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I did not see these strangers, save, indeed, for the glitter of their carriage on a distant mountain road; but the old women often talked pitifully of the restless-looking man who had strolled into their cottage, and, with a harsh laugh, had written the words, and of the pretty young lady with out in the carriage. I remember the rosy urchin who indited, just below, as though in defiance of any such sentiment :

"I've gotten a bonnie bawbee. I'll buy a deevil on a stick wi' 't."

Old Annie lived to a great age, long surviving her sister, and some years after her sister's death became the prey to strange fancies, which had something of weirdness and poetry in them, painful as they were. She insisted that on windy nights a "little mannie" came and sat on her doorstep and howled there. She lived in nervous dread lest, in spite of her barricades, he should "win in"; and would come sobbing over to us, in the cold winter dawn, to say he had been there all night. It was terribly sad-our poor old friend. Of course, everything that could be done was done; but the "little mannie was the outcome of a diseased imagination, and it all ended in a severe illness, as might have been expected. On recovery she went to live with relations at the seaside, where I am afraid she was not very happy.

It seems hardly right to call it a diversion, it certainly was not that, properly so-called; but my thoughts often revert to the extraordinary Church of England service held regularly, on Sunday afternoons, by two of my young brothers. They were very pretty boys-one about fifteen, the other rather younger-and most devout churchmen. The service was held in an attic, and was generally well attended by our own servants and a shifting congregation of outsiders. If my brothers' motive had been anything but the most lofty, the proceedings would certainly not have been by me here recorded; but the service in the Red Attic, as we called it, was started as a sort of mission, and never were more earnest missioners than my two brothers. People got into the way of coming to this service as to any other, and there was the utmost decorum of demeanour in the congregation, though, to tell the truth, how everybody kept their gravity I cannot understand. I am afraid we could none of us have had a very keen sense of the ludicrous. To begin with, whether from a deep-rooted conviction of the importance

of ceremonial, or because in spite of their single-hearted devotion they were still boys, I cannot say, but ours was not what could be called a plain service; and then we dealt in no small fry in the Red Attic curates and such like. My youngest brother was dean of an adjacent cathedral (supposed), and the elder was no less a person than a bishop. On ordinary occasions their vestments were comparatively plain, but on feast days the diminutive proportions of the chapel could hardly contain their combined finery; and when the bishop got into his pulpit, his golden mitre seemed to lose itself amidst the spiders' webs of the attic roof. The bishop was an extraordinarily, almost phenomenally clever boy, and I remember portions of his sermons to this day. I have heard many other bishops preach since some of them better, some most certainly worse. At these services I was a regular attendant, and I used to sit beside an old sewingmaid of ours-an angular, red-nosed old Scotchwoman-to whom, I do think, they formed a delightful salve of the conscience. Anyhow, she went to no other church, and she led the responses-not always quite correctly-in a terribly austere voice which might have been heard downstairs. But when I say that none of us had any sense of the ludicrous I think I must except her, though, to be sure, she only let it get the better of her once. I had indeed seen a smile play on her features sometimes, when the young bishop grew more particularly denunciatory of the wickedness of this wicked world-the afternoon sunlight falling dimly through the skylight on his curly head. But there was a pathos in that smile; she was a woman who had seen much, which even I could detect. She was certainly very far removed from the ill-timed merriment of the instance to which I allude. It was the afternoon of Easter, and it seemed to one, at least, of the congregation that the clergy were unusually long in making their appearance. There was a sound of a violent tugging, mingled with a confused rustle from the vestry; and sometimes voices—one could have declared those of my brothers in altercation-drifted to us. Old Rosamond awakened from the brown study into which she, as was her wont, had fallen, her eyes fastened blankly on the just then empty pulpit—a wonderful erection of old boxes, a flight of steps, and red cloth, and a shade of thought, not to say uneasiness, crept into her seared countenance. But just then the voice of the

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bishop, chanting, recalled us, and we all arose. The dean led the way, perhaps a trifle more flushed and less angelic of expression than usual, but in great grandeur of apparel; and just behind him, ten times more solemn than ever, there came, wobbling and undulating, the bishop, with my grand aunt's long purple satin on, all her hoops pinned into a bunch at the back under a flowing surplice. On the moment the frantic tugs, the altercation, all became clear; and with one loud guffaw the old woman beside me burst into a roar of laughter. I am sorry to say the dean instantly became convulsed with mirth, and that the congregation, thus incited, laughed vociferously in a body. Then awful, unspeakable was the fury of that bishop! But let me draw a veil over the harrowing details. Poor old Rosamond She completely lost her prestige with the bishop; but I never blamed her. I suppose the idea of a boy-bishop in a crinoline, denouncing the depravity of human nature, was too much for her.

