across the yard to the roofless chapel, with its nail-studded doors and mouldering jagged walls, there is such an air of stillness and solemnity about the place, one could half expect to see some monkish form among the shadows. Approaching the yard by the muddy little path beside the stream, one perceives on the fresh breeze a slight odour of musty antiquity. The wooden stile by which the yard is entered is so rotten, great crumbling splinters can be picked from it; and the moss on the wall is deep and rich with age.

The chief door of the farm-house is directly opposite the decaying doors of the old chapel. It is iron-plated and nailstudded, and opens right into the great refectory. The window is a little to the right, and shows this morning an interior worthy of Rembrandt.

The span roof of black oak, still in perfect preservation, seems to mock, by its grand proportions, the lowly fortunes of the family, gathered now round the wide chimney-place.

Two small tree-trunks are blazing there, giving out a pleasant, pungent smell; giving out also a red light, that leaps to the rich black oak of the roof, and to the fair brown oak of the dressers and cupboards, which glow and deepen in colour as if blood was rising to their surface at its kiss.

Old-fashioned polished chair legs throw their shadows on the gray stone floor; on the homely blues and yellows of the dinner-ware; on the shelves, and the breakfast things on the little table by the fire; and on the bright irons and brasses of the garden tools and cooking utensils, hung up indiscriminately in the chimney-place.

On one side of this chimney-place, which is all sooty shadow and vivid light, sit two great boys, squeezed together in one elbow-chair, their whole attention centred in a little pipkin of milk, placed on the logs to boil. A shaggy little terrier, on a high stool beside them, fixes his greenish-brown eye on the same object, and with no less interest and watchfulness, perhaps with a keener appetite. On the other side of the fire, with a baby of two months old on her lap, sits a girl in a black dress and square-bibbed apron. That is Nest, the curate's eldest daughter. Her fair, simple face and light hair, her blue eyes and wide laughing mouth look pretty in that dark old chimney, whatever they might look elsewhere.

Two tiny girls sit at the table, waiting for the milk, and comparing the fulness of their basins of cut bread; and

G

opposite these, with a three-days-old Times' in his hands, is Daniel Lloyd, the curate of Capel Illtyd.

His eldest girl sends anxious looks at him from time to time, for she sees that there has been some addition since yesterday morning to his many anxieties and troubles.

'What's the matter, Nest-another stray?' demands one of the boys, looking eagerly at Nest, as she rose in haste, and went to the window, as if to look at the pigeons strutting on the ruins.

'I do believe, papa,' cries Nest, in sudden animation, 'there's Robert coming across the fields !' 'Robert!' cried the curate. berlayne, surely?'

'What!--not Robert Cham

'Yes-it is him! He's waiting on the stile now; he can't get across for the sheep.'

The curate rose, his face illumined with sudden warmth and gladness, and came to the door; while the boys rushed out delightedly, and Nest put off her nursing-apron.

The yard was crowded by an immense flock of sheep, which Chidlaw, the tenant of the Abbey farm, and the curate's landlord, with an old shepherd, and two long-nosed dogs, were trying to drive into the chapel, whose ancient doors stood open, showing a roofless, grassy little hall, which was often used to confine the sheep in while they were being marked. The curate and his boys looked across the, as yet, impassable sea of wool, and saw Robert Chamberlayne sitting with one leg over the stile, looking down upon the sheep with lazy perplexity.

What, can't you get across to us, Bob?' said Mr. Lloyd, laughing. 'And how are you, Bob? Well ? '

'Yes; jolly enough, thank you, sir,' shouted back Robert's voice, with the mellow ring of health in it.

'God bless him!' said the curate to himself; 'he's just the same as ever.' And he stood looking across at him with kindling eyes, feeling as if a bit of the brightest and healthiest of the outer world had come suddenly to his home in that handsome face of Robert's. The very sight of his fresh light clothes was pleasant to Daniel Lloyd, who was used to looking down on the same rows of coats Sunday after Sunday, and year after year.

The boys shouted out no end of information to him, a little of which he heard, but the greater part of which was lost in

the loud lamentations with which the whole place was distracted. He did not appear at all troubled at the delay, but sat comfortably with his cigar between his fingers—in amused patience-laughing across the noisy yard.

6 So you haven't had much of a harvest here?' he shouted. 'No,' answered the curate. 'And how goes farming with you, Bob?'

'Splendidly,' roared Robert, half despairing of being heard above the increasing tumult.

But the curate did hear, and thought with a sigh of the failure of his own potato crop.

'I don't know how you manage to tear yourself away from it all just now, Bob. I hope it's a good wind that blew here, eh ?'

'No! confoundedly bad.'

'Ah!'

'Yes. Halloa! the tide's beginning to turn now.'

you

By fair or foul means Chidlaw had got one of the sheep into the chapel, and the others began to awaken some fears in the minds of beholders as to whether they would not smother each other in their blundering haste to follow.

