oaks domineered in majesty, but they exalted our race by what he said or had worthy companions in towering what he did. At any rate, I mused and branching elms, both of the large to myself, the immediate approach to and the small leaved kinds; in dense this so-called manor-house is altogether and expansive sycamores, each of which after my heart. occupied a vast territory to itself; in tall, soaring ash-trunks, that take such pride in their boles that they never conceal them with leaves; in horsechestnuts, covered with their prickly fruit; and, here and there, in Spanish chestnuts, the finest I have ever seen in England, and still more colossal specimens of which were congregated, as I now am better aware, on an eminence that my companion told me I must learn, if I ever came to settle in that country, to designate a toll. Here and there a stately walnut spread out its shining leaves, a handful of which I could not resist plucking and bruising, so pleasant to me is their aromatic scent; and they, too, gave evidence of a copious harvest. If there be a woodreeve of this well-timbered domain, he must be, I thought to myself, a good old Tory indeed, who does not allow trunk to be axed or bough to be lopped. Neglect is very picturesque in its effects, whether the thing neglected be a ruined castle, an unkempt peasant, or a secular woodland chase. I felt that, had Veronica been with me, she would have observed that this park was very ill-maintained, and that she would dearly love to have the thinning and regulating of its trees. To my less orderly imagination it presented a most agreeable appearance; and what, perhaps, put the finishing touch to my satisfaction was the exceeding number of hawthorns, most of them in the perfect maturity of their growth. Whilst I was being thrown into this sympathetic state of mind, my companion suddenly called my attention to a goodly Jacobean mansion of red brick standing in the lower ground of the park, and looking as though it had been there from all time worth thinking of. Shakespeare must have been alive when it was built, and Cecil, and Drake, and I had quite made up my mind that, Sir Walter Raleigh, and many another let the interior of the house be what it famous Englishman whose name we might, there would I live, and there, if love to hear because he glorified and allowed, would die. I was prepared, I had scarcely made this consoling reflection than we came upon another gate, passed out of the park, and found ourselves iu an ordinary meadow, through which, however, the park-road still travelled in a pleasing curve. It looked tame and characterless after the undulating sylvan spaces I had just traversed, and my heart began once again to sink within me, when we came to yet another gate that led into an apple orchard laden with fruit of every sort and color, the trees being some seventy or eighty years of age. The only thing that invaded the uniformity of their straight and goodly rows was an oak of giant girth and splendidly spreading branches, so thick with leaves that it was not till we were clear of them that, though it stood not more than fifty yards ahead of me, I perceived the house I had in desperation come to scrutinize. Even at that instant, and before I had looked ou more than its grey stone frontage, al most smothered in creepers up to the very top of its three rounded gables, I recognized the haven of my hopes, and the fulfilment, despite Veronica's gloomy predictions, of my most fastidious dreams. It was small; it was secluded; its position was, according to my taste, perfect; and it had the blended charm of simple, harmonious form and venerable age. Garden, I could see, there was none, save a narrow strip of ground separated from the orchard by a wire fence, half of which was sward, and the other half dedicated to potatoes and gooseberry bushes. A short, bent, bare-headed old mau was mowing the lawn, if lawn I am to call it, with a scythe, and might, with the implement he suspended at my approach, have stood for Old Father Time himself. For feminine objectious in the world. therefore, for mouldy passages, for passed through a door at the top of it rooms of impossible shape and dimen- before going from the hall into the sion, for tumble-down staircases, and offices on the ground floor; and, in for pitiful accommodation everywhere; doing so, came upon rooms evidently and I was already rehearsing the con- intended for sleeping-chambers, but of troversy I should have to conduct with much lower pitch than those in the Veronica on this thorny question. But, front of the house, and bearing an altoin company with Father Time and his gether different character. Still thinkwife, who had now joined us, and who, ing of Veronica and her shapely exactwith the exception of her raiment, ing mind, I was a little disconcerted by seemed the very double of