has done nothing more than stumble upon
some old Hebrew gloss, which will leave the
matter as apocryphal as ever. Our anatomists
deride the luz as a kind of terra incognita;
but the Jewish ones stoutly maintain its exist-
ence just about here," placing his thumb, as
he spoke, upon the lower extremity of Ara-
bella's back, to her utter confusion.
"Their
Rabbis, too, (who, after all, know the bones
only by tradition,) tell us not merely that here
it is, (pressing his thumb upon the very spot,)
but that it was created by God, in an unal-
terable state of incorruption; that it is of a
slippery nature; and that out of its ever-liv-
ing power, fermented by a kind of dew from
heaven, all the dry bones shall be re-united
and knit together at the last day, and the
whole generation of mankind be recruited."

The Rector was too intent upon accurately demonstrating the precise locality of his immortal little slippery bone, to be conscious of Arabella's embarrassment the while, who silently resolved never again to be the channel of communicating any of her brother's dis

coveries. Neither did she forget, in her next letter to him, to complain angrily of his "impertinence in writing to her about the luz, as he called it, when he knew very well where it was situated, and must have known equally well, that the Rector knew it, though he bid her mention it to him."

CHAPTER IV.

I stand doubtful,

And unresolved what to determine of you.

MASSINGER.

AMONG the rural tenants who held farms upon the Azledine estate, was one Andrew Mayfield.

He was a man about forty years of age, of rough manners, and, as was generally reported, of a disposition still more rough. Certainly, if the face be any index to the mind, Andrew Mayfield had received from nature a set of features, which would not leave the most careless physiognomist an apology for being injured by their possessor.

They were rudely but decisively stamped. Over a low retiring forehead, he wore his thick black hair, smooth and even, down to

his eyes, which were of the same colour, large, and rendered more prominent by the receding of his brow. In their habitual expression lurked a blended character of deep cunning and cool daring. His nose was hooked, like the beak of a hawk; and his thin compressed lips, surmounted a chin which curved up with rather a handsome contour. The whole face was deeply seamed and indented by the small

pox.

It happened to Andrew Mayfield, as it has sometimes happened to other men, that he had everybody's bad word, without anybody being able to say exactly why. But there was a sort of taint hanging about his character, which made people shake their heads when his name was mentioned. Few chose to be his associates; fewer still his friends. Yet he had both; and they who were neither, had no disposition to show themselves openly his enemies; for Andrew was considered a dangerous man with whom to be at strife.

Misfortunes will sometimes cause us to be thus viewed askance by the world; as if he,

upon whose steps disappointment waits in all he undertakes, stood in the great thoroughfare of life, a beacon to warn off the wayfarer, instead of one who, having lost his own way, needed, so much the more, comfort and assistance. Now Andrew Mayfield had this ill reputation clinging to him. It was known he had failed, some eight or ten years before, as a shopkeeper in Worcester. Since he had taken to farming, too, he had not prospered; though, Sir Everton being an indulgent landlord, he had managed to continue his farm, in spite of long arrears which remained on Judiah Flinn's books, much to his dissatisfaction.

It was sometimes whispered, indeed, that the Baronet had reasons of his own for being more considerate towards Andrew than any of his other tenants, having, on several occasions, remitted his rent entirely; and merely, as it should seem, because he was not ready with the money. No doubt this circumstance contributed to make him unpopular among his neighbours. A man who is thought to