The stage has been gone probably an hour when we start. Though it is not much later than nine o'clock, the heat is already sultry, and there are clouds on the mountains which betoken rain. We agree that there will probably be a storm later in the day, but we enjoy the sunshine while it lasts. At Mountain Island Sylvia insists on halting; and we go out as far as possible on the ledge of rock over which the current pours in foaming rapids. Standing here, we look up at the island, which rises fifty or sixty feet above us-a bold hill in the midst of the raging stream.

"I should like to go there," says Sylvia, wistfully. But, with the best intentions, neither of her attendants can devise any means of transporting her over the whirling fall which intervenes between our standpoint and the island.

"If one had a boat, one could cross at the lower end and mount to the headland," says Mr. Lanier.

This suggestion is not of much value, however, since we have no boat, so we are forced to content ourselves with gazing. The sides of the hill are covered with a growth of ferns, which literally carpet it, but the trees have been burned, and now stand black and bare, disfiguring the beautiful picture.

"What odious barbarian was guilty of that outrage?" asks Sylvia, in a tone of indignant scorn.

"Some hunting barbarian, I believe," answers Charley. "I have been told that the trees were burned because the deer, when hard pressed by the dogs, would swim the river and take refuge there."

"Oh, the wretches!" says Sylvia-which complimentary epithet is evidently not meant to apply either to the deer or the dogs.

Presently John appears on the bank, charged with a message: "Mistis say you better come on, Mass Charley-she wants to git over Laurel 'fore the rain comes up."

"A fig for the rain!" says Charley--but we turn reluctantly from the stormy rapids, the towering island, the whole wild, lovely scene, and continue our journey. The rain does not come up before we reach Laurel, and that river is found to be in a very satisfactory state. Aunt Markham stops at Wash's cabin and makes solicitous inquiries.

"Do you think it would be safer if I crossed in the canoe?" she asks.

Wash grins a little.

"I'm willin' to take you over ef you like, ma'am," he answers, "but the river's down low enough for fordin' now."

"Go on, then, John," she says, tremulously.

At all times Laurel is deep fording; and the current is very swift and strong, but we accomplish the passage safely-John being the best of drivers, and the horses true as steel.

"Good-by to Laurel!" says Sylvia, as she rides out of the clear water on the farther side. "I shall never, never forget

it."

"I sha'n't nuther," says John, "fur it's the only place I ever heard of takin' a car

canoe."

We have not left this famous stream-and Laurel has fame of more kinds than onehalf a mile behind, when the expected rain comes-a white, hard shower, which all in a second, as it were, sweeps over the mountains and pours upon us.

"Of course it begins again as soon as we start," says Aunt Markham, who plainly thinks that there is strong evidence of malice prepense on the part of the clouds.

We draw on our water-proofs, raise the carriage-top, and resign ourselves to our fate. The masculine portion of the party put on their overcoats and pull down their hats.

"Greatest country for rain ever I see!" says John, as we plod along the narrow road, hemmed by towering cliffs and turbulent river, with the rain pouring in a white sheet far as our vision extends.

Before long the violence of the storm abates, the clouds pass as quickly as they came, the sun breaks forth Nature is drenched, but how beautiful! Rocks, trees, ferns, and mosses all are dripping with moisture which the sunlight turns to diamonds. We throw off our wraps and put back the top, careless that the drooping boughs under which we pass rain down absolute showers upon us as the breeze stirs them. We wind around a rocky curve, and a magnificent river-view is before us-the stream plunging and whirling against the bowlders that bar its way, and tossing in white-capped waves over the ledges, the great overshadowing hills wearing a faint-blue tint as the vista recedes, and mists like white smoke rising from the gorges. The rain has swollen all the short mountain-streams, which come leaping down the hill-sides in white cascades. One narrow creek, into which we plunge without due consideration, is so high that the water runs into the car

A WET FORD.

riage, wetting our feet and invading our lunch-basket. Aunt Markham's face as she sits with her feet elevated on the front seat,

torrent-which three or four feet lower pours over a ledge of rock into the river-is a study of mingled expressions. "O John, how frightful!" she says, when we have gained the steep bank and are safe.

"Yes'm-it was a considerable resk," says John. "If these horses wasn't the gam est I ever drove, we'd a-gone into the river certain. I was of the 'pinion for about a minute that we was goin'."