We really were the most restless people, inventing an infinite variety of odd diversions; but I do not think I shall ever forget the time when the bishop, grown into a young man, came home on vacation from Oxford, determined that we should play "Hamlet" as adapted and arranged by himself. I was still a very small girl; but I was Ophelia, as I well remember, with pages on pages to learn, full of what seemed to me very long words and mystic meanings. The rest of the children were likewise favoured; but we had all retentive memories and worked with hearty goodwill; and Hamlet and the Queen-our very lovely young governess-did their best to aid us. We were short of actors and had to make a raid into the midst of the nations, and he of the soldiers allowed himself to be persuaded, and followed us to the green room with the same patient smile on his face which it was wont to wear when conscience prompted us to send him off of a morning to an adjacent school.

So far as I remember, Hamlet and the Queen took the greater part of the story of the play upon themselves. They had colossal rôles, which did not, however, I venture to assert, weigh too heavily upon them. Indeed, there could be no manner of doubt about it that Hamlet and the Queen were just then very happy. Passing sweet was the sparkle of the Queen's dark eyes as she bent over the embroidery of

Hamlet's robes, and assiduous to breathlessness was Hamlet in supplying her with the tinsel beads and other gewgaws required for her labours.

With what I think my second brother was justified in calling our usual infinite cheek, we invited everybody we could think of within hail to witness the performance; and then we erected a mag nificent stage in the back drawing-room.

When the fateful evening arrived the big front drawing-room was packed to suffocation, for everybody came, even to the well-known London critic who happened to be staying in the neighbourhood, and as to the advisability of inviting whom my second brother-to do his modesty justice-had raised a question. But the rest of us were all so delighted that anybody "worth asking" happened to be near, that he had not demurred long. Then the play began, and I am safe to say no critic ever enjoyed himself more. He laughed till he cried, and then began to laugh again, all throughout the evening, and I think not altogether derisively after all, a young man who held a studentship at Christ Church could hardly have produced anything totally inane-but simply because he was so intensely, unspeakably well entertained. Of course we all doubtless acted splendidly-we afterwards agreed we had

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but there were necessarily a few hitches, such as when he of the soldiers, instead of demanding, "What! has that villain jilted you?" remarked, in pleasant conversational tones, "So that villain has jolted you, has he!" And when Hamlet frantically adjured the Queen to cease wringing of her hands when she wasn't dreaming of beginning to, but stood staring blankly up at him with her big, soft eyes, plainly beside herself with consternation to know what on earth came next.

That the tragic end was realistic to a degree, and that it shocked some people, I well remember. The lady friend officiating at the piano made us actors furious by refusing point - blank to play the Dead March in "Saul." It must have been very awful. I heard one lady-I could point her out to this day-whisper to another, in a horrified sort of way, that something in the comedy line would have been so much better, which is a proof what long ears little pitchers have and how dangerous they may be.

But the critic was profuse in his compliments, and assured us, with all appearance of sincerity as he wiped his moistened

forehead, that it was one of the most remarkable performances on record. He haunted our house like its shadow for weeks afterwards, in a way that was a striking tribute to genius. And one afternoon I found him-I am sure I never told tales till now seated on a stile singing, "Green grow the rashes, O," like any mavis-if a mavis can so sing and with the pretty governess beside him. Heigh ho!

A WOMAN OF THIRTY.

A STORY IN FOUR CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I. "WHEN a woman has reached the age of thirty there is nothing left for her but to be good. I am going to make clothes for the poor. Hand me down that roll of flannel, Rachel; I mean to begin at once." "It won't suit you, Sylvia. You are not at all that style, and the curates here are not worth sacrificing oneself for in that way. You will only waste good material, and no one will think any the better of you for it."

"My dear child, arguments are useless. I mean to lead a philanthropic life in the future. I repent deeply all the gaieties and frivolities of my youth. If I had a large fortune left me now now, this minute, Rachel-I should found an almshouse, or an orphanage, or something. I tell you I never felt so good in my life." "And what about the dance next week? Shall you abjure the world for ever? "

"I may have one more fling before I make all these petticoats," said Sylvia, frowning at the scarlet roll before her.

"Well, if it will be any comfort to you, you needn't despair yet. I heard George Brett say yesterday that you were the prettiest girl in the place."

"The angel! Did he, though? I always thought him rather an outsider before, but now I shall be very nice to him. But then, he doesn't know I'm thirty, Rachel." "If it will be any comfort to you, my dear," began Rachel again, soothingly if monotonously, "I read the other day that women of thirty were all the fashion, and that girls of twenty were quite out of it -considered to be simple, childish little things, in fact, whose acquaintance it wasn't worth while cultivating."

