them? as in many cases those opportunities could only be secured by a cooperation among each other, for those purposes,—for mental and physical hygiene, such as hitherto has scarce been thought of. Not, indeed, that the organisation or discipline is wanting, as the numerous Friendly and Odd Fellows' societies testify, so much as the purified taste and superior knowledge which would enable them to turn their resources to account, widen the range, and raise the character of the objects sought to be attained. But perhaps, in our solicitude for the proletarian multitude, we are forgetting the immediate interests of the clerkly class, for whom principally, and those similarly employed in other administrative functions, we sat down to write.

One thing all must admit. Badly off as we are, cheated of our health, strength, peace of mind, and length of days, by the duties and responsibilities which this go-a-head generation heaps upon us, we should be infinitely worse off but for our annual vacation, brief and precarious as it is. Without our blessed Holimonth, what would become of us all? What would become of that mighty England of whose brain, and heart, and conscience, and intellect, we, the hard-working middleclasses, form an ever-increasing proportion. The Holimonth is, we dare say, an antique institution enough; but, like certain other ancient privileges, it is only in this high-pressure century that we are learning to vindicate and appreciate it. De Lolme has not praised it, nor Hallam traced it to its origin; but ought it not, in a manifold sense, to be justly ranked among the main safeguards of the British Constitution? Without the temporary respite and relief which it affords us, we should perish wholesale, as if swept off by a pestilence; and without us,-excuse us for saying so,-must not England perish-all that makes England the glorious England it is? As matters go, we are only killed off, on an average, say ten years before our time. Without our Holimonth, our occidental Ramadhan, a season of abstinence, not from meat and drink, but from labour and anxiety, the average abridgment of our lives would be twenty years or more. Exhausted nature would succumb; the class of intellectual workmen would disappear faster than it could be replaced; and the million hands of this Briarean empire be left without the brains to guide them, or the nerves to keep them moving. Ah! could we only be induced to turn this month of idlesse to profitable account for the other eleven months of toil,-could we only contrive to draw from it such moral recruitment as Mahomet hoped for his followers when he instituted the Ramadhân,-could we only learn to use this blessed fraction of leisure as wisely and profitably as we anxiously look forward to it,-in that case even Magna Charta itself, we should say, must yield precedence to the Holimonth.

IGNOTUS.

Postscript.-The above was written some years ago, as the introductory essay of a series on Middle-Class Recreation, or at least on the common-sense philosophy that might conduce thereto. Circumstances,

needless to state, interfered with the author's design at the time; and since then the rise and extraordinary success of the Volunteer Movement has so far ameliorated the aspect of affairs in this grand item of social and national well-being, as greatly to lessen the necessity for homilies upon the general topic of Popular Recreation. At all events, it would now admit of being treated from quite other points of view than formerly, and which perhaps others may be better qualified than the present writer to discuss with advantage. What he had written in less hopeful times he was unwilling to see lost. And his paper, if no longer retaining its original freshness, may at least serve the useful purpose of adding to the due appreciation of the importance of the Volunteer Movement, by recalling to memory the hideous state of monotonous and unstimulated drudgery which preceded it, and from which volunteering has afforded to myriads a welcome and delicious rescue. Something of its exclusive and unnatural prestige the Holimonth has lost perhaps. It is not now the one oasis in the existence of the unhappy slave of the desk and the gaslamp. But, on the other hand, what different, what regenerated beings are thousands upon thousands of those who now rush to take advantage of the privilege, compared with the pallid, jaded creatures who formerly crawled abroad, not unlike prisoners from a bastille,-destitute of the habits, health, and spirits requisite to turn to due account the leisure allotted to them!

Aurora Floyd.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE DEED THAT HAD BEEN DONE IN THE WOOD.

THE bare-headed, seafaring man who stood in the centre of the hall was Captain Samuel Prodder. The scared faces of the servants gathered round him told more plainly than his own words, which came hoarsely from his parched white lips, the nature of the tidings that he brought.

John Mellish strode across the hall, with an awful calmness on his white face, and parting the hustled group of servants with his strong arms, as a mighty wind rends asunder the storm-beaten waters, he placed himself face to face with Captain Prodder.

"Who are you?" he asked sternly; "and what has brought you here?"

The Indian officer had been aroused by the clamour, and had emerged, red and bristling with self-importance, to take his part in the business in hand.

There are some pies in the making of which every body yearns to have a finger. It is a great privilege, after some social convulsion has taken place, to be able to say, "I was there at the time the scene occurred, sir;" or, "I was standing as close to him when the blow was struck, ma'am, as I am to you at this moment." People are apt to take pride out of strange things. An elderly gentleman at Doncaster, showing me his comfortably-furnished apartments, informed me, with evident satisfaction, that Mr. William Palmer had lodged in those very rooms.

Colonel Maddison pushed aside his daughter and her husband, and struggled out into the hall.

66

Come, my man," he said, echoing John's interrogatory, "let us hear what has brought you here at such a remarkably unseasonable hour."

The sailor gave no direct answer to the question. He pointed with his thumb across his shoulder towards that dismal spot in the lonely wood, which was as present to his mental vision now as it had been to his bodily eyes a quarter of an hour before.

"A man!" he gasped; "a man-lyin' close agen' the water's edge,shot through the heart."