The latest stragglers nearly threw Robert down as he came across the yard.

'I can't act patience on that monument any longer,' he said. 'How are you, sir? I was at church yesterday, and you did not recognise me.'

There was a deep respect and affection in the manner of the young man, as he came up to him and grasped his hand, that moved the curate very much.

'No, Bob!' he said, 'I shouldn't have known you. It is a long time since we met. I scarcely expected to see you again.'

'Or wished, sir?' asked Robert.

Ah, Bob; I often do that.'

The young man held out his hand again, colouring with pleasure. They passed on into the refectory, Chamberlayne, by the way, pulling the ears of the boys, and greeting Mrs. Chidlaw, the curate's landlady, with a compliment that made her for some minutes oblivious to everything around her. There was a touch of gentle reverence in his greeting to Nest, as she met him with a child in her arms and one at her skirts -looking, he thought, like one of the tender virgin mothers

of the old pictures-fair, and sweet, and placid. Her black dress, and the black frocks of the little girls, reminded him how one kind face, that had always grown kinder at his coming, was no longer there to meet him. The remembrance put a sudden quietness and constraint upon him, which lasted all the while he was drinking the coffee Nest made for him; and when at last the curate took him into the study, the boys were both agreed that Bob was not nearly so jolly as he used to be, and went out together to discuss the fact with Chidlaw.

The curate had winced a little when Robert asked if he would go with him into the study, for it was a spot to which the gentle care of Nest had not penetrated since her mother's death. The window-plants, which the still hands now crossed over the still heart had tended so lovingly for the sake of him who worked here, were dead and dry; and the very walls of the room seemed to weep for her; for the damp she used to keep from it by her skilful care, now oozed through the bright papers and discoloured the low ceiling.

Daniel Lloyd did not trust himself to look round, but waited at the door till Robert came in, and then sat down and kept his eyes upon his face.

I thought there must be something the matter, Bob,' he said; at least I was half afraid there was-by your coming here before you went to Bod Elian. Sit down, my boy, and tell me all about it.'

Robert knew the room well, for it was here he used to pore over lessons during the three years he was the curate's pupil, and he was at once conscious of an indescribable dreariness about it he never noticed before.

'Yes,' he said, 'it's the most confounded sort of business I ever had to deal with in all my life before; and, if it were not so terrible to Elias Morgan, would be the most absurd!' 'Elias Morgan!' echoed the curate, with a look in his eye that rapidly changed from wonder to sudden enlightenment, and then to deep concern. Robert went on

'Let me see. I've got the lawyer's letter somewhere. Oh, here it is! Read that, and you'll know the best, or rather the worst, part of the business.'

In silence Mr. Lloyd took the letter, went to the window, and there read it slowly and carefully. After that he did not need to ask many questions in order to learn the true cha

racter of the calamity impending over his neighbour, and of his pupil's unfortunate share in bringing it about.

'Poor things!' he said, 'the blow will be very terrible! Then, seeing the pain on Chamberlayne's face, he added : ‘My dear boy, I really feel for you.'

Robert sat down on the broad window-seat, saying'I'm as wretched about it as a fellow well can be!' 'Elias is my neighbour,' said the curate, though he hasn't spoken to me of late. For many many years we have trodden the same ground; our footsteps have perpetually crossed, yet he keeps himself now more rigidly aloof than ever, as if he thought it not merely impossible for two men to lead by different roads to the same God, but that my road must be to a very bad end indeed! Yet I can but feel for him—I can but feel for him! He is a proud, austere man; he'll think that the scorn of his neighbours will be turned upon him. The blow will, indeed, be awful to him! The poor children, too! Yes, yes; it's a sad business altogether! Bob,' he said presently, 'I'll go up with you to break this to Elias. At the worst, he can but turn me out of the house; and if he did that, I should be tasting a little of his humiliation, which will do me more good than sitting here thinking of him.'

'I was going to beg you to do so, sir,' said Robert wonderfully relieved, but I was half-ashamed to show you how cowardly I feel about it altogether. You see, it makes it so much worse, my cousin being what he is. He's not one to let the blow be softened for him a bit. I know he wouldn't take a penny from me to save himself from starving.'

Well, Bob, I have a letter to write, and one or two things I must see to before I can be ready to go with you to Bod Elian. There are the boys wild to be at you, I know. You must give them a few minutes, and remember the accumulation of gossip Nest has for you.'

So Robert went back to the refectory, and had just seated himself comfortably opposite Nest, with his favourite little Margaret on his knee, when the curate called him back.

'I want to ask you a question, Bob,' he said; and mind you're quite at liberty to decline answering it if you like to do It's about your cousin Hirell! '

So.

Robert coloured, and looked with an air of deep interest at a cart lumbering past the window.