"There's no good in frightening one's self over past danger," I say. "We didn't go-that's enough.-Jump out, aunty. The carriage is full of water, and my feet are as wet as if I had waded."

Varied by such adventures as these-for two or three more clouds discharge themselves upon us-we travel up the gorge, pausing now and then when the weather chances to be propitious. There are rocks - like those at the Devil's Slip Gap-to be climbed; flowers, ferns, and mountain-geraniums, to be gathered; muscadines to be eaten; finally, luncheon to be taken in a green river-nook, with the half-obscured sunshine lying on the breast of the current as it sweeps by.

"How glad I am that we have left the Springs behind!" says Sylvia. "How de lightful it is to be traveling again! Would it not be pleasant to prolong this gypsy life indefinitely?"

"Very pleasant," says Charley. "There might be worse things than to ride, ride, forever ride,' as the crazy lover in Browning's poem wanted to do. There might also be worse things than resting on the rocks in the shade, with sandwiches to eat and claret to drink."

"And the French Broad before one's eyes!"

The pleasant hour ends, as all pleasant hours do, however. We start again, and, traveling leisurely, reach Alexander's at sun. set. This place looks pastoral in its loveliness as we approach-the embowered house lying in the arms of encircling hills, the glassy river in front painted with sunset hues, two figures on the bridge, and a riding-party winding along the road.

We discover, when we approach, that the figures on the bridge are those of Mrs. Cardigan and Eric. They cross the road as we draw up before the gate.

"You are late," says the latter. has delayed you?"

"What

"Oh-every thing!" replies Aunt Markham. "Storms, floods, torrents running inte the carriage and nearly sweeping it awayEric, you need never ask me to come to this country again, until there is a railroad."

"You may be sure that I never will," says Eric, laughing.

We spend three or four days at Alexan der's-delightful days in which we walk and ride, climb the hills, and go out boating on the river. Gray rocks, rushing water, green boughs drooping- these things, in varied combinations, frame the idle, golden hours. The sound of the stream becomes like the voice of a familiar friend in our ears-we are almost sorry when the day arrives for us to gather together what Eric calls our "traps," and set forth on our travels again.

THE HEIRS OF THE BODLEY ESTATE.

A STORY IN FIVE CHAPTERS.

BY HORACE E. SCUDDER.

CHAPTER II.

THE HEIRS AND THE LAWYER

THE long recital had apparently wearied Mr. Bodley, for, after a few words more, he quietly dropped asleep in his corner-so quietly, indeed, that I was in the midst of some slight reminiscence of my grandfather Bodley before I discovered that Fear was my only hearer. Since the entire conversation thus far had been upon our family, notwithstanding we who were present had to travel a long way before our lines merged, a degree of familiar acquaintance had been established. Lydia, and Thomas, and Governor Bodley, had, as it were, given me letters of introduction to my kinsfolk that had secured me a cordial reception. It struck me afterward that family ties, however remote, do hold more strongly than any other, and that the pleasure which friends feel when they unexpectedly discover that their respective family lines, though widely separate now, were once coincident, is, in our more refined civilization, a mild form of the deathless zeal which animates each of a savage tribe to defend and avenge his fellow-members. In my own case, independent as I professed to be of ordinary ties having, at no great cost of pain, severed for a while the ties which bound me to kindred at home-I nevertheless was conscious of a twitch at my affections and kindly interest caused by this discovery of kinship, although the thread which was pulled made many twists and turns before its ten sion could be transmitted to me; this, indeed, apart from the common feeling of attraction which would be excited by the couple. As I looked on the serene face of the old man, who leaned back in his corner, gently overcome by sleep, I could not help being touched by its childishness; the restless eye, which betrayed a mind searching vainly for some lost light, was closed, and I felt a relief that for a time at least he would be subject to none of those harassing fears which I had seen send shadows across his face as he spoke of the many years which he had spent in making good his right to the estate. Doubtless some such feeling crossed the mind of his daughter also, for she stopped her work and looked compassionately on the face, but with a deeper reverence and a more tender affection, for she had grown up with her father, while I was but a chance visitor.

"Miss Bodley," I whispered, "I think your father has fulfilled the Psalmist's prophecy that a child shall live to be a hundred years old. I think I never saw an old man with so pure and guileless a face. While he was talking to me this afternoon in the street, the people turned and looked upon him as on a beautiful picture."

