associations. I have often pictured to my mind Cavaliers wandering about the garden, or hiding from Roundheads in the dark galleries of the outer hall."

"Ah! that is just the thing for George; you are well matched, Mrs. Himbleton. I dare say you sit here in the evening and compare notes about ghosts and fairies and all manner of romantic notions."

"We do, Tom," I said, laughing; "you were always clever in speculating about the habits and customs of your friends."

"Yes, you are right, George, I think I was. And I prophesied well for you, you rascal. I should say there is not a happier man in the world. A cottage on the Thames near London was always your ambition. I used to say, live in London, my boy, in the thick of it; but you have fulfilled your own idea, and quite right.”

The time went quickly during Tom Desprey's visit. Before we had half finished our conversation on personal matters, Ruth left the room to dress for dinner. Then Tom examined the room, looked at my books and Ruth's pictures, went into raptures over her work, congratulated me a dozen times upon her beauty and my good fortune, said he had heard with sorrow all about the death of the Dean.

"What a grand old boy he was, eh?" he went on; "I saw a Dean the other day, and I could not help sneering at his thin little legs and his round, stooping figure. Dean Oswald, by Jove, he looked his part; a fine manly figure, in his shovel hat and gaiters, he was indeed an honourable representative of the mysterious power and wealth and influence and charity of the English Church. Between ourselves, George, I think Deans and Chapters are institutions which require serious revision; but I feel a sort of Anglo-Saxon pride in a genuine Dean with his mansion under the trees and his independent state: he is, in my opinion, a far greater man than a Bishop."

"Yet a Bishop does not envy a Dean," I said.

"Nor a Dean a Bishop," said Desprey; "you'll be a Bishop some day."

"No, Tom, that is not my ambition; and if it were, I have no influence."

"Eh? is that so; and the husband of a Dean's daughter?"

"The circumstances attending the poor Dean's death," I said, "and the fact of his being in financial difficulties, mixed up so strangely with Pensax, seem to have cut away the Oswald influence and position."

"That is like the world, George; but it should not be like the Church."

I had not the heart to tell him that I was no longer even a subordinate in the service of the Establishment.

"Be careful not to refer to these matters in my wife's presence, Tom," I said.

"Trust me for that," Desprey replied. "What a mystery that fellow Pensax is! Yet I told you he would marry Miss Oswald. That was my father's idea, though. But I prophesied something else, George. I said I would contest Wulstan whenever he came forward, and, by heaven, I will, if it costs me ten thousand pounds."

"I see indications in the local paper of Pensax's ambition coming to a head. He told me himself that he intended to be member for Wulstan."

"And I told you I would beat him," said Desprey. "Have you read this week's paper ?"

"No; we generally devote this very evening to that pleasure."

"You will see that I passed through Wulstan this week, and that I spoke at a meeting held for the purpose of supporting increased local railway facilities, and that I expressed a hope that the day was not far distant when Wulstan would be an important commercial city. I spoke of my early life in Wulstan; of the central position of Wulstan for trading purposes; suggested the possibility of deepening the river, and making the city a port; and at the close headed a subscription for this and other commercial purposes with a cheque for a thousand pounds. By Jove, sir, hundreds of citizens followed me to the station. the next day and hurrahed until they were hoarse when I left. I have secretly secured the services of the Blue agent-a clever, fussy little fellow who knows everything and everybody. In his hands I have placed another thousand pounds, to be used for me in the interests of the city. He says Pensax's shadow, Trigg, is bound to him through some mysterious piece of villany, and that he can get any information he may require as to Pensax's movements through Trigg. It will, he thinks, be quite two years before the game is ready to be played; and then, George Himbleton, look out for the fulfilment of another prophecy."

"You are a very odd fellow," I said.

"You were going to say something more than odd."

"No; I was not, indeed."

"You think what I have done disingenuous and unworthy; I am sure you do; but you do not know the custom in business of this kind. You look at the world from an entirely different standpoint to that from which I contemplate it. I have been taught to regard the world as a humbug, and to deal with it accordingly."

"That is rather hard upon the world, Mr. Desprey," said Ruth, entering the room as Desprey was finishing his remarks.

"I might be more liberal in my opinions if they were coloured by such charming society as that which has fallen to George's lot," said Desprey, rising, and placing a chair for my wife.

He might say so truly. I never saw my darling look more lovely than she did at that moment.

"I will not have anything said against the world, Mr. Desprey; it is a very delightful place, and full of pleasure, if we are only content when we are happy," said Ruth.

"Yes, Mrs. Himbleton, that word 'content' is a great matter; but, you see, we never are content, and if we were the world would stand still. Contentment is an obstructive. One must never be content, but always striving after better things," Desprey replied.

"We can strive after better things and still be content; do you not think so, George?"

"Ah, George thinks whatever you think, Mrs. Himbleton; few can hope to possess so charming a monitor."

"You are quite courtly in your compliments, Mr. Desprey," said Ruth, smiling at me.

"What else can one be under such inspiration?"