"That was written by a person of forty, then, my dear," said Sylvia, in a convinced tone. "Take my word for it, Rachel, all women ought to be young and beautiful;

if they are not they don't marry-and sometimes they don't marry if they are witness myself! I am a failure, Rachel, dear."

"You have jilted four men," said Rachel, biting off a thread, "I don't wonder it weighs upon you sometimes. This fit of virtue is only fleeting. I shall wait with patience for the fifth to turn up."

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"No. He will never turn up. I shall never marry," said Sylvia sentimentally. "I really was very fond of Jim Leslie, Rachel. He was a goose to take me at my word.' She was silent for a minute, and then "To began to flourish her scissors again. tell you the bonest truth, Rachel, I mean to make a dead set at the new Rector, and if I like him well enough I shall marry him, and settle down among you, and make clothes for the poor every day of my life-and soup," added Sylvia, as an afterthought, waving her scissors again. "How nice it all sounds!"

"How do you know anything about the new Rector? He may be married."

"But he is not, praised be Providence, which sent him down here especially for me."

"You are horribly flippant, Sylvia, really I do wonder what will become of ! you eventually. You are a curious compound."

"I wonder, too," said Sylvia, with entirely impersonal curiosity; "but on the whole I think it will be the new Rector, Rachel. I suppose I had better part my hair. They always like that sort of thing. It looks less frivolous and flirty," she added, ruffling up her pretty fair curls with an absent hand.

"Do as you like, my dear. I shall enjoy seeing you in a new character. But in the meantime I am going home."

"You are going to do no such thing. Papa has been in town all day and will come home in a vile temper to dinner, I know. I want you to soothe him."

"And tell him about your plans?" asked Rachel, subsiding into the chair again in token of having accepted the invitation.

"If you like. Papa would be delighted to get me off. Colonel Lennox is not at all the sort of man to care to have a spinster daughter of uncertain age sitting in his pocket all day long. Whenever he is angrier than usual with me he always says:

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'Your poor dear mother married me when she was only seventeen, Sylvia. I

cannot think how it is you have managed so badly.'"

duties were too pressing to admit of his joining in any festivities. Canting, dogmatical prig!"

Sylvia sighed. It was quite possible that the Rector had heard something to Colonel Lennox's disadvantage, and was determined to repudiate at the outset any advances that he might make.

She spoke in a laughing voice, but the tears were very near her eyes. She and her widowed father, struggling along together on an elegantly small income, were about as badly assorted a couple as could be found. Handsome, selfish, and careless, Colonel Lennox never gave a thought to his motherless daughter, except to anathe-Colonel took his hat and escorted her matise her slowness in "getting off."

"It's a most astonishing thing," he had said one day to a friend, "but though Sylvia's a deuced pretty girl and gets on with the men uncommonly well, she always manages to hang fire at the last. What she found to quarrel about with Jim Leslie, I can't imagine. 'Pon my soul, it's very hard on me to have her hanging about, getting older every day." And the juvenile-looking Colonel twisted his black moustache and looked fierce.

He was all politeness and amiability that night, however, in Rachel's presence. As his daughter had once said, somewhat bitterly, he was always pleased to see any woman except herself.

He affably followed them into the drawing-room after dinner instead of lingering over his wine, and made himself very agreeable to Rachel Desmond.

"By-the-bye, Sylvia," he said, when a pause had occurred in the conversation, "I saw the Rector to-day. Travelled down with him, in fact.”

Rachel shot a glance at her friend, and Sylvia smiled.

"Is he likely to be an addition to Carleton society, papa?" she asked.

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"He's rich enough to do anything he likes," returned her father tersely; but he struck me as being very heavy." "That means that he talked about politics, I suppose, and didn't know the name of the last horse that won the Derby," said Sylvia cuttingly. She remembered that her father had once described Jim Leslie as "heavy." They did not agree upon many points, this father and daughter.

66 Oh, it wasn't only that, though of course the man showed himself completely ignorant of the simplest details of sporting life. That was only to be expected, for all parsons were made so, I suppose. But he hardly talked at all. I couldn't draw him out on any subject," said the Colonel, his pent-up disgust bursting forth. "And when I said I hoped we should see him to dinner sometimes, he said that his parish

Presently Rachel rose to go, and the

home.

"Don't go to bed till I come back, Sylvia," he said carelessly as he opened the door for his guest, "I have something to tell you."

Sylvia's heart sank. During the years that she had managed her father's household, this formula was only too well known to her. It meant that the Colonel had been getting into debt again.

"I am only a burden to him," she thought bitterly; "it is indeed time I found a home for myself elsewhere. Perhaps my jest to Rachel may come true, and I shall really be obliged to set my cap at the canting, dogmatical prig' my father met this afternoon ! Faugh! I wonder how it is that Providence allows us to spoil our foolish little lives so?"

