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you for mentioning such a thing. Who has so good a right to busy herself about Ernest's comfort as yourself? But why did you not tell me when I saw you the other day, so busy, buying a tea-service in the china shop."

Because, if I had, you must have told Mr. Hamilton, and he might have forbidden the prosecution of my scheme, and perhaps he would have suspected me of some artifice, of which I am quite innocent, for I mean to be in town again before Ernest leaves Richmond. As it is, I shall stay with you, helping you to the best of my ability, and you know I am a tolerable contriver; and when I have returned home, you shall write and tell Ernest I have been at Valeside with you, and he must tell his father. As to the cups and saucers you saw me selecting, they are carefully packed in a hamper yonder. I designed them for Valeside, they will be useful there; and when they have served their turn they can be put aside, and we shall have something towards housekeeping."

Grace smiled; she was in excellent spirits; and she had left Ernest so much better, and very busy in packing books that were to be sent with the furniture.

"You are very good, Margaret," she said; "I suppose you are prepared to rough it at the roughest of country inns, for we must put up with lodgings till our house is ready."

"I am prepared to do anything," replied Margaret; "bivouac in a tent if need be; paper and paint, scrub and scour, lay down carpets and put up curtains-any

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A PIC-NIC HOUSEHOLD.

thing, in short, except roofing, bricklaying, and plastering! I could manage a little carpentering I think! And, Grace, Hester would have come with me to see you before your departure, only she was very poorly this morning, and Herbert would not let her stir; but she sends her best love, and begs you will not hesitate to apply to her, if you find yourself in any way deficient. She will send anything you want, from a grand pianoforte to a door-mat."

"What a pic-nic sort of establishment we shall have!" said Grace merrily. "Eleanor writes word, that in about a fortnight she will send me a box full of pretty things for the ornamentation of my rooms. She and Augusta are making German wool mats and anti-macassars to an immense extent, I should imagine from her letter."

And so the two young ladies stepped happily into the train, and Miss Clayton seemed quite in her element. "Reducing a dilapidated house to habitable order," was, she stoutly averred, "the most wholesome physical and mental recreation in which it was possible to indulge."

"I hope the roof is not in an irremediable state," said Grace, after awhile; "I have heard of roofs being too far gone to bear mending, and I know the house rained in, ten years ago."

"That would indeed be a dismal contingency," said Miss Clayton; "I scarcely know how we could meet such an emergency, for it is clearly impossible to live in a roofless house; the only plan would be to cover the attic floors with gutta percha, or zinc, with

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a coat of cement, and shut up the upper story entirely."

Both Grace and Margaret laughed at this droll idea of an improvised roof; but Margaret urged that it would never do to sacrifice a whole story, and that it Iwould be better to coat the roof itself with some waterproof covering-a double tarpaulin for instance.

"If the rafters are sound, my dear," replied Miss Clayton, "your plan is the better one; but in the meantime we will hope that no such ultra expedients will be necessary. The first thing to be done will be to kindle and maintain huge fires, for damp will be our greatest enemy in the beginning. However, we will have the roof duly examined, that we may not be kept awake in stormy nights by a fear of impromptu cataracts."

"I believe," cried Grace, after awhile, "we are not very far from Beckworth! I remember that common, and the blue hills stretching to the south quite well.” "And is Beckworth near Valeside ?" asked Margaret.

"We must leave the train at Beckworth," was Grace's answer; "and either wait for a coach that goes through Cranbourn, or procure a carriage to take us thither. Cranbourn, you know, is the village to which the Valeside estate belongs. Yes! we are just coming to the Beckworth station."

"Yes, weep! let burning tears downflow
From those stern eyes ;-let that proud brow
Ache with its weight of grief and care;

Its sickening hope, so like despair,
Thou bearst a pain unfelt before;

Now, thou must bear it evermore."

THE house at Valeside on first appearance seemed to be in a most woful state of dilapidation; the rain had penetrated into most of the rooms; the windows were either obstinately determined to remain wide open, or else to keep themselves close shut. When the ladies first entered the damp ruinous-looking hall, their hearts for the first time failed them. Would it ever be possible to make so desolate a ruin habitable for themselves? Still further, could they hope to make it a fitting abode for a delicate invalid? They went into the parlours; large, low rooms, dark from the ivy and creeping shrubs which mantled over the casements; the grates, of course, were as rusty as they could well be; the wood-work was discoloured, and the remains of a gaudy paper were still hanging, all hueless and devoid of pattern, on the dingy, dampstained walls. The chambers above were no better; the attics were so bad, that Margaret declared it

would be no great loss if they were locked up and delivered over to the owls and bats. Grace, looking rather dull, protested Hood's poem of the "Haunted House" was ringing in her ears, while they went up and down the dreary stairs; but Margaret stoutly remonstrated against any such dismal allusion.

Presently, however, the architect and builder (for he united in his own person the profession and the trade), came from Beckworth, and after carefully examining the whole tenement from the basement to the chimney tops, gave the ladies to understand that he considered the house tenantable. The roof, he assured them, with occasional repairs, would stand good for at least twenty years; the walls were all of uncommon thickness, and quite weatherproof, so that the damp had entered everywhere, save in the topmost story, by the chimneys and windows alone. The garden, as might be expected, was in a terrible plight; nevertheless, the old cottager and his wife, who had kept the keys of the house, informed them that in summer it bore "flowers and fruit without end."

Never was a truer adage than that oft-repeated proverb, "Where there's a will there's a way!"

It was never better exemplified than in this case. The men came into the house next day; the carpenter repaired the broken woodwork; the chimney-sweep swept all the chimneys; masons repaired the dilapidated stones in the hall, and bricklayers soon made the roof completely water-tight. As to the damp, it