himself, in the narrow space of the rooms in this hue, age, manner, and toothless speech, portion of the tenement. But when I I found myself, to my astonishment, emerged from them into the kitchenpassing through the various parts of a garden of which I spoke, I more than dwelling in excellent condition, cased recovered courage, and resolved to dein exceptionally stout walls, and show-fend my future home against all the ing nowhere sign either of damp or decay. The hall was little more than a passage; but there was a savor of antique taste in its dark-stained oaken staircase and in its three ancient doorways (through one of which there was access to the offices, while the other two opened on dining-room and drawing-room respectively), which gave it an aspect of dignity too often wanting in halls of much larger dimensions. An old cottage clock ticked slowly and solemnly in the dining-room, its de-been joined on to its older and humbler liberate measurement of time sound- companion at a later date. Thus what ing all the louder because it was the now was back had once been front, and only piece of furniture in a room whose what had originally been complete in boards, too, were bare. Old Mistress itself had not only been added to, but Time had one cardinal virtue at least subordinated to its younger companion. she loved cleanliness, and there was no I could not then, nor can I now, make corner where one could not have sate up my mind which of the two I prefer down to a hearty meal with uncon- to gaze on. I waver in my liking accerned appetite. Over the dining-room cording to my mood, and just as I revert and drawing-room were two other unconsciously, I suppose, to the temrooms, resembling them in size and per of this century or of that. I kept character, and possessing an unusual aspect of cheerfulness, notwithstanding their heavy mullioned windows, by reason of the cross-light which they enjoyed. I observed with satisfaction that the house looked almost exactly south-east, to my thinking the proper aspect for an English country-house. Such an aspect ensures morning cheerfulness all the year round, the full advantage of whatever sun there is in winter from dawn practically to sundown, and the exquisite effects of the rising of the moon. walking round from one to the other, and felt ineffable peace in musing upon both. The quiet August afternoon, with its long, motionless shadows, its slight intimation of silver haze, and its soothing noise of neighboring rooks; the music of a mill-stream I could just overhear, the melodious monotone of contiguous ringdoves, the color of the nectarines on the wall, the recollection of the ripe and ruddy orchard; all of these seemed to imbue my mind with a sense of autumnal mellowness, when everything one longs for awaits the I had mounted the staircase, and plucking, and there is nothing more to be desired. The outhouses were nu- rafters, have passed through the same merous, and it was evident that the doors and up the same staircases, older dwelling had once been a farm- drunk out of the same cellars and eaten stead. But they were in excellent re- out of the same larders I now call pair, and red-tiled like the house itself; mine. I like to think that I am not and the tiles were silvered here and the first to bring life and death, there with the growth and stains of sigh and laughter, merry-making and unremoved lichen. There was accom- mourning, into a human habitation. It modation for more horses and carriages than Veronica and I should ever be likely to want, though the stable and coach-house fittings were a little rude; and there were sheds and stalls for kine and beasts, and lodges for wagons and carts we should never need. But there was not an eyesore anywhere. The road by which I had come ended at the house; and at the back of the kitchengarden there ran a country lane, prodigally overhung with the foliage of trees in the very heyday of their English vigor. On the other side of the lane was another park. How wrong Veronica had been! and what a triumph I should have over her! Suam quisque domum spatio circumdat, I reiterated to myself, with a contentment rivalling that of the cooing wood-pigeons. There was no sound of crowing cock, of barking house-dog, of screaming child. I could see the grey, square tower of a village church about a mile and a half away; but that was the only indication of social life within the range of vision. Retirement, seclusion, and old-world charm had I not found them all? Through a nail-studded, oaken door, black as ebony with the years, I had descended into the cellars, and had satisfied myself that Veronica, who, from taste not from fanaticism, never touches wine, would have water of extraordinarily fine quality to drink. Moreover, though clear as crystal, and brisk to the taste, it was as soft to the hands as - velvet or