She stood at the window looking out into the dark. It was late October, and the rustling of the dry leaves fluttering down from the lean trees and the wailing of the wind made her shudder.

"I wonder how much he owes, and however we shall manage to pay it," she thought. "I have cut down every expense that I can, except my dress, and he always insists upon my being decently clothed. I am one of his many speculations, and not the only one that has turned out a complete failure."

She went to the piano and played softly to herself till she heard her father's key in the door. Then she sprang hastily up and lighted the gas. The Colonel disliked a dismal room.

"What have you been sitting all by yourself in the dark for, Sylvia ?" he asked as he came in.

"I like it, papa, and I would rather play from memory.'

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He fidgeted about for a few moments, and then came nearer to her and placed one of his aristocratic white hands affectionately on her shoulder. He was always affectionate when he was about to tell her something disagreeable. Sylvia had had experience of this fatherly demonstration before, and shrank slightly away from him.

"What is it, papa?" she asked coldly. "You said you had something to tell me." Again the Colonel fidgeted and hesitated until Sylvia's proud, grey eyes grew scornful.

"It is nothing at all unpleasant, my dear-quite the reverse, in fact."

"I am very glad to hear it, papa. seldom get good news nowadays."

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"Aren't you very lonely sometimes when I am away all day, my dear?" asked the Colonel, with some apparent irrelevance. "Not at all. I can always go and see Rachel if I feel bored."

"But Rachel does not live in the house, and cannot therefore be much of a companion to you. You must have many lonely moments, my love, when you would be glad of-er-company?"

Sylvia's eyes were terrified now instead of being scornful. What new folly was her father about to commit?

"Very little," said Sylvia bitterly. "I am sorry you take what I meant should be a pleasant piece of news in such a-in such a spirit, in fact," said the Colonel, unable to find the adjective he wanted in his flurry, and therefore leaving it out altogether. "Anything that adds to my happiness ought to add to yours."

Sylvia was silent for a minute. Then she said in a harsh voice:

"How old is she?"

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Quite young," said the Colonel, with a simper; "barely twenty, in fact. She has means," he added, casting down his eyes.

Never before had Sylvia Lennox despised her father as she did now. And she despised his future bride with almost equal heartiness. What kind of a girl could she be, who, possessing youth, money, and beauty, could marry this broken-down Colonel, aged fifty-five, with his padded military figure and obviously dyed mous tache ?

"I often fear that I have been sefislh in leaving you so much alone, my poor motherless girl," said the Colonel; "but "I think it will be time for me to be now I shall feel remorse no longer. Do looking out for a home for myself elseyou understand me?" Then, as Sylvia's where, if you are thinking of getting face looked unresponsive, he added in a married soon, papa," she said gravely. Micawber-like burst of confidence: "I"Three people can seldom agree together." er-in short, I am going to be married again, my dear Sylvia. I am going to give you another mother in the place of the one you have lost."

There was dead silence in the room. Sylvia's eyes were regarding him with an expression in their depths which he had never seen there before. He began hastily to defend himself.

"I have been contemplating this step for some time, my love; indeed, it is principally on your account that I

But here he paused, for Sylvia had begun to speak herself without taking the smallest notice of anything he said.

"Have I made your house so very uncomfortable for you during all these years, papa, that you must needs go and set some strange woman over me at the eleventh hour?"

"Some strange woman! That is a very odd way of speaking, my dear. I can make allowances for your surprise, of course," said the Colonel, who was at heart a little afraid of his daughter, "but remember that everything has its limits. As for making the house uncomfortable, I am sure you have always tried to do your duty; but you must forgive me for saying, Sylvia, that you are no companion to me. We have but little in common."

"Oh, there is no hurry, my child," said her father, transparently allowing to escape from him the fact that this arrangement would be by no means unwelcome to him. "Dear Edith was most considerate about it. Indeed, as she is so young and inexperienced, she hinted that she should be glad to learn from you all about the housekeeping and my little ways," said the Colonel, with another simper, "which I thought was so sweet of her. Your more mature experience will be of great assistance to her, dear child."

Sylvia flushed scarlet! To remain on as a sort of housekeeper while her father's pretty young wife reigned in her stead and took her place as its mistress-ob, it was too much! She would marry a coal-heaver rather!

"I hope I shall be off your hands before then, papa," she said quietly. "I shall do my best not to disturb your domestic bliss, you may be sure, but I have certainly no intention of sinking into the position you suggest. I would rather be an upper servant in some one else's house than in yours."

"Upper servant! What expressions you do use, Sylvia," said her father, his refined susceptibilities really shocked at his daughter's brutal plainness of speech.

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