She went to the secretary and brought me a miniature painted on ivory. It was the head of a young man, noble in beauty, with

rich, brown hair clustering around it; there was a fire in the eye which even the softness of the ivory could not conceal. I looked with admiration upon it, and discovered some resemblance in it to my companion, though there was one great difference-the mouth was vacillating, while hers was noticeable for its firmness.

"Can it be your father?" I asked, in surprise.

"Yes," said she, sadly, "as he was at thirty."

"It is as free from all purpose of evil as the other face," said I, "and yet I wish that I might see the pictures that would come between, for, I cannot tell you why, but these two faces affect me like sweet music-' I am never merry' when I see them."

"There never were any other pictures," said she; "but, as my life has been spent with my father, I have tried to supply the missing portraits. They may interest you by what they attempt to tell."

With this she brought a portfolio, and took from it three pictures, executed in water-colors, which she laid side by side. They did tell me much, even though they could tell no facts. They told of change produced by terrible crises; so much, at least, I thought I could see. The first was marked "Fortynine years." I placed it beside the miniature taken twenty years before. Plainly, they had been twenty years of care, doubtless of deepening anxiety, that was evident in the aging of the face, but there was more in the picture, for it seemed as if I could almost see the trace of some agony of tears which had not been so much wiped away as suffered to sink into the very flesh of the face; there was, moreover, a token of helplessness in the half-uplifted eyes that filled me with pity. I could almost have wept as I gazed on it, but, when I turned to the next, I was shocked into a startled exclamation, for the same face was shown on fire with a tremendous anger, while the hands were uplifted, not in entreaty, but as if registering some oath, or calling down some terrible vengeance. And yet I fancied that in the mouth, which had in the others betrayed weakness, there was now still more marked a consciousness of utter inability to perform the very oath that was registering, if it were an oath, or to be an agent in inflicting vengeance, if that were the purport of the uplifted hands.

"It is a reminiscence," said the girl, suddenly taking it from me and substituting a third," and this I have lately finished." I involuntarily turned and compared it with the face of the sleeper.

"It was taken in sleep, was it not?" I whispered, and she nodded affirmatively. At that instant there broke over the old man's features the same sadly beautiful smile which had been transferred to the painting, as if he would testify to its accuracy by assuming the counterpart of its expression. But the smile died away again, and gave place to a look of trouble, as if, no doubt truly, good and evil dreams were flitting across his mind, the evil, by some subtile genesis, growing out of and supplanting the good. I looked again at the drawings, and now was struck with the power displayed in their conception. There

was not so much finish in the first as in this last, but both were characterized by a sort of rude force, as if the conceiving thought had been sudden, and the first execution equally impulsive. I was astonished at their artistic value, and forgot all about Mr. Bodley and any history of his life which they might contain.

"Let me see the second again," said I, reaching my hand for the one which Fear had withdrawn, and now held.

"No," said she, "I did wrong to show it, or any of these. It was a sudden impulse, and I do not wish to show them to you any longer."

I laughed a little at her apparent artistbashfulness, and made a playful movement to possess the one which she held, at the same time putting the others behind the out of her reach. In an instant her whole manner changed.

"Sir!" said she, "this is my father. How dare you? What right have you to see these? I was a fool to forget myself!"

"It is I who have forgotten myself," said I, giving up the pictures. "I ask your pardon "-and I must have looked very penitent, indeed, for though she put away the portraits in the portfolio, she dismissed her angry manner, sat down again at the table, and took up her sewing. For my part, I was beyond measure provoked with myself for being betrayed into such an exhibition. I also sat down and held my tongue in vexation. Then, the whole occasion which had brought about this state of things recurring to my mind, and the oddity as well as the vexation of the situation coming over mehere we were acting as if we had a right to quarrel-I plunged into a candor of speech as the best method of extricating myself from my embarrassment.

"Miss Bodley," said I, "do not set me down at once as an impertinent fellow for presuming so on your good-will. You ought to know how strange this evening seems to me, to judge me fairly. It is really the first time for months that I have been inside of a home, and the singular way in which I seem to have been introduced into this has quite upset my good behavior. It was only this afternoon that I had worked myself into a wretched state of feeling because I had willfully shut myself out from any thing like familiar society, and now, just when I needed it and wanted it most, I had no means of getting it. I had no right to demand it when I had refused it so often, and yet, just see the coincidence! I am miserably alone with a troop of old home recollections rushing in on me to make me more unhappy, when up steps your father like a very angel of deliverance, and takes me by the hand to lead me out of the prison of selfish solitude into this new air. I declare, my only wonder is that, when I found myself actually sitting at a Christian tea-table, I did not rush into some dreadfully extravagant act, perhaps break one of your little thin teacups, which I know cannot be replaced."

ing.

