But

dislike that picture the less. I'm not a fair judge. If I ever had any romance, it has been knocked out of me years ago. I wont argue the point. I'm only sorry that our talk has got into such a melancholy groove. It is my fault entirely. First I spoil your tête-àtête by blundering in here, where I had no earthly business, and then I spoil your anticipations with my stupid doubts and forebodings. Just like me, isn't it?

Wyverne's gay laugh broke in before the Rector's penitence could go further.

'Not at all like you,' he answered cheerily; and don't flatter yourself that either prophecy or warning will have the slightest effect. Ecclesiastes himself would fail if he tried to preach prudence to us just now. I told you we had all gone out of our sober minds up here. For my part I don't care how long the Carnival lasts. We must keep the fasts in their order, of course; but, by St. Benedict, we will not anticipate Lent by an hour.'

Geoffry Knowles looked wistfully into the speaker's frank, fearless eyes, till his own brow began to clear, and a hearty, genuine admiration shone out in his face.

'I do envy that hopeful geniality of yours, more than I can say, Alan. I have a dim recollection of having been able to "take things easy," once upon a time; but the talent slipped away from me, somehow, just when it would have served me best. It was acquired, not natural, with me, I suppose. I doubt if I could translate without blundering, now-Dum spiro, spero. I am glad, after all, that I caught you first, and got rid of my "blue fit before I saw the Squire. He would not have taken it so well, perhaps, as you have done.'

'I don't know about that,' Alan said. 'Uncle Hubert is pretty confident, and you would most likely have been carried away helplessly by the stream; he put me to shame last night, I can tell you. You'll find him in his room by this time; and I can't stay here any longer. I've letters to write, and I mean to have Helen in the saddle directly

547

after luncheon. I must make the best use of my chances now, for, unless the gods would

Annihilate both Time and Space
To make two lovers happy,

(as the man in the play wanted them to do), and cut out the shooting season from the calendar, there would be no chance of keeping Dene clear of guests. They will be coming by troops in less than a fortnight. There is no such thing as a comfortable causerie, with keen eyes and quick ears all around you. Ay de mi lone will have to intrigue for interviews as if we were in Seville. I shouldn't wonder if we were driven to act the garden-scene in the Barbière some night. Even if I wanted to monopolize Helen, then (which I don't, for it's the worst possible taste), I know 'my lady' would not stand it. Well, thank you for all you have said-yes, all. I shall see you at luncheon?

From the Squire's radiant face, when he came in with the Rector, it might be presumed that the latter comported himself during their interview entirely to his friend's satisfaction.

Few

It was no vain boast of Wyverne's when he said that neither omen nor foreboding would affect his spirits materially that afternoon. people ever enjoyed a ride more thoroughly than the cousins did their very protracted one. They would not have made a bad picture, if any one could have sketched them during its slow progress. Alan on the Erl-King, a magnificent brown hunter of Vavasour's; Helen on the grey Arab, Maimouna, whom she mounted that day for the fourth time. The one so erect and knightly in his bearing; the other so admirably lithe and graceful-both so palpably at home in the saddle; even as they lounged carelessly along through the broad green glades, apparently lost to everything but their own low, earnest converse, at the first glance one could have recognised the seat and hand of the artist.

If one must be locomotive, when alone with the ladye of our love (not a desirable necessity, some will

say), I doubt if we can be better than on horseback. A low ponycarriage, with a very steady animal in the shafts, has its advantages; but I never yet saw the man who could accommodate himself and his limbs to one of these vehicles without looking absurdly out of his place; his bulk seems to increase by some extraordinary process as soon as he has taken his seat, till ten stone loom as large as fourteen would do under ordinary circumstances. The incongruity cannot always escape one's fair companion, and, if her sense of the ridiculous is once moved, our romance is ruined for the day: perhaps the best plan, on turning into a conveniently secluded road (always supposing that 'moving on' is obligatory), would be, to get out and walk by her side, leaving the dame or demoiselle unrestricted scope for the expansion of her feelings and— her drapery. On the whole, I think one is most at ease en chevauchant. But then both steeds must be of a pleasant and sociable dispositionnot pulling and tearing at the reins, till they work themselves and their riders into a white heat, whenever a level length of greensward tempts one irresistibly to a stretching gallop; nor starting perversely aside at the very moment when, in the earnestness of discourse, your hand rests unconsciously (?) on your companion's pommel; but doing their five miles an hour steadily, with the long, even, springy gait that so few half-breeds ever attain to, alive, in fact, to the delicacy of the position and to their own responsibilities as sensible beasts of burden. Maimouna was a model in this respect she could be fiery enough at times, and dangerous if her temper was roused; but she comported herself that afternoon with a courtesy and consideration for others worthy of the royal race from which she sprang―

Who could trace her lineage higher
Than the Bourbon can aspire,
Than the Ghibelline or Guelf,
Or O'Brien's blood itself.

It was pretty to see her, champing the bit and tossing her small

proud head playfully, or curving her full, rounded neck to court the caress of Helen's gauntlet; with something more than instinct looking all the while out of her great bright stag's-eyes, as if she understood everything that was going on and approved it thoroughly: indeed, she seemed not indisposed to get up a little mild flirtation on her own account, for ever and anon she would rub her soft cheek against the Erl-King's puissant shoulder, and withdraw it suddenly as he turned his head with a coy, mutine grace, till even that stately steed unbent somewhat from his dignity, and condescended, after a superb and sultanesque fashion, to respond to her cajoleries.

Altogether they made, as I have said, a very attractive picture, suggestive of the gay days when knights and paladins rode in the sweet summer-weather through the forest-tracks of Lyonnesse and Brittany, each with his fair paramour at his side, ready and willing to do battle for her beauty to the death. Wyverne's proportions were far too slight and slender to have filled the mighty harness of Gareth or Geraint; but Helen might well have sate for Iseult in her girlhood before the breath of sin passed over the smooth brow-before the lovely proud face was trained to dissemble-before King Mark's unwilling bride drank the fatal philtre and subtler poison yet from her convoy's eyes, as they sailed together over the Irish Sea. Yes-no doubt

It was merry in good greenwood, When mavis and merle were singing; when silvered bridles and silvery laughs rang out with a low, fitful music; when the dark dells, whenever a sunbeam shot through, grew light with shimmer of gold and jewels, or with sheen of minever and brocade; when ever and anon a bugle sounded-discreetly distant-not to recal the lost or the laggards, but just to remind them that they were supposed to be hunting the deer. Pity that almost all these romances ended so drearily! We might learn a lesson, if we