"I ask your pardon sincerely. It has always been my foible to speak before I look. I took it for granted

"I don't suppose you intended any harm, sir," said Marion coldly. "If we could have afforded a servant to attend the door, we should not have been forced to take lodgers." She turned to the elder man and added: "We have three vacant rooms on the floor above, and a smaller room on the top story. You might divide the accommodation to suit yourselves. You can come upstairs, if you like, and see whether they would suit you."

The gentlemen assented, and followed Marion over the upper part of the house. The elder man examined the rooms and the furniture with care; but the younger kept his regards fixed rather upon the guide than upon what she showed them. Her gait, the movements of her arms, the carriage of her head, her tone and manner of speaking, all were subjected to his scrutiny. He said little, but took care that what he did say should be of a courteous and conciliatory nature. The elder man asked questions pleasantly, and seemed pleased with the answers Marion gave him. Within a short time the crudity and harshness of the first part of the interview began to vanish, and the relations of the three became more genial and humane. There was here and there a smile, and once, at least, a laugh. Marion, who was always quick to recognise the humorous aspect of a situation, already foresaw herself making her mother merry with an account of this adventure, when the heroes of it should have gone away. The party returned to the sitting-room in a very good humour with one another, therefore.

"For my part, I am more than satisfied," remarked the elder gentleman, taking out his snuff-box. "Do you agree with me, Mr. Lancaster?"

Lancaster did not reply. He was gazing with great interest at the oil portrait that hung on the wall. At length he turned to Marion and said: "Is that- - May I ask who that is?"

"I knew Major Lockhart. He-of course you know— he fell at Waterloo."

"We know that he was killed there, but we have no particulars," said Marion, her voice faltering, and her eyes full of painful eager

ness.

"And you are Miss Lockhart-the Marion he spoke of?"

"Wait a moment," she said, in a thick voice, and turning pale

She walked to the window, and pressed her forehead against the glass. Presently she turned round and said, "I will call my mother, sir. She must hear what you have to tell us :" and left the room.

"A strange chance this!" remarked the elder man thoughtfully. "She is a fine girl, and looks like her father," said Lancaster.

In a few moments Marion re-entered with her mother. Mrs. Lockhart looked from one to the other of the two men with wide-open eyes and flushed cheeks: a slight tremor pervaded the hand with which she mechanically smoothed the thick braids of grey hair that covered her graceful head. She moved with an uncertain step to a chair, and said in a voice scarcely audible, "Will you be seated, gentlemen? My daughter tells me that you-one of you——"

"The honour belongs to me, madam," said Lancaster, with deep respect and with some evidence of emotion, "of having seen your husband the day before his death. He mentioned both of you; he said no man in the army had had so happy a life as he-such a wife and such a daughter. I shall remember other things that he said, byand-by; but this meeting has come upon me by surprise, and The day after the battle I rode out to the field, and found him. He had fallen most gallantly-I need not tell you that—at a moment such as all brave soldiers would wish to meet death in. He was wounded through the heart, and must have died instantly. I assumed the privilege of bringing his body to Brussels, and of seeing it buried there." Here he paused, for both the women were crying, and, in sympathy with them, his own voice was getting husky. The elder man sat with his face downcast, and his hands folded between his knees.

"Is the grave marked?" he suddenly asked, looking up at Lan

caster.

"Yes; the name, and the regiment, and the date.—I brought something from him," he went on, addressing Marion, as being the stronger of the two women;" it was fastened by a gold chain round his neck, and he wore it underneath his coat. You would have received it long ago, if I had known where to find you." He held out to her, as he spoke, a small locket with its chain. Marion took it, and held it pressed between her hands, not saying anything. After a moment, the two gentlemen exchanged a glance, and got up. The elder gentleman approached Marion with great gentleness of manner; and, when she rose and attempted to speak, he put his hand kindly on her shoulder.

"I had a little girl once, who loved me," he said. "You must let me go without ceremony now; to-morrow I shall ask leave to come

back and complete our arrangements. God bless you, my child! Are you going with me, Mr. Lancaster?”

"Shall you come back to-morrow, too?" said Marion to the latter. "Indeed I will!"

"Then I won't try to thank you now," she replied. But their eyes met for a moment, and Lancaster did not feel that the recognition of his service had been postponed.

