we all know and love so well were not used as ornaments in the rooms, but as the utensils of the kitchen and house. Those exquisite lamps so truthfully reproduced by Wedgewood were for the regular and daily use. When we think of them and then turn our eyes upon our crystal gaseliers or huge awkward candelabra, we can only shudder, our feeling can find no utterance. Those tall egg-shaped vases with long necks and varying handles were employed to hold oil and other necessaries of Grecian life. Those cups and jars--all things of beauty' and 'joys for ever' were in common use at Athens. It is positive torture when we think of them and find our unwilling minds forced to compare them with our cruets (oh! horror of horrors!) our épergnes, our soup tureens and all the uglinesses which we so constantly have to submit to.

Baskets of wicker were also used by the Greeks, and it is possible that all their utensils in frequent use were of the plainest description, their beauty consisting in their lines and form, as we can see by Schliemann's recent collections from Troy and Mycena, where the material used is earthenware. The sculptured vases and costly urns, the tripods of gold and silver, and the vessels of bronze and brass, were reserved for public buildings or for the use of kings and princes. The designs used by the Greeks for the ornamenting of their sculpture, vases and urns, and for the embroidery on their dress were very various and beautiful, and most of them are well known to art students.

For sculpture, there was the honeysuckle ornament, the Guilloche scroll pattern, the bead and reel, the acanthus-a foliage pattern of great beauty -and the echinus, or the egg and anchor ornament still seen in modern cornices. These designs were used chiefly for the capitals of pillars and for mouldings; they were probably uncoloured, and were of the same material as the building or pillar that

they were employed to ornament. It is so difficult, now-a-days, when every vestige of paint would have been long since obliterated, even if it had ever existed, to decide what was originally coloured and what was not.

It is believed the sculptured figures of the antique were tinted, and we know that our own cathedrals of the 13th and 14th centuries were painted magnificently in parts, for even in the mediæval ages the system of Greek decoration was imitated, though but little of such decoration remains now, so we may infer that the ancients were more prodigal of colour than one would suppose from the remains of their magnificence yet left us. The commonest designs used for the embroidering of cloaks and robes were the labyrinth fret, also a running ornament of animals and foliage grouped together, and the well-known key pattern. The honey-suckle ornament was likewise used for dress, and all the patterns mentioned were employed in painting vases and vessels of every description. The lion and the bull were the favourite animals when the ornamentation required animals; the fir cone and the lotus were very generally employed when foliage was wanted.

It is a singular fact that almost all the ornamentations spoken of, and which are so commonly found in remains of Greek art, are also seen in ancient Assyrian monuments, and many of them are entirely absent from the sculpture and temples of Egypt, from whom the Greeks are usually supposed to have principally derived their ideas.

Nile; and Egypt must, I think, relinquish a large portion of the honour that has been so long accorded to her, of having been the mother of Greek art.'

The beginning of all Greek designs are to be traced in the palaces of the Assyrians, by whom they were employed as sacred symbols; the bull so often seen in Assyrian marbles was held in the highest veneration; the lion was also sacred, and was frequently represented with wings. The honeysuckle, so much beautified by Grecian taste, represented the sacred tree under which the sacrificing priest was wont to stand, and the fir cone was held as an offering in the hand of the priest. The Assyrians coloured their statues and ornaments most highly, painting them often as carefully as a picture, which is another reason for supposing that the Greeks occasion. ally used colour for decorative purposes, though it is clear they did not fall into the error of the Orientals, who sacrificed everything for colour, while the Greeks preferred instead beauty of form.

We

Of course it is impossible in civilized Europe to introduce into our homes and public buildings the ornamentation of ancient Greece to any considerable extent. We admire them; we know them to be the purest, noblest, truest designs ever invented or produced, and yet we also know that we cannot imitate them. Our whole style of living, our ecclesiastical and domestic architecture forbid it. exist in a different day, under a different sky, and our very thoughts are at variance with Grecian harmony. We have not time in our busy worka-day lives to worship Beauty as the Greeks did, even if we had the elements of such worship in us, and such designs as the ancients had, were produced by a prevalent and eager national taste, or desire for beauty.'

The taste must be a national one to be truly productive of anything lastingly admirable. It will not do for an individual to build a handsome mansion here, and another to construct a picturesque homestead there, each according to his own liking; the desire for purity of design must be an universal one, as in Greece, and Egypt and Assyria.

