and an immense load seemed at once removed from the worthy man's shoulders when he could let nurse go, with the satisfactory assurance he could install Margaret in her place.

As Margaret followed the doctor into Ethel's room, she could scarcely recognise the bright happy young girl she had parted from two years ago in the colourless cheeks and closed eyes of the extended form before her. Her long, bright hair lay tangled upon the pillows, on which her white face rested, and Dr. Smart was assiduously administering stimulants between her half-closed, colourless lips.

Hour after hour passed away; neither Dr. Smart nor Margaret quitted their posts in the sick-room, until, as evening again drew on, the good doctor joyfully assured Margaret the crisis was past, and with proper and judicious care and nursing, there was no reason why Lady Redenham should not do well.

During that long day Ralph had never rested. Under the directions of Dr. Smart, he had himself procured the services of a competent nurse for Ethel, and a young married woman at Leigh, the sister-in-law of Philip's own man, whose infant, only three weeks old, had just died.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

"I WISH Philip would come," Ralph said impatiently, as he and Margaret stood counting the minutes on the little pendule over the chimney-piece. "I don't know what he will say to us for what we have done. He is just the sort of fellow to take offence at our interference, though I don't know how poor Ethie would have fared without us. Has she ever asked for Philip, do you know, Maggie?"

"Not once," Margaret replied, "though I have several times seen her eyes wandering round the room, as it in search of some face she missed. Indeed she has hardly spoken at all. Once she called 'Margaret;' and when I went to her, she threw her arms feebly round my neck, and hid her face in my bosom; and when I told her I hoped Philip would soon be here, she started at the name, but never looked up or spoke. Just now she asked in a faint whisper if she could not hear the cry of a baby; and when I told her it was her own, she inquired eagerly if it was a boy. On my telling her it was a little girl she made no remark, but turned her face away from me, and I thought I saw tears stealing from her eyes, though the lids were closed."

Again Ralph impatiently pulled out his watch, and calculated the arrival of the trains. Roberts had been at the station for several hours, awaiting his master's arrival; and every ear was anxiously bent on first recognising the sound of carriage-wheels.

Presently Valerie's eager face appeared at the door. "The carriage is coming, Mademoiselle. Miladi still sleeps. Who will meet Milord?" And the pretty little French girl evidently showed by her manner she hoped Margaret would undertake the office.

VOL. II.

D D

"I will go down and meet him," Ralph said; "you, Margaret, must prepare Ethel for his arrival;" and so saying he disappeared down the corridor. Lord Redenham was rushing up the hall-steps as Ralph reached the foot of the stairs. He was deadly pale; and grasping old Stephens' shoulder, he tried to articulate the question his trembling lips refused to

"Thank God, Lady Redenham is safe; the infant, too, though small, seems likely to do well." Philip staggered into the library, threw himself at length on the nearest couch, and burying his face in his hands, gave vent to his long-suppressed excitement and the sudden revulsion of feeling. Ralph stood quietly by, watching the heaving chest of the strong man; then he turned to Stephens, who was himself little less overcome, and begging that wine might be brought, poured out a glass, and almost insisted on his swallowing it.

"It is a cause of great thankfulness," Ralph said, "that the report is so cheering. Dr. Smart hopes, with care and freedom from all excitement, Lady Redenham will soon recover her strength."

"Fool that I was to leave her," Philip exclaimed bitterly. "But I knew nothing of these things; and my mother, who ought to have been more alive to them, never once suggested its being wrong."

"You might have had the advice of men better known than Dr. Smart had it occurred in town," Ralph said earnestly; "but you would scarcely have equalled, certainly not exceeded, the great skill and kindness displayed by him under very trying and responsible circumstances. Whether, my lord, you will think my sister or myself have taken more on ourselves than the occasion justified, I cannot tell. Our excuse must be, if we have erred at all, that it has been through our great love for Lady Redenham, and the helpless state she was in."

"Mr. Atherton," Philip said, "I cannot thank you; I cannot tell you how grateful I feel for your care of my wife. It has been a noble and generous revenge on your part."

