driving them home, which with some difficulty, they accomplished before nightfall. Rupert counted them all before they got into the yard, and not one was missing. What trouble they had given to be sure !

Do we never give equal trouble? "All we like sheep have gone astray."

T the close of a dull December afternoon, the labouring people of an English village were returning from their work. A few stood in

little groups at their doors, and respectfully saluted a lady who was slowly coming up the middle of the wide irregular street.

She might be fifty years of age-was tall, spare, and bent, and leant for support on the arm of a young lady of great beauty. Both were in black, and seemed to have known better days; but while the elder lady wore an expression of settled sadness, the younger looked as if, but for sympathy, her disposition would have been for mirth and joy. A large old hound marched beside them, whose paces seemed trained like those of a horse at a funeral. Their steps were directed towards a massive iron gate at the head of the village street, within which was a leafless avenue.

A good deal of chattering was going on among a group at the door of the last cottage, mingled with the occasional blast of an inharmonious horn. All at once, a little boy rushed forward, amid a burst of laughter, and ran up to the stately dame with a grotesque mask over his face.

"What mummery is this, Jenkin ?" inquired the lady of a youth who advanced from the group and made an awkward bow.

"An please you, my lady, Christmas-tide being at hand, and the king enjoying his own again, we are getting up a little pleasantry, like as in the good old times.”

"The good old times!" repeated the Lady of Linwood, bitterly. "They will never come back, Jenkinnever!"

"Sure, I hope better things," said Jenkin, stroking his forelock. 66 A company of us have planned a rare mummery, with a Lord of Unreason, an Abbot of Misrule, St. George and the Dragon, the doctor and the sultan; and I'm to play the fool."

"You will all of you play the fool, I think," said Lady Linwood. "Fie on it! I can give your sport no countenance. You know full well I shall keep a silent Christmas; and though the poor shall receive their dole, I can bear no tomfoolery. It is unbefitting the birthday of our Lord."

Jenkin looked much put out. He twirled his cap,

shifted from one foot to the other, and began, did say that in Sir Marmaduke's time

"Mother

"Ah," said Lady Linwood, "that time is gone and past. Didst thou never hear of the last Christmas Day

that Sir Marmaduke passed on this earth? In case thou never didst, I will tell thee."

As she spoke she looked round on the little circle of villagers that had drawn around her, standing at a respectful distance.

"The observance of Christmas," said she, was put down by the Lord Protector. Not choosing to be ruled by him in a matter of conscience, Sir Marmaduke and I did, on Christmas Day, 1657, journey to London to receive the Holy Sacrament of the Reverend Mr. Gunning. On a sudden, we were surprised by a party of soldiers, who rushed in and pointed their muskets as though they would have shot us at the altar; and no sooner had we finished the office of communion than they haled us to prison. In the afternoon we were straitly examined before Colonel Whalley, and not liberated till we had been much threatened for observing what he called the superstitious time of the Nativity."

"Saving your ladyship's presence then," said Jenkin, "sure we are called on now to rejoice that times are mended."

"To rejoice-yes," said Lady Linwood; "but after a rational sort; not with taboring and mumming, not with wassailing and revelling. Sir Marmaduke, who was already ailing, never got over that day. His choler sent the blood to his head; soon afterwards he had a stroke. His estates had been sequestered; his only son, whom he had sent beyond seas for safety, was heard of no more. He was a broken-spirited man. Can you wonder that, since his death, I have ever kept a silent Christmas ?"

She walked onward as she spoke, leaning on her young

companion; while Jenkin, rather discomfited, returned to his mates.

"What did she say to thee, Jenkin ?" inquired a pretty girl, eagerly.

"Oh," said he, "twas only th' old story: they lost their lands, and lost their son; and now she's lost her husband, and lost her relish for this life, too, I take it, and sees everything through a black crape veil. 'T won't be any good, I say, going up mumming to the old manor; we shall get sent away with a flea in the ear."

"Nay, but Mistress Mildred will like to see us, I fancy," said Giles Haycock. "She do warm a fellow's heart with her pleasant words and smiles."

"Well, she looked as glum as glum just now," said Jenkin.

"That was because you brought up her sweetheart's name, Jenkin," said Alice; "no woman could bear that. We all know she was to have been betrothed to Master Guy."

"I didn't bring it up, the old lady did," said Jenkin. "You needn't call her old," said his mother. "When I was in service, she was a babby."

"Oh, come, ne'er let us all get cross because my lady was frumpish," said Jenkin. "I shall play fool all the same; and you promised, Alice, to make my cap."

"Oh, I'll make your cap," returned Alice, "and fit it on your fool's head."

On this, he ran after her, and she ran away laughing, and when he came up to her, boxed his ears for his pains. After this, the making and fitting the fool's cap caused them much harmless merriment; and a bladder with dry beans to rattle in it was fixed on a pole, wherewith Jenkin