They were going out without attempting to take leave of Mrs. Lockhart; but she rose up from her chair and curtseyed to them with a grace and dignity worthy of Fanny Pell. And then, yielding to an impulse that was better than the best high-breeding, the gentle widow stepped quickly up to Lancaster, and put her arms about his neck, and kissed him.

(To be continued.)

A BISCAYAN STROLL.

O the lover of Nature few experiences perhaps are pleasanter

To the lover of at

than that of finding himself at the head-quarters of some group or groups, with the outlying members of which he is already fairly familiar at home. Take the case of the Scotch botanist. No sooner does he set foot in Switzerland, than he finds himself at the very centre and metropolis of that Alpine flora whose scanty Highland representatives he already carries at his fingers' ends, and is bewildered perhaps and almost overwhelmed by the multiplicity and diversity of new forms suddenly thrust upon his attention, feeling not unlike one whose navigation has hitherto been confined to horseponds, and who finds himself suddenly confronted with the open sea. Something of this kind, if not altogether to the same extent, may be experienced by anyone who happens to pass direct from one of our own south-western coasts to that part of north Spain and south France which immediately neighbours the Bay of Biscay. Here, too, he can hardly fail to meet with a considerable number of old and familiar forms, mixed up with others whose acquaintance he then makes for the first time. Plants which with us, for instance, are confined to a few valleys, or a few sheltered nooks along the shore, are found here, occurring throughout extensive districts, and increasing, as a rule, in greater and greater profusion as we get farther and farther south. If our imaginary traveller takes Ireland as his point of departure, then especially is this the case, for between these two points the connection is a very close and intimate one; the whole, or nearly the whole, of that curious little Atlantic group which we find in the south and west of Ireland reappearing along the southern shores of the Bay of Biscay, though unknown to the entire intermediate district. To exhaust, or even touch upon, all these points of comparison within the compass of an article such as this, would obviously be impossible, but if, without attempting anything of the kind, we simply start for a short stroll along almost any portion of this coast, we shall I think find that we encounter no lack of entertainment by the way, and that too without so much as deviating a single yard from our path.

Biarritz being the point best known to the general tourist, Biarritz probably will be the best place for us to start from; or rather, let us say, a little to the north of Biarritz, somewhere about that broad stretch of sandy shore which extends below Bayonne, and through which the sand-encumbered waters of the Adour pour themselves into the bay. Skipping, then, all preliminary travelling, and refusing to be drawn aside by any of the other allurements of the neighbourhood, let us first take up our station here upon the shore, and begin to look about us.

Standing, then, with our backs to the sea and our faces to the mountains, three bands or zones of vegetation lie immediately below our eyes. First, the broad beach, with its graduated materials—sand, and pebbles, and shingle-through which struggles a sparse growth of sedums and sand-spurreys, pink erodiums, and large patches of cudweed, whose pale grey foliage contrasts well with its brilliant canarycoloured flowers. Beyond this again, a sort of neutral ground, where the grass is trying hard to anchor the sand, and where the sand is ever struggling to re-assert its independence; this gradually passing into the true sward, deep in tall grass, through which, in springtime, the asphodels and jonquils raise their white or yellow heads. Yet a little farther, and we enter under the overshadowing portal of the "Pignadas," suddenly exchanging the broad daylight and crude colouring outside for the cloistered shade, and deep, though subdued, tones which a forest of pine-trees imparts to everything that comes beneath its roof. Though important in the aggregate, these pinetrees are not in themselves, it must be owned, imposing, their wood being utterly valueless as timber, and the greater number wearing that air of crude and unbecoming juvenility inevitable to trees which have only been planted within the last half-century. Between Bayonne and Biarritz, and at certain spots in the Landes, they are older; but even there, to meet with a pine of any size is the exception. All alike, old and young, great and small, are provided with a small tin or pipkin, which is fastened on to the trunk, and into which slowly drop the large tears of turpentine, which bring in so considerable a revenue to the Government. Beware by the way of leaning or even brushing against the trunk, for on every side the half-healed gashes still exude gummy matter, which has a fashion of adhering with undesirable pertinacity to everything that comes within its grasp. Underneath, the ground is covered with fir-needles, through which bright sand-streaks gleam at intervals, while along the edges, and upon all the sandy knolls, and in every open space, grow great hedges and thickets and heather-the huge Erica scoparia, the