"Indeed, they cannot," said she, laugh

"And so," I went on, "as I sat here and thought of the desolate wilderness of Lon

don by its contrast with this little garden, is it any wonder that I should make out the benevolent gardener and his daughter to be suddenly old friends, and to forget that I was not necessary to them as they to me?"

"Well," said she, "the gardener's daughter must confess that she was won by your evident friendliness to show you some particularly valuable flowers, forgetting that the value was not in themselves but in what they were to her. But, Mr. Penhallow," she added, more seriously, laying down her work, "I must take the consequences of my imprudence. I shall have to ask you not to speak of these pictures to any one, not to my father, nor to any one else," and her color rose at these last words; "I yielded to a sudden impulse, and now must pay the penalty."

"I assure you," said I, eagerly, "no harm shall follow. I will not speak of them again to you, if that is necessary." But she paid no heed to these last words, for her look had turned anxiously to her father. I looked around also, and at that moment he started violently from his sleep, and before his consciousness returned had thrown up his arms in the very manner which I had seen so terribly pictured. The reality brought into even bolder expression the conflicting, fiery anger and woful weakness. He stretched his quivering fingers toward heaven, and then sank bewildered and weak into the arms of his daughter, who had at the instant placed herself by his side, to be ready with her soothing presence when his feeble mind should seek some sweet reality to believe in. It was but the experience of a short minute, and I was so surprised by it that I could only stand and look at the couple, at Mr. Bodley trembling and clinging to his daughter, who maintained perfect composure, gently stroking his gray hair, and removing it from his eyes where it had fallen, as if she would make him see more clearly. They neither seemed to notice me, and when my wits came back, I moved to take my hat and coat, thinking to withdraw unobserved. But as I started, the door opened and a gentleman entered with an apologetic air.

"Miss Fear," said he, "I knocked twice, but got no answer, and, as I had a package for your father, I came in."

"Will you take a seat, Mr. Tyrel?" said she." Mr. Penhallow, Mr. Tyrel—a distant connection of the family. Mr. Tyrel is our lawyer, Mr. Penhallow."

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Bodley, getting up and speaking with some confusion. "I am glad you have come in, Mr. Tyrel. This is our cousin, Mr. Eustace Penhallow, from America. He has lately arrived-you must know him he is in the family."

"I am happy to see the gentleman," said the lawyer," and to make the acquaintance of one of the great Bodley family. I trust, however, Mr. Penhallow" (here he partly closed his eyes and threw his mouth open with a half laugh"), that you are aware of the uselessness of entering any claim to the estate. It is quite in our hands, sir, quite," and he rubbed his hands together as if he was grinding the estate between them.

"I am not a claimant, sir," said I, "except for the good-will of the present head of the family. I congratulate him most heartily upon the triumph of his cause, and you too on sharing the triumph with him." We were all standing, and Fear was tapping the back of a chair with a slight impatience at our ceremonious bowing. Mr. Tyrel saw it first, and turned to her, saying:

I

"Miss Fear, do not let me keep you standing. You must be tired this evening." gave Mr. Bodley a seat, and now felt that I must leave, but he held my arm and said:

"Not this minute; there is something I have forgotten." I sat down again awkwardly, feeling exceedingly in the way. Mr. Tyrel had laid his hat down, as it chanced, near the print by Blake which I had bought that afternoon and had entirely forgotten. He took it up and the loose paper fell off.

"Ah," said he, "this is some of your work, Miss Fear-is it not? Very extraordinary, certainly!"

"I do not know," said she, anxiously; "let me see it."

Unwilling I look up to heaven! unwilling count the stars!

Sitting in fathomless abyss of my immortal shrine.

I seize their burning power

And bring forth howling terrors, all-devouring fiery kings.

"Devouring and devoured roaming on dark and desolate mountains,

In forests of eternal death, shrieking in bollow trees.

Ah, Mother Enitharmon!

Stamp not with solid form this mighty progeny of fires.

