into the actual present and the now, with a flash of life that made you think the dreamy, abstracted gaze you had marked before, a mere phantasm of your own imagination. A rare union of the perfect physique and the grand and soaring intellectual was Robert Carfax. Though reading his fellowmen so easily, he was not easily read himself. His character was many-sided; it had various phases and diverse attributes, rarely combined in the same individual: one hour, talking with him about shooting, and fishing, and agricultural pursuits, you would believe that in his case the physical superseded the mental; and the next hour, drawn into conversation upon some literary, or political, or philosophic theme, you would equally believe that the mental, and the mental only had the sway. The truth was, Robert Carfax was one of those happy mortals who are largely endowed with vitality -one of the best endowments that a man can have. Vitality of thought and purpose, of mind, and spirit, and of constitution, were his; so that his aims were many, his tastes varied, and whatever he set himself to do he did with right good will and unflinching perseverance. A strange sort of man, all things considered, was Robert Carfax-a cosmopolitan in more senses than one. No wonder that he sorely puzzled honest, inquisitive John Maclean, as they two walked along the broad green lane that led from the station right into the village. Mr. Carfax said little, it was true; but the stationmaster declared that "it meant a great deal more than he could catch, and though for the most part he talked of nothing like, he somehow made it seem like a good deal from the way he said it, and the look of his face the while."

Very soon the "Crown" was reached, and Mrs. Meacham came forth to welcome her new customer, while John Maclean, well satisfied for his trouble, went back to his cottage under the telegraph-wires to talk over the stranger with his old woman, as he called his comfortable, middleaged wife, Bessie Maclean, the cleverest servants' dressmaker for miles about West Copley. The sitting-room into which Robert Carfax was shown looked to the north, and had a

general air of being uninhabited. Heated by his walk in the afternoon sunshine, he felt chilled as he walked up to the bright, fireless grate, where snowy wreaths of tissue-paper curled about the bars, instead of a cheerful blaze. The large sideboard, the undraped mahogany tables, the horse-hair sofa and chair-seats looked frigid and uninviting; and Mr. Carfax felt how impossible it would be to dine comfortably in so dull and drear a room, although it was evidently the stateroom of the Crown, and the pride and glory of good Mrs. Meacham's heart. He turned to her, as she curtsied afresh and began to ask his pleasure about the dinner, which she was determined to serve in right royal style, for the credit of the "Crown" in particular, and for the honour of West Copley generally.

"For," she said afterwards to her bosom's friend, the grocer's wife," you see, Mrs. Jennens, I saw he was somebody the moment I set eyes upon him; and John Maclean whispered to me that he was a gentleman, and had an open hand-which he need not have told me, as I know a gentleman at first sight quite as well as anyone, and far better than Maclean, I should imagine. And it so happened—quite a piece of extra good-luck, for things commonly go contrairy in this wilderness of a world, you know, Mrs. Jennens—it just fell out that I had as pretty a dish of trout just come in as I ever saw. My son Sam had taken it in Farmer Peacock's meadows. And I had a fore-quarter of lamb ready for the spit, and a first gathering of early potatoes, and a gooseberrytart, waiting to be eaten; and if that is not a dinner for any man, be he lord or squire, I don't know what is, nor do I wish to see that man at the Crown'!"

Robert Carfax turned to ask Mrs. Meacham if she had any other room that looked towards the west or south; he would prefer the former, as he liked the sun to shine about him, if not actually on him, while he ate. Mrs. Meacham was very sorry, but she had actually no private room ready and unoccupied; a party who had been to the abbey were drinking tea in No. 5, and No. 7 had the carpet up, and the window

curtains down, being in process of renovation; but there was the coffee-room, the cheeriest room in all the house, looking upon the lawn and the flower-beds, which people did say were as well kept as if the head-gardener at the Hall had, them under charge, and with a view of the Stanford woods and the rising hills beyond. And the coffee-room was quite warm and comfortable, and yesterday's London papers were on the table, and there was only one gentleman there, Mr. George Trevanion, of the Bank at Great Copley; first cousin he was to Mrs. Marcia Trevanion, of Singlehurst. Would not Mr. Carfax prefer the coffee-room after all?