Ruskin tells us the English nation worships the great goddess of Getting on,' or the 'Britannia of the Market,' and 'that she has formed, and will continue to form, our architecture, as long as we worship her.' He suggests, moreover, that as an appropriate design for our exchanges, a frieze, with pendant purses,' and 'pillars broad at the base, for the sticking of bills.'

Be that as it may, and we cannot but hope that we are not quite so lost to all sense of appreciation of what is highest in art as Ruskin fears, yet we know fully that we can never more return to Grecian forms of thought. We have lost, in our inability to imitate them, a world of beauty, but our gain is infinitely greater than our loss. It is true that we cannot build as they built, we cannot live as they lived, or admire the beautiful as they felt for and admired it, but we can learn from them to make as lovely as possible all things within our reach, to copy and reverence Nature, and to gather up and treasure her profound teachings. And, besides, what have we not? Have we not heard the Voice of Goodness, have we not seen the Life of Purity, which they knew not as we know it; cannot we obey and 'do justice, and love mercy, and walk hum-bly before Him?' We shall then love beauty as we ought to love it, for we shall worship in meekness the God who made all things, and behold-' it was very good.'

"L'

I.

IONEL, my boy,' said my uncle, 'I am going to ask you to do me a great favour; indeed it will be at some sacrifice of your pleasure. I want to dock you of your holidays somewhat.'

All right, Uncle Charles,' I replied. 'I am at your service; the pheasants are not quite a matter of life and death to me, whatever I am to them. But what is it?'

'Why poor Mildmay is called away by the illness of his mother, and will not be able to return for some days, I fear; and it is a matter I do not care to entrust to my temporary assistant. The Maltravers, you know, are at home for the first time for years, and Sir Walter cannot be treated as I venture to do even with the Duke, who is an old friend. Besides the affair is a very serious one, and requires immediate attention.'

'Very well, Uncle, but what do you want with me?'

'I cannot explain to you now, Lionel; but come into my study before dinner, and we will talk it over; I must be off at once on my afternoon rounds, or I shall not get back by six o'clock.' And so saying, he left the

'room.

My uncle, Dr. Charles Thomson, not only bore that relationship to me as my mother's favourite brother, but was also my sole guardian, both my parents having died while I was quite young. He was a medical practitioner of some repute in the county town of Blankshire, and when I left Chel

tenham College at the age of seventeen took me into his house and prepared me for the profession of medicine. The army had always been my ambition, but want of funds prevented me from gratifying my tastes in this particular, and as a sort of compromise, I made up my mind to be content with the medical department. For in those days the purchase system was still in vogue, and the fifty pounds a year which constituted my little all, would have been insufficient even as an income, let alone the purchase of the successive steps. So I thought myself particularly fortunate when three years ago, at the age of twenty-three, I was appointed, after a year's service on the staff, assistant-surgeon to the -th Hussars, then serving in Canada. But only six months ago, fortune, proverbially fickle, vindicated her character in that respect; for an aunt, old Miss Tempest, a sister of my father's, died suddenly, when she had quarrelled with her favourite nephews and nieces, and to my utter astonishment, I became possessor, by a codicil to her will, of a beautiful estate in the South of England, and an income of about three thousand pounds a year. Urgent private affairs,' of course, immediately required my presence at home, and before even looking at the estate, or doing more than interviewing my banker and tailor in London, I hurried into Blankshire to spend a week with my Uncle Charles, and consult with him as to my future, and at the same time take a shot or two at the Duke of Upton's pheasants. This was a privilege always accorded to my uncle

or any of his family, as he and the Duke had been at Cambridge together, when the latter had little prospect of succeeding to the title, and he was not one who forgot old friends.

During the afternoon I had leisure to speculate as to the nature of my mission to the Priory, and the probabilities of the visit being a pleasant one or the reverse; but neither instinct nor reason threw any light upon the subject, so I had to wait until shortly before dinner, when my uncle returned, and I joined him in the library, where he was sitting in his easy chair with a rather thoughtful expression on his fine old English face.

'Sit down,' he said, 'we have nearly half an hour to spare, and I will tell what I wish. I should like you you to go over and spend a few days at the Maltravers, and to leave here, if possible, directly after breakfast to-morrow. You remember, I suppose, that money troubles have obliged them to live abroad for some time, but perhaps did not know that a sister of Lady Maltravers died last year, and left them over twenty thousand pounds. Well, for about thirty thousand they can set themselves tolerably clear again, and the baronet's idea is to get his son Reginald, who will be of age in a few weeks, to join him in cutting off the entail of certain outlying farms, which could then be sold and the additional ten thousand realized. But here is the difficulty-the young fellow has been at school in France for many years, and afterwards at a German University, and they have not seen him for some time. And now,' continued my uncle, touching his forehead significantly, they cannot be quite certain whether he is all right or not. If not, the entail cannot be touched, and, indeed, if the slightest suspicion of such a thing got abroad, Sir Walter's brother, who is next in succession, would undoubtedly interfere.'