The colour mounted into Ralph's cheeks. "You must not look on any little service I have rendered your household in their extremity in that light, my lord," he said quietly; "what I have done for you, as the clergyman of the parish, I should have done equally for the poorest of your people. But you must be anxious to see Lady Redenham; Dr. Smart is taking his first rest, after many hours of fatigue and anxiety; the nurse will be here in a few minutes to tell you when you may venture into Lady Redenham's room. In the mean time I will now wish you good-night, and return to the Rectory."

Philip paced impatiently up and down the room to recover his equanimity, when the door slowly opened, and Margaret, candle in hand, came into the library. She was in search of Ralph, to tell him Lord Redenham might venture up-stairs. They each started. Margaret spoke first.

"I beg your pardon, Lord Redenham," she said quietly, "but Lady Redenham knows you are come; and though Dr. Smart is not here, she has become so excited, I think it will do her less harm to see you at once

than to wait his leave." Philip rushed to the door. Margaret laid her hand on his arm. "Excuse me, my lord, but it is necessary you should be very cautious and self-possessed. Ethel is very weak, and the least excitement might produce fever. You must be prepared to see a great change in her."

In an instant, and without a word having passed his lips, Philip rushed past her, and staggered up the staircase.

"God help them," Stephens said, as he watched his master out of sight; "this is their first trouble. Maybe they will learn that we must all have them in this world, whether rich or poor ;" and he turned away to wipe the tears from his old eyes.

Full half an hour Margaret remained in the ante-room, but Philip did not return. Becoming uneasy, and trembling at her own audacity, she first consulted nurse, and then gently opened the door and walked in. Philip was on his knees beside Ethel, his head bent over her white face, which was turned from him; large tears were falling over her wan cheeks from her closed eyes.

"It is time Ethelind had some nourishment," Margaret said anxiously. "This excitement, my lord, is not good for her." And Philip, unable to control his emotion, passed out of the room.

In less than an hour Ethelind had sunk into the first natural sleep; and leaving her in charge of nurse, Margaret passed into the outer room. Philip was standing over the fire, his elbow on the mantel-piece, looking the very picture of wretchedness and misery.

"What a fool I have been!" he muttered, as he paced up and down the room. "But I knew nothing about these things, and my mother never told me of danger, or on no account would I have trusted her alone in this out-of-the-way place. Miss Atherton,-for you must be Miss Atherton, I am sure, by your strong family likeness,-I do not know how you or your brother came here; but I shall always owe you a deep dept of gratitude for your care of Ethelind during my absence." Before Margaret could reply, Stephens came in to say Dr. Smart had gone down to find Lord Redenham.

During the following three weeks, Margaret, at Philip's earnest entreaties, continued at Redenham, devoting her time and energies to Ethelind, whose slow recovery and strange depression of spirits became a source of intense misery to Philip, and a mystery which Margaret in vain tried to unravel.

Except during their tête-à-tête dinners, in what Grace would have pronounced "very solemn state," Margaret saw little of her brother-in-law; but that little strongly prepossessed her in his favour, in spite of the prejudiced view Ralph continued to take of his character. When Mrs. Leigh and her daughters arrived at Redenham, though Philip urged her to remain and Ethie pleaded piteously that she would not leave her, Margaret vacated her post as nurse to her sister, and returned to the Rectory, to assist Ralph in the removal of his family to Grafton.

First-Fiddles and Top-Sawyers.

WHEN you take your little son upon your knee-the boy in tartan, I mean, with knickerbockers, and the shapely gaitered legs, and the long fair hair, not the smaller creature in the nursery, with the limited vocabulary and the ambiguous articulation,-when you inquire of the young gentleman what profession he will select for his future career, you may sure that no especial modesty or want of self-confidence will appear in his decision. He will appropriate to himself an important role in the great drama of life. He will aspire to the grand and the distinguished and the lustrous. He will be a clown, or a lord mayor, or a life-guardsman, or a harlequin, or a huntsman in scarlet leaping a five-barred gate. He condescends to no secondary or subaltern position. He will be a first-fiddle -a top-sawyer; not the humble player in the orchestra, with one eye on his music-book and the other on his chef, obedient to the beat of his bow, and all opinion as to correctness of tempo yielded to him; not the miserable underground labourer in the saw-pit with the bandage over his eyes, toiling as the top-sawyer directs. He is going to be chief actor, not a starveling supernumerary.

