every man to have been born, as Bolingbroke puts it, with a certain reminiscence, and that when we seem to be taught we are only put in mind of what we knew in a former state. When I first saw Ruth Oswald my mind leaped back upon its inspiration, the inspiration of my first being. Her presence kindled into life the reminiscence with which I was born. My soul had found its talisman. No wonder that she filled up every nook and corner and valley in my heart, no wonder that my bliss was too great for words, no wonder that I trod upon air, no wonder that my life was intensified, that the flowers were brighter, the river clearer, the song of birds more melodious; no wonder that the secret of existence seemed suddenly to burst in upon my hitherto darkened mind, no wonder that the act of living became intensified, no wonder that the world was suddenly filled with bright hopes and fancies, and grand ambitious impulses. When her sweet voice in gentle accents of love fell upon my ear and made music throughout my soul, I was only put in mind of what I had once known in some former state, and what I shall know again, with a vast intensity of knowledge, when the indefiniteness of the former state and the reality of the present shall be concentrated in one stupendous and everlasting heart-beat of love.

They who have delighted in hypocrisy and usury, in deceit and malice, in selfishness and robbery, what shall their lot be in that future state to which we are drifting? Shall there be any hereafter for them? To him that everlasting life shall be given! Is it given to all? Is not resurrection the reward of virtue? Is not the punishment of hell intended to denote the everlasting oblivion of the grave? These are the thoughts of my closet. I never give them utterance in the pulpit. I suspect them. They are not genuine. I half doubt, half believe in them; and finally lay them aside as emanations of my weaker moments, fungi of the mind, exostosis of passion, furuncle engendered by the dejection that comes upon me when, for a moment, seeing her face, I put out my hand, and find her not.

There was among the Dean's visitors at Wulstan one Erasmus Pensax. It was the continual wonder of the cathedral city that the Dean condescended to have Pensax for a friend. A small town is worse than a village for espionage. It mixes the larger vices of the city with the small-talk of the hamlet. Wulstan had its public meetings, its trade and commerce, its Town Council, its elections of members of Parliament—indeed, all the affectation of a great city; and it had its tea-parties, its evening gossips, its doorway talk, just as

Summerdale has. In Summerdale we know enough of each other to be sympathetic and indulgent. We are one family. We all meet in one church Sunday after Sunday, and now and then all stand by one grave. Wulstan is just too large, to have the sympathetic relationships of a village community, and the less it knows of any man or woman whom it envies or dislikes, the more bitter it is in its criticism, the more unscrupulous in the stories it tells of the man or woman who for the time being comes up for dissection at its tea-meetings and its charity sewing societies.

Wulstan disliked Erasmus Pensax, not for any particular fault that they could identify at the time, but they respected their Dean so much that they hated Pensax because he was the Dean's guest. Pensax was a lawyer at Wulstan, who had eaten his dinners and been called to the bar; not that he had the ability to practise there, but he was ambitious, and hoped to gain social distinction by this advancement; and so he did. At the assizes he put on his wig and gown, and was to be seen wandering in and out of the court, briefless, but satisfied. He was rich, and no wonder, seeing that he saved all he got. He lived in an old tumble-down house on the outskirts of Wulstan, with a little fat, sweltering housekeeper, who was one of the mysteries of the city. Everybody wondered how she contrived to keep any flesh on her bones in Pensax's service. Desprey used to say that Erasmus Pensax would marry Mary Oswald, and be member for Wulstan. "That is," he continued, "if I don't stand myself, and beat him on the poll."

I often thought of Desprey's remark afterwards. It was made a week before I left Wulstan for Oxford. I was going to dine at the Dean's the next day, and was telling Desprey of his reverence's kindness to me.

"From that day, when the Dean three years ago patted me on the head in my father's studio, he has always taken special notice of me," I said.

"Yes, and so has the Dean's youngest daughter," said Desprey. I blushed and was angry. I did not like any of my companions to mention Ruth.

"Don't be absurd, Desprey," I said.

"I am not absurd; it is you who are absurd; why not stick up her, man? She's only a girl."

'Desprey, we shall quarrel if you talk in this fashion."

for

"Quarrel, George! Get out, man; we shall never quarrel-we shall always be friends, and some day we shall be swells in London." "Why in London, Desprey ?"

"Because London is the world. Do you imagine you are going to settle down into a groping country parson? Not you!"

"I do not know what else I shall do."

"Shall I tell you?"

"You are always guessing at people's futures."

"You will go to college, marry Miss Oswald, and get a swell church in town."

I disliked Desprey for talking so flippantly of Ruth; and yet it gave me a strange pleasure to hear him say I should marry her. It had not entered into my mind even to dream of such an event. My love, had only aspired to be permitted to worship and adore, to walk beside her and gaze upon her face, to listen to her voice, and to live within the radiance of her smile.

"Desprey, you have no sensibilities," I said.

"No; I don't paint pictures and write poetry. I am going in for harder studies-engineering and politics. You are going to college. I am going into a thundering, noisy iron-foundry for five years, and then into a mechanical drawing office. You mean to be a bishop. I shall construct bridges and railways, and sit on the Liberal side of the House of Commons."

"My future is very indefinite and uncertain," I said.

