that you say?' "exclaimed a venerable old man, who had been amongst the most eager of the listeners, and he pressed forward among the crowd to come nearer to her. The crowd separated readily to let him pass, knowing the warm and affectionate interest he had in the family at the Vicarage.

"The clouds be looking very black, Master Stephens," said one of the men ; "there 'll be more snow ere long. I doubt whether they ever reach the grove, afore it be too dark to see the way round the lake.

"The poor, foolish boys-the poor, foolish boys," said the old man; 'oh, how could master Arthur be so thoughtless."

"I tell you, Master Stephens," said his warm advocate Mrs. Welch, raising her voice, as the old man was a little deaf, "it war'nt Master Arthur's fault," and she repeated again the account of his urgency in endeavouring to persuade his cousin not to go; "and then," added Mrs. Welch," he turned, like a brave fellow as he be, to Master Frank, and said, 'I can't let him go alone, Frank;

I know the way much better nor he does but do you run home as fast as you can, and tell my father, and tell him the way we're gone, and he'll know what's best to be done.” "Has Master Frank gone home?" exclaimed the old man.

"Oh, thank God, thank God-aye, that he has, for here comes Carlo-on Carlo, on Carlo," he added, as the noble animal bounded towards him, and appeared to look in his face for directions; "go, and fetch Master Arthur;" and he pointed in the direction he wished him to go. With a short and eager bark, as if he comprehended the cause of the old man's alarm, the faithful animal bounded on towards the road.

Stephens next attempted to persuade Mr. Murray's coachman to go with the carriage towards the gate, from whence the boys had turned off the road, to meet them, should they already have repented of their rashness, and be wending their weary way homewards; but the selfishness of the master descended to the servant, and he had many plausible

reasons to assign for not moving a step beyond "his orders." Muttering, therefore, something to himself, about "servants in his young days," Stephens left the assembled group and stationed himself on the road, looking first in the direction by which he hoped every moment to see the boys returning, and then towards the Vicarage, wondering what made them so tardy in sending help from thence. In his anxiety and alarm, moments appeared as hours. "I can never go home to my old woman," said he to himself, as he impatiently paced up and down the spot before the inn door, "till I hear something about Master Arthur."

CHAPTER XI.

"O good old man, how well in
Thee appear the constant service
Of the antique world, when service
Sweat for duty, not for need."

AS YOU LIKE IT.

Andrew Stephens, or, as the villagers usually called him, "Old Master Stephens," was an attached and faithful follower of the Greville family. He had been gardener at the hall when Mr. Greville was born, his wife being the nurse of the then delicate boy. With tender anxiety, second only to that of his mother, had she watched her nursling, from infancy to manhood; and when, a few years after his ordination, he had been presented, at the time of his marriage with Ellen Dormer, by Mr. Murray,

L

to the living of Moreton, Old Janet had little trouble in persuading "her good man" that he was too old now to be of use in the establishment at the hall, and that they had better retire on the comfortable independence which their industry, aided by a small pension from the family they had both served so long and so faithfully, had insured to them, and that they could not do better than follow their young master to the village of Moreton, where she might have the delight of listening to the words of "life and immortality," from the lips of him whom she had brought up on her knees and nourished at her breast. They inhabited a commodious and picturesque cottage, whose garden attracted the gaze and admiration of every passing traveller, close to the gates of the Vicarage; and for some years after their removal to the village, it had been the delight and occupation of old Stephens to superintend the gardens of the Vicarage as well as his own, and to rival the gardener at the Park in producing the earliest vegetables, the finest fruit, and the