oatmeal. I do not know how people consent, save under dire compulsion, to build a house for themselves or to live in one newly built for them by others. For my part, I like to think that a long line of ancestors, either in blood or sentiment, have slept under the same roof, have trodden the same boards, have genially entertained under the same is necessary for my contentment, indispeusable to my sense of kinship with the past, that I should know that baby feet have, generation after generation, toddled along the passages, and chil dren's vacant voices gladdened the corridors which I now tread. I have no desire to invent anything, but only to preserve and perpetuate those things which have long been found good. The society of days gone by is the most friendly and congenial of all forms of companionship, for one peoples and composes it according to the humor of one's imagination. I have never been able to understand why, seeing that one's mother is the most sacred of all human figures, people's grandmothers should have become a theme for poor and profane wit. Grandmothers, greatgrandmothers, great-great-grandmothers, I know, and delight in knowing, had sate in the ingle-nooks of what I that day resolved should be my home; all comely, all with spotless lace caps and cuffs and 'kerchiefs, all kindly, all deferred to, all the real guardian angels of the place. Beautiful young girls must there have loved and longed, kissed and wept, clapped their hands for joy, and performed innumerable offices of domestic helpfulness amd charity. A new house would be to me as intolerable as a new world. Even in restless and changeful days like these, the most powerful influence in the present is the influence of the past; just as the influence of our thoughts, actions, and decisions will be felt more a hundred years hence than they are to-day. Living under the shade of the past, we feel peaceful and secure. I wonder how many generations of swallows have built their nests and reared their broods under the broad, deep eaves of the hinder portion of the old manor-house I that day contemplated with such forward-looking affection. | worked myself almost into a fever over Four hundred generations of swallows the uncertainty of her verdict upon my and house-martins and starlings Think of that! They were building there when Shakespeare wrote the lines This guest of Summer, Smells wooingly here; no jutty, frieze, but Nor coign of vantage, but this bird hath made His pendent bed and procreant cradle. Where they Most breed and haunt, I have observed, the air Is delicate. I had surrendered myself so entirely to the mellow sunshine and afternoon shadows of the place, that I fear I had attended but ill to the kindly, if somewhat inarticulate, observations made by Father Time, as he dutifully accompanied me in my devious saunterings. But at length it did dawn upon me, as something not undeserving of my attention, that he had more than once intimated to me that the house had been vacant for two years, but that yesterday "another gentleman" had been to see it and appeared greatly taken by it. But I had so completely appropriated it in my own mind that this last piece of information troubled me but little. To-morrow I must bring Veronica to see it, and then the matter would be as good as settled. I consumed the better part of the evening in chanting its praises to Veronica, while cautiously avowing that some of the rooms were rather small and somewhat low. I saw I was not producing all the effect I intended. Veronica has always chosen to consider me subject to dangerous impulses of enthusiasm, and I suppose she deems it to be her duty to put water into my wine. We were off betimes together on the morrow; and I hardly ever made a more anxious journey. It was impossible for her not to admire the two-mile drive through the park and its stately mansion; but I had newly found treasure. Talk of sudden enthusiasms ! Veronica fell in love with it fully as promptly as I had done, and a load was lifted off my heart. I never knew her so impulsive, so indisposed to criticise, or averse to investigate. "No, no!" she replied to anything I wished to show her or consult her about. "It is just what we want. Let us go and see the agent at once. You hear it was looked at the day before yesterday by some one else." Only too well pleased to find her in this mood, I gladly consented to drive at once to the house of the agent, who lived, Father Time told us, but a mile away. He received us with all the heartiness of a retired captain of horse, but at once told us that the house was - let! Who had let it? He himself, the agent for the estate, but two days previously, If we liked to go and see the owner of the property, we were free to do so; but it was obvious, he said, we should only be wasting our time. Nevertheless we went; taking another and a shorter