but still active grandfather. From Bexhill-famous for its longevity, its ancestral walnut-trees, and its new-laid eggs-we were coming; we had passed the Bull's Head, and were nearing Bopeep-cela va sans dire. I looked around and marked the glory of the midsummer evening. The everlasting space was one clear dome of sapphire; and the sun, glinting on the dark ultramarine of the sea, shot the tiny ripples that kissed the shore with streaks of gold, even as that great orb of lapis lazuli is streaked in the Gesù Church at Rome. But the ocean was in the remote background; inland was a distance of green hills with purple shadows; fair fields soon to be made golden with the corn; trim cottages and homesteads, and clumps of trees. The birds in squadrons, in platoons, with their music playing tunes,' were scurrying hither and thither, bent on some bird's business-God knows of what nature!-but less mischievous, I daresay, than the business' we are so very fond of transacting in the City.' But close by, on either side, the high-road winding between, there stretched a great down, and feeding there like one were forty times forty sheep. Many hundreds of these inveterate gourmands of green meat, their innocent noses prone to the herbage-how is it that cows and sheep do not seem to suffer from determination of blood to the head?-and munching away as though there were no such thing as a Dead-Meat Market in the world. And we?-do we never munch, and munch, and munch, quite oblivious (and mercifully so) of the close propinquity of the Brompton Cemetery? I bade the driver halt, and filled myself with the pleasant sight. I sat up and drank-in the jovial view, and the warmth of it ran through my veins, and rang triple bob-majors in the walks of my heart, as though it had been a bumper of Chambertin. I noticed how the wary old sheep sought out the most toothsome bits of salad, leaving the coarser grass for young and inexperienced muttons. I noticed how, wherever there was a fragment of rock cropping up on the down, some inquisitive young lamb would trot up to its summit, sniffing about him in a vainglorious manner, and ba-aing in a reprehensible tone of self-consciousness. Ah, young lamb! you had much better be down yonder, with your mamma, cropping the tit-bits and tender shoots on the patches of the down she knows so well. Be not too forward, young sir; don't advertise yourself so noisily; else may the butcher be prompt in singling you out as being just the plump juicy youngster to be promoted into forequarter and cutlets. Gather your rosebuds while you may, O lambkin! Time is still a-flying, and the advent of green peas cannot much longer be delayed. Full of such reveries as these, I suddenly became aware of Bopeep. It was not Bopeep the Great, the Hotel, the Pirate, or the Smuggler of my puzzled musings, but a fat little girl of about nine, with ribstone-pippin cheeks and big blue eyes and flaxen hair; who was clad in a flowery cotton-print frock, a checked pinafore, and a straw bonnet; and who bore in her hand-in both hands, for it was somewhat heavy-a yellow earthenware basin partially concealed by the blue-cotton handkerchief in which it was tied. This fardel she placed very carefully on the corduroy-covered knees of the ancient shepherd who was guarding the mighty flock, and who really looked very pastoral indeed; for his beard was abundant and snowy white, and his gaberdine-a slop' it is less picturesquely termed-was clean, and hung about him in not ungraceful folds. The big brown shepherd's dog behind him, who had been keeping a sharp look-out for the over-frisky lambkins, was evidently on familiar terms with the chubby little maiden in the pinafore, and by the manner he licked his honest chops and wagged his uncombed but not unbecoming tail, I inferred that he knew what there was for tea, and that he was glad-as much on his own account as on his patron's. I saw it all at a glance. The puzzle was cleared up. The mystery was revealed. The child was Little Bopeep. Bopeep the Great, her papa, was the rich Numantius, abundant in flocks and herds, a shepherd king, who from a nomad had taken to a sedentary life, and lived in the mansion hard by. No hotel, nor inn, nor 'public' kept he, but happening to be an excellent judge of wines, spirits, and malt liquors (as Monsieur Jourdain was a judge of cloth), he made a large collection of those articles and distributed them among his friends, who were so pleased with his liberality, that they persisted in presenting him with testimonials taking the form of the current coin of the realm. As for Little Bopeep, she was no longer a shepherdess, having had, once upon a time, the misfortune to lose her sheep; and, although the animals all came safely home, carrying their tails behind them, the mishap made her parents nervous, and thenceforth she was only permitted to carry out to the shepherds their dinners and their teas. Basta! I must make an end of fooling. Carry me back, flyman, past Bopeep and into the world again. The fancies are all fled away, and I must puzzle myself with sterner problems now. STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS BY THE AUTHOR OF LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET,' ETC. Book the Third. CHAPTER XV. 'Look on me! There is an order Of mortals on the earth, who do become More than are number'd in the lists of Fate, ELIZABETH was better. The time had come when she could shape her thoughts into words; when Dr. Cameron's kind face, smiling gently at her, had become something more than a picture; when it had ceased also to recall to her first one person, then another, faintly remembered among the hazy crowd of former acquaintance, the people she had known in the Park-lane period of her life. The time had come at last when she knew him as her custodian; though why he should be so, she knew not, nor yet the meaning of her imprisonment. But he seemed to her a person in authority, and to him she appealed against her nurses, telling him that they had been cruel to her, more cruel than words could speak, especially her words, poor soul! which came tremulously from the pale lips, and were apt to shape disjointed phrases. The nurses strenuously denied the truth of this accusation; whereupon Dr. Cameron gently shook his head, as who should say, 'Poor soul, poor soul! we know how much significance to attach to her complaints; but we may as well humour her.' So Nurse Barber and Nurse Lucas were passed on to another patient in the preliminary and violent stage, and Lady Paulyn was now so fortunate as to be committed to the care of a soft-hearted low-voiced little woman, who had none of the vices of the Gamp sisterhood. This change, and a change in her apartments to rooms with a southern aspect, looking out upon a flower-garden, produced a favourable effect. The patient began to sleep a little at night, awoke from wild dreams of the past, recognised the blank lonely present, and knew that she was severed from all she had ever loved; knew that her dead were verily dead, and |