"I suppose you are favouring us, Mr. Desprey," said Ruth, smiling, "with examples of the conversational current coin peculiar to the world you speak of," said Ruth.

"Just a tinge of satire in that remark," said Desprey, “which I should hardly have expected; but let me assure you, Mrs. Himbleton, that I am sincere. George will tell you that I was one of a hundred boys who were dying in love for you at Wulstan. The wonder to me is that we did not assassinate Mr. George Himbleton."

"That would not have improved the prospects of the remainder," said Ruth, encouraging Desprey's humour.

“Ah, you have much to answer for," said Desprey.

"You will have a serious crime laid to your charge, Mr. Desprey, if you spoil the dinner which Mary has been waiting to announce this five minutes, watching for a break in your sparkling conversation."

I sat regarding my wife and Desprey. I enjoyed the social sparkle of their dialogue. The picture lingers in my memory, Ruth looked so bright and happy. Tom Desprey was a manly fellow, full of nervous energy and physical power, just suited to the career he had chalked out for himself. He is an elderly man now with a grownup family. When he looked me up in the Valley the other day, his

presence gave me a momentary pang of agony, as I thought of his visit to "The Cottage" at the gathering of that terrible storm which wrecked it. Somehow we both avoided the subject when we sat down to talk, though the time was in both our memories. I remember well how we arranged to see Desprey on board his ship the next day, and how we took a steamer from London Bridge and went down the river. It was a new experience to Ruth, this other phase of the river's history. St. Paul's rising above the roofs of the city; the Tower, with its sad stories; the crowded wharves busy with newly arrived merchandise from all parts of the world; the forests of masts stretching away as if they penetrated the very heart of the town and filled her streets; the varied craft on the river coming and going. Ruth plied me with a hundred questions, and we promised ourselves a series of visits at some future time to the trading and commercial Thames. I think we went twice afterwards. There is a sketch in her portfolio of the unloading of an orange ship at one of the wharves near London Bridge. I only open that portfolio once a year, when our wedding day comes round.

When we had seen Desprey's vessel weigh anchor, and waved a last adieu to our friend, we went back to London, and dined at the hotel which we used on our visits to Drury Lane. It was a large house in the Strand, where ladies were admitted into the coffee-room. Ruth preferred this arrangement to a private sitting-room. I think it reminded her a little of our table d'hôte experiences at Boulogne. At night we went to the theatre and saw "The Tempest." Ruth sat with her hand in mine during the play, and we two felt all the love and passion of Prospero's daughter and the Prince. What an example of creative power is this marvellous play of the great master! He peoples a desolate island with creatures of heaven and earth, with aerial forms and human realities, each subject perfect of its kind; he makes that solitary rock in the sea a world of marvellous life, upon which beats the glorious sunshine of his own genius, bringing forth not alone the hidden creatures of fancy's strangest worlds, but peopling the island with men and women of most noble shape and perfect creation, and filling the isle with such sounds and sweet airs that one almost prays not to awaken from the dream. What exquisite subtlety and painful truth there are in Prospero's reflection upon the similarity between his spirit-actors melted into thin air and the dissolution of the great globe itself! Where in all those dead and gone authors of Greece and Rome, which occupied so many of our days and nights at Oxford, is there a passage comparable with that sententious summing-up of the thoughts

inspired by the disappearance of the fairy masque with which Ariel had entertained the lovers :

We are such stuff

As dreams are made of; and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep!

CHAPTER XVIII.

AND OUR LITTLE LIFE IS ROUNDED WITH A SLEEP."

I SOMETIMES wish I had left my story untold. Many a better man has been buried with his history. I make but a poor business of the narrative. I say narrative for want of a better word, seeing that I have only set down the reflections which Memory scatters upon my pages. Sometimes Memory ignores details in her pictures. Now and then she is profuse in trifles. I sit at my desk in the firelight, and the days that are gone pass before me. It is still autumn in the Valley, and my memories to-night are of autumn days. Our summer by the Thames is over. We told Desprey that we intended to spend a short time in the autumn at Wulstan. Ruth reminded him, when he looked eighteen months ahead, that he counted somewhat confidently on the future. We were open to similar criticism when we talked of the autumn. That instinctive recognition of trouble which warned me that the battle was beginning, soon brought the blare of the trumpets within hearing. It was an unequal combat. Heaven had decreed what should come to pass. Philosophy says happiness is evenly and equally divided upon earth. I deny this before God and man. It is the future which strikes the balance. Happiness equal! why, this life below to half the world would be a mockery of existence, a degradation, a cruel wrong, were it not accepted as the introduction to another world.

He is a wise man who regards the whole system of present life as subordinate and preparatory to another. An ingenious author of a book of "Maxims" condenses the thought thus into a few almost flippant sentences, which, nevertheless, interpret my own feelings, and that with admirable brevity, "Man has sufficient enjoyment to make life desirable, but not enough to render it happy. His circumstances are adapted to the ends of probation, not to those of reward. His hope is intermingled with fear, his joy with sorrow, his best efforts with imperfection. The paucity of his days, unless attended with special openings, or rapidly improved, affords opportunity for few distinguished achievements;