"That is your own fault," Desprey replied.

"I cannot."

"You want courage."

"I do; yet I am as old as you are."

"Chalk it out."

"Nineteen is nineteen in your case; in mine it means nine-andtwenty. I have had more experience than you have. My father talks of nothing but the world; and we have lived all over England, including a year in London."

"Yes, age is a matter of experience, I suppose."

46

"I should think it was, George," said Desprey. "A year in London would make a man of you. Why does not your father live in London? My father has often asked that question when we have been talking in an evening."

"My mother is buried in Wulstan," I said. "My father likes quiet. For my own part I should like to live in London. On the banks of the Thames, for instance; somewhere near Chiswick or Richmond."

"Chiswick! Absurd, my dear boy! That's miles away from London. Say in Piccadilly or Eaton Square; somewhere in the thick of it. That's my father's idea; and it's mine. I have set my mind on Piccadilly, overlooking the park. That means twenty

thousand a year; and, by Jove, I'll have it. And if he holds back long enough, I'll contest Wulstan with that thief Erasmus Pensax, and beat him."

"Desprey, you talk wildly," I said. "Mr. Pensax is nobody, and never will be."

"Erasmus Pensax will marry Mary Oswald, and be member for Wulstan, unless I defeat him. And if a sneak like that can win his way to the heart of that haughty beauty, a good fellow like you can carry off the quieter and prettier of the two without a struggle."

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'It offends me, Desprey, to hear you talk so lightly, and so much like mere business, of being in love and marrying."

"That's because you are so confoundedly sentimental, George. My father has taught me differently to yours. I am going in to be a man of the world. Let me tell you that you will make a mistake you don't give sentiment and poetry a wide berth."

if

This was the last conversation I had with Desprey for years. The paths of our lives lay in different directions. He had seen his career with remarkable clearness. His strong will and indomitable perseverance had marked out the course of his journey. He followed it with marvellous persistency. "Onward!" was his motto. Nothing daunted him, nothing stayed his progress. If an obstacle came in the way to dam up the river of his ambition, he waited, and worked, and fought; if the barrier was too great to be leaped, he turned the tide of his hopes into another channel, and escaped the obstacle without sweeping over it, leaving it behind him, a monument to his energy, his courage, and his mental resources. We talked of these barriers and triumphs the other day when he hunted me up in the valley. In one calm hour of this latter-day meeting he said he envied me; but this was only the momentary impulse of a passing thought. The mowing grass was waving in a warm June breeze, tossing the meadow-sweet on its bosom like foam on the sea; the dragon-fly was gliding in and out of the reeds by the river; the drowsy rooks were nodding at each other in the elms, which in their turn were whispering like lovers in the sunshine; the Squire on the hill was sitting in his doorway in the shade of a chestnut white and pink with blossoms; and Desprey was overcome with the perfume of Summerdale. The trailing garments of Nox had swept over the valley. The scent of the somniferous herbs of her son were in the air. Desprey drank in the sleepy odours, and dreamed he was happy; but he had not matriculated, as the Perpetual Curate had, for the Valley of Poppies. He only saw the old man after the battle was over, resigned, contented with his lot, waiting his turn to be called to the Promised

Land. He knew nothing of the burning ploughshares, the rack, and the bowstring; he knew nothing of that part of the battle-field in which I fought and bled; nothing of the captivity of the defeated soldier; nothing of the house of bondage. Desprey enjoyed the silence, the wayside rest, the quiet evening outside the world; but a month's sojourn in the valley would have made him acquainted with Phobētor and his serpents. Only during my earliest days in the valley saw I once or twice this terrible offspring and minister of Somnus. He came no more when the bitterness of my heart was sweetened by resignation and prayer and the certain hope and expectation of renewed youth and everlasting bliss.

CHAPTER VIII.

AT THE DEANERY.

I LAY awake, I remember, nearly all night, thinking of the dinner at the Dean's. I had never before dined at so famous a table and in such august company. Apart from the novelty of the situation in that respect, I wondered if Ruth would be present. In the intervals of my waking moments I dreamed that I sat beside Ruth at the piano and listened to the most delicious music. My only trouble was that the eye of Mary Oswald was upon us. By and by I would find myself wandering in the meadows with Ruth, to be awakened at last by the reality of cock-crow and the sunbeams struggling through the weird fruit trees of my father's garden and into my little room in the eastern wing of the Old House of Sidbree.

I shall never forget that morning. I got up very early and wandered into my father's studio to look at Ruth's work. She came to my father twice a week. Her master was in raptures with his pupil's progress. My father used to say that she had caught some of the inspiration of Salvator Rosa. There was a wonderful freedom in her style. Her trees seemed to stir with the motion of the wind. There was a breadth in her sketches that denoted genius of the highest order. Her foregrounds were worked in with courageous carelessness. On this summer morning I sat before a study of river, road, and meadow which she was finishing from half a dozen naturesketches. It seemed to me that there was a sort of tender melancholy in the tone of it; something that appealed to the fancy and touched the heart-a kind of pathos to wonder at in a mere landscape. It was an autumn scene. The foreground was thick with the leafy débris of the trees; the hedge-rows were red and brown with