?" "Yes, sir, sure."

"And what is he like " "Older man, Sir Jekyl, a long way than young Mr. Guy Strangways, but some relation I do think.

"When do they leave you ?” "To-morrow evening, with a chaise and pair for Aukworth."

"Aukworth why, that's another of my properties -ha, ha, ha, by Jove! Does he know the abbey here is mine ?"

"I rayther think not, Sir Jekvl. Wou'd you please to wish dinner {*

“To be wie, you dear little quiz, dinter by all means; and let them get my horses to, in half an hour; and of Mr. St angways should return before I go, I dike to see him, and dint fan to let me know-do ye see t

Dinner came and went, but Mr. Strangways did not retu n, which rather vexed Sir Jekyl, who, however, left his card for that gentleman, together with an extremely poute note, which he wrote at the bar with his hat on, inviting him and his companion to Marlowe, where he would bat home any time for the next two months, and trusted they would give him a week before they left the country.

It was now dark, and Sir Jekyl loitered under the lamplight of his chaise for a while, in the hope that Mr. Strangways would turn up. But he did not; and the baronet jumped into the vehicle, which was forthwith in motion.

He sat in the corner, with one foot on the cushion, and lighted a cigar. His chuckling was all over, and his quizzing, for the present. Mrs. Jones had not a notion that he was in the least uneasy, or on any but hospitable thoughts intent. But any one who now looked in his face would have seen at a glance how suddenly it had become overcast with black care.

"Guy Strangways!" he thought; "those two names, and his wonderful likeness! Prowling about this county! Why this more than another? He seemed to take a triumphant pleasure in telling me of his special fancy for this county. And his voice-a tenor they call it-I hate that sweet sort of voice. Those d singing fellows. I dare say he sings. They never do a bit of good. It's very odd. It's the same voice. I forgot that odd silvery sound. The same, by Jove! I'll come to the bottom of the whole thing. D- me, I will !"

Then the Baronet puffed away fast and earnestly at his cigar, and then lighted another, and after that a third. They steadied him, I dare say, and helped to oil the mechanism of thought. But he had not recovered his wonted cheer of mind when the chaise drew up at a pair of time-worn fluted piers, with the gable of an oldfashioned dwelling-house overlooking the road at one side. An iron gate admitted to a court-yard, and the hall door of the old gray house was opened by an old-fashioned footman with some flower on the top of his head. Sir Jekyl jumped down.

"Your mistress quite well, hey? My daughter ready" inquired the baronet. "Where are they? No, I'll not go up, thank you; I'll stay here," and he entered the parlour. "And, do you see, you just go up and ask your mistress if she wishes to see

me.

By this time Sir Jekyl was poking up the fire and frowning down on the bars, with the flickering glare shooting over his face.

"Can the old woman have any

thing to do with it?" Pooh! no. I'd like to see her. But who knows what sort of a temper she's in?"

As he thus ruminated, the domestic with the old-fashioned livery and flowered head returned to say that his mistress would be happy to see him.

The servant conducted him up a broad stair with a great oak banister, and opening a drawingroom door, announced

"Sir Jekyl Marlowe."

He was instantly in the room, and a tall, thin old lady, with a sad and stately mien, rose up to greet him.

"How is little mamma ?" cried the baronet, with his old chuckle. "An age since we met, hey? How well you look!"

The old lady gave her thin mittened hand to her son-in-law, and looked a grim and dubious sort of welcome upon him.

"Yes, Jekyl, an age; and only that Beatrix is here, I suppose another age would have passed without my seeing you. And an old woman at my years has not many ages between her and the grave."

The old lady spoke not playfully, but sternly, like one who had suffered long and horribly, and who associated her sufferings with her visiter; and in her oblique glance was something of profound antipathy.

66

Egad! you're younger than I, though you count more years. You live by clock and rule, and you show it.

You're as fresh as that bunch of flowers there; while I am literally knocking myself to pieces—and I know it-by late hours, and all sorts of nonsense. So you must not be coming the old woman over me, you know, unless you want to frighten me. And how is Beatrix? How do, Beatrix? All ready, I see. Good child."

Beatrix at this moment was entering. She was tail and slightly formed, with large dark eyes, hair of soft shadowy black, and those tints of pure white and rich clear blush, scarlet lips, and pearly teeth, and long eyelashes, which are so beautiful in contrast and in harmony. She had the prettiest little white nose, and her face was formed in that decided oval which so heightens the charm of the features. She was not a tragic heroine. Her smile was girlish and natural-and the little ring of pearls

"You know I don't like it," she repeated.

In that case you need not have told me," he said.

"I choose to tell you. I'll say so as often as I see you-as often as I like."

It was an odd conference-back to back-the old lady stiff and highstaring pale and grimly at the opposite wall. The baronet looking with a quizzical smile on his handsome face in the mirror—now plucking at a whisker-now poking at a curl with his finger-tip-and now in the same light way arranging the silken fall of his neck-tie.

"There's nothing my dear little mamma can say, I'll not listen to with pleasure."

"There is much I might say you could not listen to with pleasure." The cold was growing more intense, and bitter in tone and emphasis, as she addressed the Italian picture of Adonis and his two dogs hanging on the distant wall.

"Well, with respect, not with pleasure-no," said he, and tapped his white upper teeth with the nail of his middle finger.

"Assuming then that you speak truth, it is high time Jekyl Marlowe that you should alter your courses— here's your daughter, just come out. It is ridiculous, your affecting the vices of youth. Make up as you will -you're past the middle age-you're an elderly man now."

"You can't vex me that way, you dear old mamma," he said with a chuckle, which looked for the first time a little vicious in the glass. "We baronets you know are all booked, and all the world can read our ages; but you women manage better---you and your two dear sisters, Winifred and Georgiana."

"They are dead," interrupted Lady Alice, with more asperity than pathos.

"Yes, I know, poor old souls-to be sure, peers' daughters die like other people, I'm afraid."

"And when they do, are mentioned, if not with sorrow, at least with decent respect, by persons, that is, who know how to behave themselves."

There was a slight quiver in Lady Alice's lofty tone that pleased Sir Jekyl, as you might have remarked had you looked over his shoulder into the glass.

Well, you know, I was speaking not of deaths but births, and only going to say if you look in the peerage you'll find all the men, poor devils, pinned to their birth-days, and the women left at large, to exercise their veracity on the point; but you need not care-you have not pretended to youth for the last ten years I think." "You are excessively impertinent, sir."

I know it," answered Sir Jekyl, with a jubilant chuckle.

A very little more, the baronet knew, and Lady Alice Redcliffe would have risen gray and grim, and sailed out of the room. Their partings were often after this sort.

But he did not wish matters to go quite that length at present. So he said, in a sprightly way, as if a sudden thought had struck him,

"By Jove, I believe I am devilish impertinent, without knowing it though-and you have forgiven me so often, I'm sure you will once more, and I am really so much obliged for your kindness to Beatrix. I am, indeed."

it.

So he took her hand, and kissed

I think it an arrangement that had better be dispensed with. I don't think him an eligible acquaintance for Beatrix, and you know very well she's not-and it is not a respectable or creditable kind of thing."

Now, what d-d fool. I beg pardon-but who the plague has been filling your mind with those ridi