Mr. Baumgarten's remembrance. Not the words; they would ever be remembered; but he attached no more importance to them, than he had done when they were spoken. The Countess came in, and Lady Grace found that his visits were to be frequent.

and a live earl for a brother, was not, of course, a light whose beams could be hid under a bushel, the more particularly as the live earl was in the cabinet. It therefore surprised nobody that when the excellent old Bishop of Barkaway was gathered to his fathers, Mr. Elliot should be Did she rebel, or did she rejoice? O promoted to his vacant shoes. The good reader! if you have loved as she did, pas- bishop's life had been prolonged to the sionately, powerfully, you need not ask. patriarchal age of ninety, but for the last The very presence of one so beloved, is twenty years of it he had been next to as the morning light: dead and drear is incapable, therefore the see of Barkaway his absence as the darkest midnight, but hugged itself as being in luck, on the at his coming it is as if the bright day principle that any change must be for the opened. So had she felt when with Mr. best. Great Whitton, on the contrary, Baumgarten; so did she feel now; al- hugged itself in like manner on the same though he had belonged to another. principle, for the Honorable and Reverend-to speak mildly-had not been popular. The Earl of Avon, as luck, or the opposite, would have it, was on a few days' visit to his mother when Mr. Elliot received his miter.

From that day they saw a great deal of each other, and in the quiet intercourse of social life of invalid life, it may be said, for Lady Avon's ill-health was confirmed-grew more intimate than they had ever been. Lady Grace strove to arm herself against him: she called up pride, anger, and many other adjuncts, false, as they were vain, for the heart is ever true to itself, and will be heard. It ended in her struggling no longer in her giving herself up, once more, to the bliss of loving him, unchecked.

Did he give himself up to the same, by way of reciprocity? Not of loving her: no, it had not come to it: but he did yield to the charm of liking her, of finding pleasure in her society, of wishing to be more frequently at Avon House. He had loved his wife, but she was dead and buried, and there are very few men indeed who remain constant in heart to a dead love, especially if she has been his wife. The manners of Lady Grace possessed naturally great fascination: what then must they not have been, when in intercourse with him she idolized? She was more quiet than formerly, more confidential, more subdued; it was a change as if she had gone through sorrow, and precisely what was likely to tell upon the heart of Mr. Baumgarten. But there was no acting now in Lady Grace; she was not striving to gain him, as she had once done: she simply gave herself up to the ecstatic dream she was indulging, and let results take their chance. Mr. Baumgarten may be forgiven if he also began to feel that existence might yet be made into something pleasant as a dream.

The Honorable and Reverend Wilfred Elliot, claiming a dead earl for a father

"Don't put such another as Elliot into Great Whitton, Henry," observed the Countess to her son,." or we shall have the parish up in arms."

"What was the matter with Elliot ?" drawled the earl, lighting a cigar. "Didn't he please them ?"

Please them! He made every soul in the parish, laborers and all, attend daily service in the church between eight and nine, allowing them ten minutes for breakfast and fifty for prayers; and he has dressed the school in scarlet cloaks, with a large white linen cross sewn down the back; and there are eight-and-thirty pairs of candlesticks displayed in the church; besides other innovations, which country parishes don't understand, and don't care to take to. One thing has been made a great grievance of: the poor could not comprehend, or could not recollect, to turn which way he wanted them at the Belief, so he planted some men in white behind the poor benches every Sunday, with long wands, and the moment the Belief began, down came the wands, rapping on the heads of the refractory ones. You have no idea of the commotion it used to cause."

The earl burst into a laugh. "I'd have come down for a Sunday had I known there was that sort of fun going on. The girls must take care the bulls don't run at the scarlet. Did you get up to attend the early service ?"

"Not I. I can say my prayers more quietly at home, Henry. He did not

WEDDING-RING.