And when the parson and his

changed this life for a better. wife lay side by side in the little Cumberland churchyard, their closed eyes turned to the eternal heavens, the orphan girlstraight, tall, and stalwart; reserved, yet gay; full of life, yet staid; simple, yet wise; a mountain ash in strength, grace, and suppleness, and beauty-was adopted by "that cranky old girl," as one of the circle called her, the Countess of Sark.

"What an excellent thing for Winifred Vaughan!" said the world; and of course the world was in the right.

CHAPTER X.

DEALINGS WITH THE

"ARGUS" NEwspaper.

LADY SARK gained a good deal of applause amongst her immediate friends by her adoption of Winifred Vaughan; and it is not improbable that this kind of recompense was not unpleasant to her ladyship. She was a thorough old worldling, and discounted the reward charitable people look for in the next world by taking as much comfort, applause, glory, and credit to herself as she could in this. If we were not charitable, we might hint that there are others not unlike her.

At the time we write of-in the March previous to the murder of Estelle Martin, which, as the reader will remember, took place on the 29th of September 1829-Mr George Horton, who was not then appointed magistrate for Marylebone, was a frequent visitor to Green Street, and came there ostensibly with the purpose of playing a rubber of whist with the dowager Countess.

But it happened that Winifred Vaughan was the usual companion of that excellent woman. She was cheaper than one of those hired ladies, who seem somehow to be always in the way and out of place, however amiable they may be. She was more willing and more clever; and though so observant that she saw pretty well through Lady Sark's motives, yet she was so generous that she pieced out with sweet charity what that old lady wanted-which was a good deal.

Miss Winifred Vaughan was very beautiful, very accomplished-which really count for nothing in her circle-very well born, and very poor, which count for a good deal. She had many admirers, but none entirely fitted to her. They who were eager to marry were a great deal too poor; and they who were excellently well fitted with estates, titles, and money, were inclined to look around them before they selected their partners for life. And even then they looked for money.

"Egad!" said the richest duke in the kingdom, "egad! those millowner fellows are getting so powerful, that we must put money to money to be equal to them."

And the young fellows were evidently impregnated with this idea, and moved about in splendid selfishness, leaving Winifred Vaughan, and a dozen other such amiable creatures, waiting in the sickness of hope deferred.

That is, the world supposed that they were so kept; and the world composed of dowagers did not hesitate to blame the selfishness of the young men. But as the young men cared nothing about the dowagers, the effect was by no means astounding.

One young nobleman, indeed-and the very pick of all the "matches" upon which the voracious dowagers were, by the verdict of the veracious world, supposed to have set their hearts-set his heart upon Winifred Vaughan, and would have offered her his hand; but it was whispered-and it is astonishing how thoroughly in high life everybody understands everybody else's motives-that Lord Chesterton had told Lord Wimpole that if he married the niece of old Sark, "he would cut off the entail, or go on the turf." Certain it was that, at the time we write of, Winifred Vaughan was nearly twenty years old, and unmarried.

Lady Sark, whose house was not very crowded by the aristocracy that class having a natural preference to those places whereat something is to be seen, or some gaiety is going on-fell to opening her house to the gentry-an inferior class, but glad to go where there was a title, and sometimes exhibiting an independent, a learned, and a pleasant member of their own set. One of these was Mr George Horton.

This quiet, silent, studious, and observant man was not usually a "party" man, but he was always to be found at the Countess's assemblies. He was attentive-respectful evento the old lady, and a gentleman. It is true that the poor fellow actually did something for his living; but Lady Sark forgave him that he could play at whist.

He was, too, quite aware-for the gossip of one circle had sunk down to a lower-that Lord Wimpole had proposed and failed. For did he not read the Morning Pillar, in which a superior kind of Barnett Slammers did the fashionable reporting, and from whose pen the report had droppedgracefully and even poetically garnished, but yet unmistakably given?

No one could accuse Mr Coaster-the reporter alluded toof indelicacy. He threw always a veil over the sins and follies of the aristocracy. But the veil was of gauze, everything was seen through it. It hid nothing; but rather, like the veils which cover the beauties of the harem, it gave a grace to that which it never even pretended to conceal. It is well known that other and inferior penmen were jealous of this gentleman, and declared that he waited at the tables of the great in livery, with silver shoulder-knots and red plush inexpressibles; but that we know was untrue. Mr Coaster might have been at their feasts in spirit, but he was never there in person. How he managed to pick up so many reports was, indeed, a wonder. The head of a family was first apprised of matters going on in his own household through the columns of the Morning Pillar.