Decidedly Mr. Carfax would, and thither he was straightway marshalled; and he found, as Mrs. Meacham had said, that it really was a coffee-room in a thousand, having quite an air of home about it, and commanding a most beautiful view from the three French windows which opened on a garden of some extent, and gay already with early roses, and all the choicest flowers of a sunny, genial June. And the London papers, only a day old, were actually on the table, and the Great Copley Chronicle, and last week's Punch, and the current number of Fraser's Magazine. And the gentleman of whom Mrs. Meacham had made respectful mention was sitting at one of the open windows sipping a cup of tea, munching a rose, and reading a railway novel.

He spoke good-humouredly to Mrs. Meacham as she was withdrawing, desiring her to bring him another cup of tea, and a plate of strawberries, or some lettuce, as he did not find roses exactly to his taste.

"Oh, sir!" she exclaimed, sorrowfully, "you've been and pulled to pieces my beautiful Banksia that Lady Charlotte herself gave me !"

The laughing blue eyes of George Trevanion became suddenly overclouded, and he penitently answered, "Indeed, I am very sorry, Mrs. Meacham; but it will flower again presently there are more buds; and in the meantime I will bring you something new from our own conservatory."

"Thank you, sir; but never mind, it doesn't matter, only:

I wanted that rose for a purpose, and it wasn't quite blown. But it doesn't matter, Mr. George. Don't look so vexed about it."

“But I am vexed, Mrs. Meacham. I never thought what I was doing. However, I will bring you a handful of beauties on Saturday-pink and white, and blush and yellow. I do assure you I never thought what I was doing."

"No; I dare say he never thought what he was doing," said Mrs. Meacham to herself, as she wended her way back to her own regions. "Just like him, bless him! He is the sweetest-tempered and the most generous-hearted young fellow that ever lived; but he doesn't think what he is doing, nor what will come of it, and he seems to have no idea of governing himself. Well, I hope my rose will be the only one he will pick to pieces out of sheer idleness. He is a dangerous man, though he means no harm, and is open as the sunshine; but if I were Miss Ethel's mother-ah, well, it is no business of yours, Dolly Meacham."

CHAPTER II.

RACHEL.

ROBERT CARFAX took up the Fraser, and began to read; but he had seen the number before, and felt more inclined to occupy himself with the living and human specimen before him than with the pages of the time-honoured magazine. He glanced down the columns, and saw that it presented nothing specially interesting; then he looked out upon the flowery garden lying in the radiant evening sunshine, and on the green meadow-lands beyond, silvered here and there with glimpses of shining water; and, finally, his regards rested on the handsome young man sitting by the open window, and contemplating, still seriously, the half-demolished rose he

It

had so ruthlessly and inconsiderately gathered from the tree, because it was placed so temptingly within his reach. was a sad failing of George Trevanion-a failing likely to bring him and others besides himself into serious trouble— that he was accustomed to stretch out his hand and pluck, without question of right or wrong, without thought of expediency or inexpediency, whatever pleasant or seemingly profitable thing lay within his grasp.

He came, he beheld, and he desired. It was only a new interpretation of the ancient " Veni, vidi, vici," for no question of forbidden fruit ever troubled him until it was too late. He just pleased himself: he coveted-idly enough, sometimes—the rose, or the golden apple, or the diamond studs, or the choice volume, or the rare engraving, or the exquisite statuette, or the fair girl's love; and straightway he proceeded to make it his own, without a moment's reflection as to the claims of others, or as to any possible reasons why he should pause before he appropriated that for which he longed so ardently, and oftentimes so foolishly and transitorily.

Not that George Trevanion, Esq., was afflicted with kleptomania, though I think it very possible that such would have been his infirmity had he been a poor man, instead of being, as he was, the nephew and heir of the wealthy and highly respectable Reginald Constantine, of the honoured firm of "Constantine, Trevanion, and Trevanion," bankers from time immemorial in the town of Great Copley, and for all the aristocracy and gentry of the country round about. Oh, no! George Trevanion never stole anything of greater account than roses, and feminine cartes de visite, and books which he intended to return "some of these days," and pencil sketches, and-young ladies' affections! Well might Dolly Meacham say, as she nodded her sagacious head, and shook all the bugles and spangles on her second-best lace cap, that he was a dangerous man!"

Yet you would not have thought it, had you been sitting with Robert Carfax that summer afternoon, in the pleasant