rescued from his long imprisonment, sets forth with steadfaster resolves for the precarious residue of life!

At length the vigour of his unimpaired constitution prevailed, and Harold went forth from his lesson of adversity, a better and a happier man. And to the Church, where mourners had thought to bury him, he went to Holy Matrimony. To the old Norman Church, filled with the monuments of his ancestry-where was laid too his own dear mother; and where his infant brow was sprinkled at the rude stone font. Thither he brought his bride: and there at the altar rails, before a goodly company, the good Priest made them one: and many a little heart beat quick, as under the old yew-trees, that led to the church-yard gate, garlands were scattered in their path; and many a poor man blessed them, as he spent at his frugal board the alms which they had given.

But to good Abel Humphrey and his wife was sent a double mess, and a special summons to dine with the servants at the Park.

CHAPTER XXIII.

"Of Law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempted from her power: both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all, with uniform consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy!" HOOKER.

HE coursed and panting hare returns to its morning haunts; and our tale is drawing to a close amidst scenes we love again to dwell on. We first found Harold in the fair city of his adoption; we are once more to follow him thither, though under circumstances which made his visit there a painful passage in his life.

It was an obvious result of the successful movement in which he had taken part, that a

change, proportionate to that which had been achieved in the profession itself, should take effect also in the training of the youth of the country. To know something of that unseen, yet ever present power, which binds men together, and makes the great wheel of human affairs move regularly and orderly onward; to be conversant with at least the rudimental rights of citizenship, seemed a necessary corollary to what had been enacting in the great world without, and to be an essential preparation for becoming not only upright magistrates, and enlightened statesmen, but loyal and intelligent subjects. But hitherto our Universities had shown no disposition to yield to the temper of the times: nor to adapt their system to the altered exigencies, and improved ideas, of the age. A revolution, therefore, of this sort in the most Conservative cities in the world, so subversive of their timehallowed dogmas, and alien to deep-rooted local prejudices, was not to be so much as hinted at, without exciting opprobrium and opposition against those who conscientiously supported it.

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Through this however, and more than this, Harold was prepared to go.-Though yielding to no one in his affectionate reverence for antiquity, he could not suffer himself to be deterred, in the sight of gigantic errors, from contributing to their removal, by obligations conjured up fore him not to disturb 'the Past.' Accordingly he accepted without hesitation a seat in the Commission, which was now about to sit in the city of his education, for the purpose of placing its studies upon a basis more adapted to the growing requirements of society. It was a painful thing however for him to be opposed to those whom he had known and respected in earlier years, and to be stigmatized as a traitor to the University, which none had ever loved better.

Moreover a return after several years to a spot of early interest brought melancholy thoughts with it, for other reasons. Who knows not what it is to find recalled by some spot which they had frequented together, the familiar face of those whom he now enquires for in vain? Who knows not what melancholy lies behind the

thought of the strides, which Time is taking, and of the gaps which it has made, in even the narrow circle of a single neighbourhood?— Who does not gather strange mementos of life's shortness, as he looks around on those, whom he last saw as children, now grown to man's estate; those, whom he left in the prime of life, now crippled with old age; or those, who were then in the pride of health, now wasted with disease? And yet there were compensating prospects to Harold. He was conscious of the desire and power to do much good. — He was supported by the authority of the first lawyers of the day, that he was helping to carry out no arbitrary measure; but was obeying, as became a loyal subject, the will of his Sovereign. Moreover he was revisiting his former haunts with a beloved and beautiful bride; and was to live over again, in memory with her, the much-loved scenes of his youth.

It was Midsummer's eve, and to-morrow, a Grand Commemoration, to be celebrated with unusual splendour. There was that broad full