'And what do you want me to do?' 'I told them I would send over my

assistant to watch him for a couple of days, and see what we could make of it; now, I find Mildmay cannot go, as I hoped, and I do not care to send this Jones, of whom I know nothing.'

'So I am to take Mildmay's place?' 'If you only would, my dear boy, it would help your poor uncle out of a great difficulty. I would not care to lose the Maltravers' interest in the county, and it is a matter that really ought to be seen to-it is very important for them.'

At that moment the dinner-bell rang, and we joined the rest of the family in the drawing room; so that we had no further opportunities that evening for confidential conversation. 'Well,' I thought to myself, as I retired for the night, I am certainly let in for something of an adventure. feel quite in the dark about what I am expected to do, but I dare say a couple of days at the old Priory will not be such very bad fun, after all.'

II.

I

Bright and early the next morning I made my preparations to start. I calculated that, by leaving my uncle's shortly after nine, I would arrive at the Priory about ten o'clock, which would enable me to see the heads of the house before they had entered upon the duties or pleasures of the day. I was a little puzzled as to how to dress and what to take with me, not wishing on the one hand to find myself unable to appear as I would like, or, on the other, to seem to ape the man of fashion when simply there on professional business. However, I concluded that

my clothes could give no offence in my portmanteau, and so took all I thought I might require, and for present costume a plain dark tweed suit, that might mean anything or nothing. Still, without in the least degree being guilty of vanity, I could not but feel that I looked very unlike the estimable Mildmay, quite apart from the question of spectacles, thin sandy hair

and whiskers, and an attitude of fivefoot-five.

It was a lovely morning in the early autumn. Here and there, a careful observer could detect the changing colour of a leaf, but otherwise the warmth and beauty of the scene might have led me to suppose that summer was still at its zenith. There was, indeed, a certain haziness of the atmosphere-a dulness even of the fleecy white clouds which floated in the distant horizon, contrasting strangely with the clear, almost dazzling brightness, which I had so often seen in Canada.

But the change was a pleasing one to me, and I decided that after all our English climate was not so bad. A pleasant drive of about three quarters of an hour brought me to the Priory, so resigning my place to the little groom who had been perched up in the back seat of the dog cart, and confiding my portmanteau to the care of a servant, I ascended the steps.

'Captain Maltravers, Sir?' enquired the servant, with an air of doubt.

'No,' I replied, Dr. Thornton re quested me to come over, and

I was ushered into a small sittingroom which opened off the library, evidently used for correspondence, and business, where Sir Walter and Lady Maltravers were seated. The former, a tall, spare man of about forty-five, with iron-grey hair, and an easy pleasant expression on his still handsome face, paid no attention whatever to me as I entered, but after just looking up, continued the letter he was engaged in writing.

Lady Maltravers was certainly a well preserved woman, she might have been not more than thirty, as far as appearances went, did not the coming of age of her son tell one that she could not be far from forty. On my entry she bowed slightly without rising from her seat, pointing to a chair at a short

distance from her, requested me to be seated.

'We expected you this morning, Mr. Mildman,' she said, in a bland, condescending, albeit somewhat constrained manner, but since I saw Dr. Thornton, circumstances have occurred which will make our plans somewhat more difficult of execution. My son is very fond of books, and I had intended to pass you off as a bookseller's assistant come from London to make a catalogue of the library, and to have persuaded him to take some interest in the matter, and so thrown you together a good deal; but we got a letter from Captain Maltravers, Sir Walter's brother, saying that if convenient, he and his two sisters would be with us this morning instead of a week later, as they at first intended. Of course, we rely upon your discretion.'

'Certainly, Madam,' I replied, rather taken aback by this peremptory dis posal of myself as a bookseller's assistant, and in doubt whether to declare my identity or pass myself off as Mildmay, or Mildman, as her Ladyship was pleased to call me. But before I had time to add anything more she continued:

'It will be impossible for my son to be much with you now, without exciting suspicion, as this is a meeting of members of our family, who have been separated for years, and I don't know what is to be done.'

'If you will allow me to ask for some of the symptoms your son has exhibited, Madam,' I said, 'I might be in a better position to judge what amount of supervision might be necessary.'