But, besides the Pillar, there were at the time in full vigour two newspapers which dealt exclusively in matters interesting to the aristocracy. "And were, by consequence," said Barnett Slammers, who was an out-and-out Radical, "nasty and blackguard." These were the Satirist and the Argus. But it was unfair of Barnett to connect these things with the House of Lords. All the connection that they and their proprietors had with that august assembly was simply of that temporary kind which a highwayman has with the person whose money he demands. The demand made in that simple time, only forty years ago, was this-"Please, your lordship, we have

discovered a hole in the cloak in which your virtue is wrapped; and if you do not plaster it, we will point out to the ridiculeloving world where that hole is." In nine cases out of ten, this method was found to be efficacious.

To the office of one of these satirical journals-now happily extinct-Lord Wimpole one morning walked, and asked for the editor.

The little boy who served the office as clerk, folder, and general dispenser of a free-very free-newspaper, with the precocious intellect natural to newsboys, at once divined the cause. Lord Wimpole was unmistakably a gentleman; but the very soft voice in which he asked for the editor did not conceal an amount of irritation which the young gentleman did all he could to repress.

"Editor never comes 'ere, sir," said the boy. "He's at 'is country 'ouse."

"Then, doubtless, the publisher's at home. I have called on a matter connected with the paper. I have met Dr M'Phie, who, I believe, writes for it."

This threw the boy off his guard.

"My eyes!" he said to himself, "why he's an author may be. Wot a swell!"

Then, after a little more scrutiny-during which he directed some wrappers, for the paper had a country circulation-he asked

"Wot name, sir? P'r'aps Mr Rolt is at home. I'll go and see."

Lord Wimpole did not give his card.

"You can say," he said, carelessly, while his heart beat a little more quickly, "that I am a person who knows the Doctor."

Now the Doctor, a clever fellow-a Trinity College man of Dublin-wrote for his bread; and, being at that time in the Fleet-did not care very much-nor did he care much even when out of that place of durance-to whom he sold his articles, full of scholarship, and with a certain verve and "swing" about them that made them very readable. The Doctor, it must be owned, had no more to do with the "spicy" little articles which sold the paper than had Lord

Wimpole himself; but he had an easy conscience, and did not think that he was by any means guilty of the miserable scandal which produced the black-mail by which the Doctor was paid.

"Mr Rolt," said the boy, "'ere's a regular swell asking for you. He's an author, I think, for he knows, and is a friend of, Dr M'Phie."

Mr Rolt had a severe headache. He was a handsome, fair, somewhat bald, and fashionably-dressed man. He had been dining out with some theatrical people and the proprietor of the newspaper, and had made an eloquent speech, in which he called the press the "palladium of British liberty, and the protector of the purity of the nation." All this Mr T. Lilburn Rolt firmly believed it to be. He had said it so many times before, that the sentence rolled out of his mouth like a familiar truth.

Lord Wimpole was duly ushered in. Mr Rolt-who devoutly wished that his aching head was under a pump, and that the little dinner at Thames Ditton had never taken place -saw, in spite of his headache, that Lord Wimpole was no gentleman of the press; but he still carried the idea suggested by the office-boy, that the stranger, who did not give his name, had come to ask for money for the imprisoned genius, M'Phie.

Motioning Lord Wimpole to a chair, and passing his hand over his heavy eyes, he said

"I can divine your mission, sir; but I must explain to you beforehand that our eccentric and very clever friend has no claim upon this paper. this paper. He has, in fact, overdrawn his salary.

He has been paid beforehand for three leaders.

One on the 'Bishops'".

Lord Wimpole held up his hand.

Let me see!

"Pray, sir," he said, "tell me no more. I have no desire and no right to know the secrets of your paper. I do not call upon Dr M'Phie's business; indeed, I only used his name as a passport to reach you. I do not pretend to be in his secrets, as I have only met him once."

Mr Rolt saw that he was caught. His headache made him rude and ill-natured. He rose at once and put his hand on the bell.