"I bring forth from my teeming bosom myriads of flames,

And thou dost stamp them with a signet; then they roam abroad And leave me void as death.

Ah! I am drowned in shady woe and visionary joy.

"And who shall bind the infinite with an eternal band?

To compass it with swaddling-bands? and who shall cherish it

With milk and honey?

I see it smile and I coil inward, and my voice is past.

"She ceased and rolled her shady clouds Into the secret place."

"Do you understand it, Miss Bodley," I

"It is by Blake," exclaimed Miss Bodley, with sudden enthusiasm. "It is a leaf from his 'Jerusalem,' some of the prophetic verses with illustrative figures."

"Why," said I, looking over her shoulder, "this is odd enough. I never saw this side before." And, in truth, I had been so struck by the plague-scene that I had not thought to turn the leaf when I bought it. This reverse, which we were now looking at, contained eighteen lines, extending nearly to the middle of the page, and seemingly writ ten on clouds, with tiny birds darting about between the lines; while the characters themselves, after Blake's fashion, were half instinct with life, and sent out little tendrils, or ended in darts, and quivers, and flashes. It is quite impossible to explain to one who has not seen such a page the peculiar aliveness which it possesses, as if Blake in penning it had thus given expression to the very starts of his soul under the influence of the prophetic mood. At the right hand, and filling the lower half, were four figures moving in light through the dark atmosphere; one above seemed to have escaped and to be speeding upward in terrified flight; below a demoniacal figure was thrusting a struggling one downward, and descending also himself, with the other arm tightly encircling the fourth figure. The face of the demon wore a savage delight, while those of the two whom he was impelling were in an agony of suffering. The execution of the whole was wild and full of barbarism, indeed, and so rude that it was not easy to disentangle the forms. I read aloud the lines, and copy them here, since they are a fair enough example of Blake's incoherency, although it would be unfair to deny them any meaning whatever, simply because they are detached from their rightful surroundings. Some very respectable poetry, to my knowledge, would fare quite as hardly if treated so roughly:

figures?"

No," said she, "I do not; but I do not doubt that I should in time. It is always the way with Blake. I am continually com ing up with him. Some time something will happen, or I shall read something which will remind me of this, and then the meaning will flash on me. Blake is wonderful; he made some strangely true guesses."

"For my part," said the lawyer, with scarcely-concealed contempt, "I should like to have this fellow up in a court and crossexamine him; if he did mean any thing. which I very much doubt, I would get it out of him."

"I do not believe your way is so sure as mine, Mr. Tyrel," said Fear. "You would try to force him to explain himself, and he would probably reply, 'You have no ears to hear,' while I would listen when he chose to speak, and, when the meaning did come, it would be something worth while. You might be ever so much determined to have your own way, Mr. Tyrel, but Blake would have his first, and I should not be surprised if he were to flash out something of a sudden which would show that he knew more about you by looking at you than you did of him by all your cross-questioning.—Did you ever | hear, Mr. Penhallow, of a story of his childhood which Allan Cunningham tells, that shows his wonderful insight? He went with his father in search of a painter to whom he could be apprenticed. They tried Ryland; but, when they came out, Blake said, 'Father, I do not like that man; he looks as if he would be hanged some day;' and, sure enough, hanged he was till he was dead, dead, dead!" and Fear looked around with enthusiastic triumph.

"Did Blake hang him to make good his prophecy?" asked Tyrel, with his half laugh. "You should not frighten us so, Miss Fear. Look at your father," he whispered.

We both looked suddenly at Mr. Bodley, who was sitting apart.

"Well, beauty sometimes comes to this," said I, rising to go, and the thought came over me, "It is a pity I had not gone before pleasure began to be disturbed." Miss Bodley came forward, and, unrolling the picture, I showed her the plague-scene, and began remarking on it. She looked at it hastily and thrust it from her.

"I don't wish to see it-put it up," said she, almost petulantly, and I obeyed, beginning to feel rather angry at everybody in the room, myself included. But Mr. Bodley, who was leaning on his daughter's shoulder, and was once more as gentle and simple as when I first saw him, reached out his hand to me.