"Dead?" asked some one, in an awful tone. The voices and the questions came from whom they would in the awe-stricken terror of those first moments of overwhelming horror and surprise. No one knew who spoke except the speakers; perhaps even they were scarcely aware that they had spoken.

"Dead?" asked one of those eager listeners.

"Stone dead."

"A man-shot dead in the wood!" cried John Mellish; "what man?"

"I beg your pardon, sir," said the grave old butler, laying his hand gently upon his master's shoulder, "I think, from what this person says, that the man who has been shot is—the new trainer, Mr.—Mr.—”

"Conyers!" exclaimed John. "Conyers! who-who should shoot him?" The question was asked in a hoarse whisper. It was impossible for the speaker's face to grow whiter than it had been from the moment in which he had opened the drawing-room door, and looked out into the hall; but some terrible change not to be translated into words came over it at the mention of the trainer's name.

He stood motionless and silent, pushing his hair from his forehead, and staring wildly about him.

The grave butler laid his warning hand for a second time upon his master's shoulder.

"Sir, Mr. Mellish," he said, eager to arouse the young man from the dull, stupid quiet into which he had fallen,-" excuse me, sir, but if my mistress should come in suddenly, and hear of this, she might be upset perhaps. Wouldn't it be better to-"

"Yes, yes!" cried John Mellish, lifting his head suddenly, as if aroused into immediate action by the mere suggestion of his wife's name,-" yes! Clear out of the hall, every one of you," he said, addressing the eager group of pale-faced servants. "And you, sir," he added to Captain Prodder, "come with me."

He walked towards the dining-room door. The sailor followed him, still bare-headed, still with a semi-bewildered expression in his dusky face.

"It ain't the first time I've seen a man shot," he thought; "but it's the first time I've felt like this."

Before Mr. Mellish could reach the dining-room, before the servants could disperse and return to their proper quarters, one of the half glassdoors, which had been left ajar, was pushed open by the light touch of a woman's hand, and Aurora Mellish entered the hall.

"Ah! ha!" thought the ensign's widow, who looked on at the scene snugly sheltered by Mr. and Mrs. Lofthouse, "my lady is caught a second time in her evening rambles. What will he say to her goings-on to-night, I wonder?"

Aurora's manner presented a singular contrast to the terror and agitation of the assembly in the hall. A vivid crimson flush glowed in her cheeks and lit up her shining eyes. She carried her head high, in that queenly defiance which was her peculiar grace. She walked with a light step; she moved with easy, careless gestures. It seemed as if some burden which she had long carried had been suddenly removed from her. But at sight of the crowd in the hall she drew back with a look of alarm. "What has happened, John?" she cried; "what is wrong?"

He lifted his hand with a warning gesture,-a gesture that plainly said: Whatever trouble or sorrow there may be, let her be spared the knowledge of it; let her be sheltered from the pain.

"Yes, my darling," he answered quietly, taking her hand and leading her into the drawing room, "there is something wrong. An accident has happened—in the wood yonder; but it concerns no one whom you care for. Go, dear; I will tell you all by and by. Mrs. Lofthouse, you will take care of my wife. Lofthouse, come with me. Allow me to shut the door, Mrs. Powell, if you please," he added to the ensign's widow, who did not seem inclined to leave her post upon the threshold of the drawing-room. "Any curiosity which you may have about the business shall be satisfied in due time. For the present, you will oblige me by remaining with my wife and Mrs. Lofthouse."

He paused, with his hand upon the drawing-room door, and looked at Aurora.

She was standing with her shawl upon her arm, watching her husband; and she advanced eagerly to him as she met his glance.

"John," she exclaimed, "for mercy's sake, tell me the truth! What is this accident?"

He was silent for a moment, gazing at her eager face,-that face whose exquisite mobility expressed every thought; then, looking at her with a strange solemnity, he said gravely, "You were in the wood just Aurora?"

now,

"I was," she answered; "I have only just left the grounds. A man passed me, running violently, about a quarter of an hour ago. I thought he was a poacher. Was it to him the accident happened?"

"No. There was a shot fired in the wood some time since. Did you hear it?"

"I did," replied Mrs. Mellish, looking at him with sudden terror and surprise. I knew there were often poachers about near the road, and I was not alarmed by it. Was there any thing wrong in that shot? Was any one hurt?"

Her eyes were fixed upon his face, dilated with that look of wondering terror.

"Yes; a-a man was hurt."

Aurora looked at him in silence,-looked at him with a stony face, whose only expression was an utter bewilderment. Every other feeling seemed blotted away in that one sense of wonder.

John Mellish led her to a chair near Mrs. Lofthouse, who had been seated, with Mrs. Powell, at the other end of the room, close to the piano, and too far from the door to overhear the conversation which had just taken place between John and his wife. People do not talk very loudly in moments of intense agitation. They are liable to be deprived of some portion of their vocal power in the fearful crisis of terror or despair. A numbness seizes the organ of speech; a partial paralysis disables the ready tongue; the trembling lips refuse to do their duty. The soft pedal of the human instrument is down, and the tones are feeble and muffled, wandering into weak minor shrillness, or sinking to husky basses, beyond the ordinary compass of the speaker's voice. The stentorian accents in