Perhaps we all start with these notions-bent upon being heroes; only the front ranks get filled up, and we are perforce contented at last to be quite at the edge of the fight-if out of the danger, also far from the glory. The world is not big enough for all its inhabitants to be great men, so some of us must be satisfied with being little ones. Society winnows us, and sorts us, and finds us a place somewhere. If the best boxes are full, we must take our seats in the upper circle, or the slips, or the pit, or the back of the gallery. After all, no one cares much where we go. As we know from the old joke that the play of Hamlet cannot be played with the part of Hamlet omitted, so also it cannot be played if every character is to be swelled to the importance of Hamlet's. There must be valets-de-chambre as well as heroes. We must have Horatio, and Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern, and Osric playing their humble parts, and forming advantageous foils for the setting-off to the uttermost of the heir-apparent of Denmark. They must hope to be no greater than they are. It is not for them to shine, and strut, and extort applause, and listen to the music of cheering and congratulation, and bow acknowledgments before the green curtain. They have but to say, "Ay, my good lord," "No, my good lord," "E'en so, my lord," "It might, my lord," and other such miserable cues; never a grand, pompous, musical burst of poetry and philosophy,-"To be, or not to be," or "Oh, that this too too solid," &c. &c.; and they are shabby in cotton velvet while their prince is magnificent in silk and bugles.

I know that I have heard actors praised for making much of small

parts, but surely they were wrong in so doing. We don't want the little people made large; we object to have the "nothings monstered." In the case of Mr. Rosencrantz, for instance, no one requires that he should be important, or intellectual, or superb; he was simply to come on, and be patronised, and questioned, and scorned, and bullied. Let him endure this as comfortably as he may,-a subjective, not an objective, component of the play; standing in an agreeable attitude,-" at ease" as to his legs, his hat in his right hand, his left arm bent gracefully, and his left hand resting on his sword-hilt,-perfect in the words of his part, who would exact more from him? He is a background-figure, kept low in tone purposely to bring others out brilliantly. Why should he disturb the harmony of colour and composition by shining too splendidly?

Yet very likely Mr. Rosencrantz entered his profession with higher aspirations. The summit of his ambition was once something loftier than the correct rendering of one of those feeble toadying Danish gemini. Perhaps in his own heart he yet believes he could perform Hamlet to an applauding pit, would the opportunity only come to him. Perhaps he is mentally despising the royal Dane, who is theatrically despising him. I can't read such a thought in his face, which, to do him justice, is rather a hard sort of mask, very blue as to chin and cheeks from constant close shaving, rather burnt-corked about the eyebrows, and oh, with such hardedged blots of raw paint under his eyes! Facially he is Rosencrantz, though mentally he may be many parts ahead; and to-morrow he is Shylock's friend Tubal; and the next night perhaps one of Lear's Sons-inlaw, or a First Lord, or a Second Murderer, or a Third Gentleman, or a Doge of Venice, or an Archbishop of Canterbury, or a Duke of Norfolk, or what not human furniture of the drama. Somehow, he cannot come to the fore; he is fixed in one of the rear-grooves of the theatre; along that prescribed path he can slide easily enough, out of or beyond it he is forbidden to move. However much, like our young friend with the spruce calves and the knickerbockers, he may have panted to distinguish himself as lord mayor, or clown, or magnificent life-guardsman, to strut as Romeo, or swagger as Benedick, or rant as Richard,—it was not to be; he is to follow, not to lead. The premier violin is not an instrument he will ever play on; he will scrape away with the rest as they are bidden. He will never be the top-sawyer, but always the poor blinded machine gasping down below. Poor Mr. Rosencrantz!

And is my sympathy perfectly genuine? Do I really care much about that not eminent performer? or have I been merely pitying him parabolically, reflectively, with my thoughts and glances continually turning from him and resting upon a certain other person? Are my philosophical observations to be subjected to the strictest gauging? Suppose that I myself, full of the noblest ambitions, have somehow, owing to a train of circumstances upon the discussion of which I need hardly enter,— have somehow been forced into a long list of inferior parts; that in very many a race I have been what sportsmen call a "bad second," or, still