"Mr. Penhallow, I am an old man, and you must pardon me if I speak unadvisedly. You heard me say that I was to have a few of our family here to-morrow at dinner. I will tell you frankly they are persons who have, some at least, rubbed rather hardly against the world, and it was for that reason that I asked them. But if—if you would not take it hard to be classed with them-”

"Indeed, Mr. Bodley," said I, "I shall only be too happy to accept. I am not sure but I belong in the very class of those who have been rubbing hardly. I know I felt sore this afternoon when you found me."

"Ah! did you?" said he, with a pleased smile. "Then come, come by all means. Mr. Tyrel will be here, so that you will have company whom you have met."

"I will give Mr. Penhallow my company now, if he pleases," said the lawyer. "I merely came to leave with you the papers of which I spoke yesterday, and to ask if I could be of any service for to-morrow."

"Thank you," said Miss Bodley, somewhat curtly, I thought; "there is nothing.— We shall dine at four, Mr. Penhallow. I hope you will bring a Christmas spirit with you."

"I shall find it here if I do not bring it," said I, gayly, as I went off with a light heart. The door closed behind as I jumped with a swing of my arms into the dingy court. I felt an unnatural exhilaration, as if the fresh air I had been breathing after confinement to my own exhausted oxygen had intoxicated me. My companion was twenty years my

hilarity, I danced with a school-boy skip to his side and familiarly thrust my hand through his bended arm as he buttoned his overcoat. It was plain that he neither had my spirits nor appreciated this exhibition of them, for he dropped his arm at once, and crooked it behind him. I was vexed at my motion, and determined to be so polite that he would discover I was not a very impertinent and very young man.

"Do our ways lead together, Mr. Tyrel?" I asked. "My lodgings are in Fountain Court, off the Strand."

"I am in the Temple," said he.

"Permit me to walk with you, then, as far as my court," said I; "I wish I could say I was going to the Temple also. I almost made up my mind at one time to pass an examination that I might be admitted there as a member, for the sake of living in that historic inclosure. I don't know but it was the formidable dinners I was to eat according to law that deterred me."

"You can lodge there without being a member," said he, shortly.

"I know it, but I should feel like a stranger within the gates only. I should wish to be naturalized, so that legally at any rate I might be fairly entitled to all the memories that pertain to the spot. Besides, I should hardly be contented unless I were using the very room made famous by some worthy-by Goldsmith or Lamb, say. But, then, I suppose there have been so many incrustations of life in every chamber, that I should stand as good a chance of inheriting some villainous ghost as of getting under the guardianship of a more genial spirit."

"You would end by making love to some old hag of a bed-maker," said he, with a coarse sneer. I was silent a moment, and then tried him on another subject.

"By-the-way, Mr. Tyrel, there was once a gentleman of your name who visited our country on business connected with the Bodley estate. I did not see him-I was but a lad then-though some of my family saw him. Am I right in thinking it was you?"

"No, you're not; and let me advise you as a friend not to say too much about the Bodley estate to-morrow, or at any other time when you meet me and the family."

“Well, said I, “I bear no grudge against the estate for making me acquainted with our friends."

"Our friends!" snapped the lawyer. "One would think you a very young man to be setting up such claims after an evening's acquaintance with—” And here he checked himself.

"With whom?" I demanded, indignantly. "Do you mean with yourself or with these two who have shown such genuine kindness to a stranger? Tyrel laughed again that odious, short jump of a laugh. Come, come! keep cool," said he, with an assumption of lofty imperturbability. "That genuine kindness, it seems to me, will think itself rather misspent on such a hotheaded young fellow. By-the-by, where did the old gentleman fish you up?" I was silent, trying to collect my resources of prudence and temper. I felt that I was at a dis

advantage, and I did not want my companion to tyrannize over me by playing with my impetuousness. Before I was ready to answer, the lawyer continued:

"Let me repeat my advice to you, young man. You perceive that this matter of the Bodley estate is one that concerns Mr. Bodley and no one else. Now, I have known the old gentleman for a number of years, and, from continual intercourse with him, have learned his peculiarities. He is quick to take offense, and he takes it where his interest lies most. It is all very well for him to show some attention to you, because you are distantly connected with the family, and I have no doubt he has talked of the estate with you -he always does with new-comers-and no doubt you have talked back, very likely tell. ing pretty stories about your ancestors, and all that. Now, then, let me as a friend give you a little warning. I have seen just such cases as yours. You go on and talk about these matters, thinking the old gentleman will be pleased, and the first thing you know you will find him dead against you. He will set you down as a claimant on the estate, and then let me see you ever sitting in his house again!"