railway journey to a place about fifteen miles off, where he was staying on visit. I do not like to say overmuch concerning the grace and attractiveness of Veronica; but I could see plainly enough they were thoroughly well appreciated on this occasion. For our new acquaintance at once said he should vastly like to have us for tenants. But what could he do? We had received a most kindly welcome, but no practical consolation. Still I was not cast down; for, though it seemed absurd to Veronica, I felt an unshakable conviction that I should live for the rest of my days under the shadow and protection of that venerable oak. I wrote to the country agent, enclosing two cheques, each for the same round sum, and authorizing him to offer one, and then, if necessary, both, to the tenant who had anticipated me, to be off his bargain. He wrote back saying that what I suggested was 4355 not possible, and returning my drafts. and all of them equally welcome. It Two more days-days of unutterable disappointment and depression - passed away; and then there came a note from my future landlord, to the effect that he had "put his foot down," and that he had written to say, as was perfectly true, that he had two agents, one in the country and one in town, that some confusion and rivalry of claims had arisen in consequence, and that, in order to determine the matter in one way or another, he had decided in my favor. "Of course," he added, "you will pay him any sum in reason for his disappointment." is a matter of uncertainty whether she will charm our listening ears with the music of the future on the piano I bought expressly for her consummate touch, will sing Tuscan Storuelli by the score, or will play havoc with Veronica's guitar as she invents some madcap accompaniment to the latest production of the Shaftesbury Avenue. Nor is it within the bounds of prediction to say whether she will lead me into labyrinthine dialogues concerning the riddle of the universe, or turn all one's most settled convictions topsyturvy with perfectly sincere paradoxes. Sometimes she will dote on my flowers, and make herself the very Flora of the garden; sometimes she seems hardly to know that it is there, and rambles discursively, yet always with suggestive point, through all the picture-galleries of Europe. She has no opinions, or, at any rate, they are held provisionally, Veronica says this is my favorite and until further notice. But, indeed, story, and that I have told it too often. it is too much to say that they are But I never get tired of telling it; and "held " except in solution, for she I tell it again to myself whenever any does not seem anxious to solve anypiece of small ill-fortune happens to thing. Her mind points to the four me, and I still want to think myself a quarters of the wind, and, like it, veers favorite of the gods and to have a unaccountably. Nor was I quite accuhearty laugh over that ten pounds. But this had been my very own proposition. A few days later he enclosed me a note from the disappointed house-hunter, saying that he had been put to a good deal of trouble and expense, and he could not ask, by way of compensation, for less than - ten pounds! Spring is tidy, of herself. She has the natural finish and clean-looking bloom of youth. She sheds no dead leaves for you to sweep up, flings about no rotten branches for you to carry away. She is spick-and-span in her new raiment. She has none of the redundant growth of summer, and the blossoms she sends floating on the breeze make less litter even than autumn gossamer. Thus I was unusually untroubled concerning the reputation of the garden that I love and Veronica's mild reprehensions, and had just settled down in a bend of the South Enclosure to a perusal of M. Martha's "Les Moralistes de l'Empire Romain," when I heard her calling: "Here they are ! " I never know what aspect Lamia will be pleased to present when she brings her radiant presence to our roof; she has so many and such various moods, rate when I said she has every mood, for she is always exhilaratingly cheerful; delivering herself sometimes of the most gloomy prophecies concerning the future of mankind in the highest spirits. I cannot quite make out what she thinks of the Poet; but I suspect she somewhat resents his uncompromising good sense, and Veronica's occasionally unfortunate championship of him. I have never been able to understand why such a fuss should be made about what is called fame, and how any rational human being can desire to obtain it. In the porch of the little church of Kermaria, near Perros-Guirec, in Brittany, I once read the words inscribed on a tablet to a deceased priest, Amavit nesciri et pro nihilo reputari. That seems to me the utterance of a sage as well as a saint. But our men of the time appear to think differently. I must confess, in justice to Veronica's |