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together on the bench of magistrates, the rustics brought before them knew that justice would be administered according to the lights of country gentlemen of the old school. If the culprit had only beaten his wife, or broken his neighbour's head in a drunken brawl, he might expect to be dismissed with a suitable admonition; but if he had snared a hare, he must inevitably go to gaol, fortified by the prediction that he was on the high-road to the gallows.

Anthony's marriage had not given entire satisfaction to his parents; but, in the anxiety lest he should not marry at all, Sir Richard's consent was not ungraciously given. In earlier days Lady Bertram had thwarted an attachment to his cousin, Thomasina Grey, and it was asserted by old family friends that Miss Grey had been in her grave for five years before Anthony could look another woman in the face. However that might

be, when his mother urged him to marry, Anthony admitted that it was due to his family to do so, now that he was verging on middle life, and it was not long before he was attracted by the dark eyes of Ellen Stewart. He wooed and won her, and brought her home to live under his father's roof.

There was not much romance on either side; Anthony's dutiful and affectionate nature inclined him to do good to all that was entrusted to his care, and Ellen was grateful to the grave, kindly man who gave so much and exacted so little. She was only twenty-one when she married him, and was well-born and beautiful; but she was poor and dependent, and had had her disap pointment in life, and she felt, perhaps a little bitterly, that if the love on his side had been very deep, he would have been dissatisfied with the calm, impassive attachment by which it was requited. Her outward sub

mission to all the circumstances of her married life was not incompatible with inward repining, and, as years went on, the habitual sadness of expression, which had given a certain softness to her beauty, deepened into discontent. Her spirits flagged; she fell into ill health, real or imaginary, and the little Thomasina's early recollections of her mother were associated with the quiet of a sick-room, where she must hush her noisy games, and be contented to sit on the sofa and eat chocolate bonbons, or take the last spoonful of jelly from mamma's glass, and play softly with her rings and trinkets.

Outside of her mother's room there were no restrictions for the pet and plaything of the house. She might make a hobby-horse of Sir Richard's favourite walking-stick, or lose his spud among the laurel-bushes; she broke her granny's spectacles and dropped her keys into the water-butt unrebuked. She

roamed everywhere, to the stable and the still-room, to the butler's pantry and the justice-room, and in every place she was welcome and at home, except in her own nursery, which was too narrow a sphere for a young person of her aspiring mind.

When she was three years old Thomasina was considered old enough to go to church on Sunday mornings, and, with sedate dignity, she trotted along the flagged church path, holding fast by her father's broad fore-finger, and took her place in the great square pew, with its moreen curtains, depending from a brass rod, which could be drawn at pleasure if the sun shone in, or if there was a draught, or in the still more probable contingency that Sir Richard felt disposed for a nap. Under these circumstances the pew was as good as a play-room; for Thomasina sat on a great straw hassock at her father's feet, and built towers with the prayer-books, feeling a fearful pleasure in the

moment when they fell down with a thud, and Sir Richard shook his stick at her. If this amusement palled upon her, the little girl made prey of Lady Bertram's great posy, and pulled it leisurely to pieces, making book-markers of the southernwood and dyeing her white dimity frocks with the petals of scarlet geranium. And when at last she grew sleepy, it was pleasant to climb on to her father's knee, and to nestle her head into his waistcoat, while the monotonous voice of the old rector lulled her into a slumber from which she was only aroused when the sermon was over. While she sat up sleepily, with one cheek crimson, and the brown rings of hair falling into her eyes, all dewy and bewildered with unshed tears, her father would pet and soothe her, and wait until she was fully awake before he tied the broad white string of her straw bonnet under her chin; for babies wore straw bonnets then-such instruments of disfiguring torture as may still

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