"But I have protested that I put in no claims; and, besides, he tells me, and so do you, that the matter is virtually settled."

Very good. If you meant to put in a claim, do you suppose you would tell the old gentleman so, or would you keep on getting all out of him that you could, and then setting up for yourself with this information?" "I am no sneaking pettifogger," said I, with warmth.

"Oh, oh! by no means, by no means," said the lawyer, with his laugh. "But I want you to see the character that the old gentleman would see. You must remember that this matter of an inheritance gives a color to every thing that Mr. Bodley looks on. It does not take long to construe an interest in him into an interest in the estate, and an interest in that into self-interest. So, if you fall out as others have before you, don't lay it at my door, but recollect my injunction-keep clear of conversation about the Bodley family and estate, even if at first it seems to vex the old gentleman."

The lawyer had dropped his supercilious tone, and though he uttered these last words as composedly as the rest, I thought I could detect a rough sort of kindness about them, and at once said:

"Thank you, Mr. Tyrel. If what you say is correct, I certainly shall be cautious, for I have no wish to break off now so pleasant an acquaintance. But tell me, will the estate soon come into his hands?"

The man burst into a laugh.

"Why, I thought you were keen enough to see," said he. "He has been on the point of getting it any time these dozen years. He's mad, mad as a March hare, if it was the March hare that thought he could beat the tortoise. Suppose the estate really had been in chancery all this time, do you imagine any thing would be left of it? The case was cleared long ago, and the present heir is enjoying the property."

"I certainly did think Mr. Bodley a little

"Out of his head!" laughed the lawyer. "Yes, and he'll never get into it again. You should see him some time when he jumps out of it a good distance. I'll be bound he's tearing about now."

I was repelled by the man's apparent heartlessness, but I wished to know more, and I went on:

"But how is he left ignorant, and, may I ask, was there any ground for hope when he first entertained the matter? "

"Oh, that's easily explained," said Tyrel, carelessly. "I manage the matter. He came to me at the first, and I thought there was a chance, and told him so. We kept at it, and when the chance was gone, I could not bear to tell him, and pushed the matter off, and so I've been pushing it off ever since. It costs me no labor now. I make a little show of business now and then when he gets uneasy, and that quiets him. If I were to tell him now, it would be all up with the poor man."

"But surely this must have been, and be now, a tax upon your money and time," said I, with the beginning of a new feeling of respect toward this man.

"So that is your high-toned American notion, is it?" laughed he, harshly. "Do you think we do every thing for pay? that we humor a light-headed old man in order to rob his pockets? The less of such comments you make in his ears or mine, the better."

I was silent from sheer perplexity how I could state the matter over again to remove an uncalled for interpretation. Finally I gave it up, and asked further:

"Does Miss Bodley understand all this?" We had just reached Fountain Court, and I was slackening my pace. He stopped, placed his hand on my shoulder, much as I suppose an officer might clap his hand on a man he meant to arrest, held it a moment, and said:

"Yes, she does understand it-we both understand it, and if you understand me, you will hold your tongue about the whole business, if you ever see Miss Bodley again."

He released me, and with no further words strode off. I retreated down the rat-hole sort of entrance to my court, an entrance so undistinguishable that I should fancy a new-comer might have to put up some landmark outside, lest he should go away from his home in the morning and never be able to find it again; for my part, I always had first to discover the linen-draper's shop next door before I could be sure of my port. I am almost ashamed to confess that the sole reason why I was living in Number Three of that shabby, dingy court was one of pure sentiment. There, in that dirty precinct, Blake saw his visions, and there finally was overtaken by Death, whom he had so far outrun that he seemed to have traversed a goodly portion of the new country before actually transferred to it by the last enemy. Mere contact certainly brought ine no share in those strange apparitions. The host of wise men, of kings, and of shadowy substances, known only in the realm of Blake's

ly delaying, I fear, to comfort the forlorn widow, even though she had, in her husband's lifetime, been admitted as a partial witness of the spectacle. But in my then romantic enthusiasm for Blake's genius, of which I am not a whit ashamed, though now a little amused at it, I seized upon the most trivial occasions for identifying myself with his memory; and indeed I had so worked some of his conceptions into my brain that, whether I would or not, they inevitably af fected my judgment even upon matters very remote apparently from their province. Thus it was that this evening, sitting down in my lodging, I went over the singular experience of the past few hours, unconsciously apply ing to it the touch-stone of Blake's nature.

I remembered among the "Proverbs of Hell," contained in Blake's "Marriage of Heaven and Hell," an enigmatical one which ran-" The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship," and I had conceived it as hinting at the uses to which men variously put friendship, some making of it a soft and pleasant shelter, some a trap for the unwary. I had myself so long been without friends that in the first glad surprise I had flown to them, as a bird to its long hidden and lost nest; but now the old skeptical feelings, engendered by pertinacious solitude, returned upon me, and I wondered whether I might not be a foolish fly rushing to a silly death. "I must act with circumspection, with prudence," said I to myself, as I recalled Tyrel's words and my own heedlessness that evening; and then I laughed as another of Blake's proverbs was suggested by the word "Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity." Was Blake my good spirit whispering these little warnings into my willing ears? I looked around the room: it was the rear room, the one used by him as kitchen, studio, living- and bedroom, and answered one or two of these purposes for me now. fancied again the little, noble-headed man bending over his table, while the faithful Kate stirred the pot at the fire. The domestic life of Blake always had interested me, little as I knew about it, but I had thought of his wife as absorbed gradually into himself, until she came to live only at his motion; and now, looking at this picture, the figure by the fire dissolved into that of the brownish maid whom I had in the evening seen engaged in her simple preparation for tea-making. I saw her profile again, and then I recollected that I had forgotten to ask her if it were really she whom I had seen copying at the museum. "Well, I will ask her to-morrow," I said to myself, and, in a more Christmas frame of mind than I had ventured to hope for that afternoon, I went to bed.

THE FLOWER OF SABLE ISLAND.

FEW

I

NEW know, and perhaps fewer care to know, much about so dreary a spot as Sable Island: probably fewer still would choose to make it their place of habitation. Swept by the winds of the Atlantic, barren of vege

tation, scorched by the summer sun, and exposed to all the fury of the winter storms, it is, as it were, excluded from all the civiliza. tion to which it lies so near. The fierce blasts of autumn pile the sand-of which it is principally composed, and from which it takes its name-into shapeless heaps, which, settled and congealed by the frosts and snows of winter, become small hills, among which lie sheltered valleys where the sun shines warm. The coast is jagged with rocks, and dangerous with breakers, and is dreaded by all who go down into that sea in ships. The desolate, sandy shore is scooped by the ac tion of the winds and waves into caverns where, long after the sun has warmed the valleys, the ice glitters and the snow lies white. In all the place there is not soil enough to bear a tree; but in the sheltered nooks earth sufficient may be gathered to. form a garden, where in the summer the inhabitants may rest their sand-wearied eyes with the sight of herbs and flowers.

The inhabitants? Yes, even in Sable Island human life is possible. Even there human hearts beat joyously, and eyes weep tears of sorrow.

Some years ago-never mind how many there dwelt there an elderly Frenchman of the name of André Duroche. What had first induced him to select it as his place of residence was not then, and will never now be, krown. He was poor certainly, but in a civilized community he might have earned a far better livelihood than he made by attend ing to the light-house which was his charge. He appeared to be a man of some education and cultivation, had traveled much, and pos sessed considerable knowledge of men and books; and yet he had lived for fifteen years in this desolate and deserted spot by his own choice and without seeking change. While the subject was new, those who cared to speculate upon it had decided that either some great wrong-doing or some great grief had driven him from the haunts of men; but, his harmless life being taken into con sideration, the first theory was soon aban doned. The last remained possible, and some bold spirits had even ventured to sound André in the hope of solving the mystery, but they were met either by baffling evasions or a direct refusal to impart any informa tion; and, long before the time of which I speak, all speculation had ceased, and André pursued his own way unquestioned and unmolested.

It was a very quiet way. His household consisted of his only child, a daughter, who, French as was her father, possessed an Eng. lish fairness and purity of feature and com plexion, and spoke English as her mothertongue; the old woman, Scotch by nation and a fisherman's widow, who had accompanied him to the island as her nurse; and the lad, a native of a New England village, who helped him tend the light. This singularly-composed family did not, as is usually the case. live in the light-house. The latter stood on the point of a high ledge of rock, and was easily and safely reached at all times, even at high water and in storms; but it was ne cessarily much exposed, and André had provided a dwelling for private life secure from