evening of the heir's return was one of sadness to all at the Abbey.

The father lingering upon his bed of sickness beheld with some natural envy the son gliding into manhood's years, rich in his strength, whilst he was sinking in the last autumnal hours of life,-the spring, the summer of his life had fleeted by, quickly as a tale which is told. Autumn had arrived; and sinking in the seared season of the yellow leaf, Lord Cunnington fain would have braved the winter of life, and even when the often-repeated words, "God's will be done," passed his lips, the nobleman felt the bitterness of parting from the world, and its passing-but very absorbing-delights.

Lady Cunnington, on her part, sighed when she noticed an evident alteration, not only of person but of manners, in her son; vainly she endeavoured to catch that full

eye, which had been wont to look openly in the mother's face, even when disappointing by wild repartees her darling opinions; but now the full dark eye was generally averted, dull, and languid, and there was an evident look of dejection, even apparent in his walk. It might be fatigue, perhaps bodily illness; but Cunnington had assured his mother that he had rested in London before proceeding to the Abbey; for on his arrival in Grosvenor Square, a letter had apprized him that his father was in no immediate danger. And Alice Lemington, -her feelings were very painful,-with a woman's quick discernment, she had read her destiny, and few would believe how disinterested she was when, after relieving her heart by a short, but violent flood of tears, all her care-all her anxiety was for Cunnington. She forgot her own feelings whilst she thought of him; how unhappy, how down

CHAPTER XIX.

Ah, I remember well (and how can I
But evermore remember well) when first
Our flame began, when scarce we knew what was
The flame we felt; when, as we sat and sigh'd,
And look'd upon each other, and conceived
Not what we ail'd, yet something we did ail,
And yet were well, and yet we were not well,
And what was our disease we could not tell.
SAMUEL DANIEL

At a short distance from Cunnington Abbey there was a lowly range of cottages, built at the expense of the lord of the Abbey, and given to objects worthy of charity; but, as it often happens, the human heart is kinder than its owner means it to be,—and in one of those cottages there dwelt an aged and decrepid woman, whose only recom

mendation, if such it can be, was having roamed for so many years about the country that she became, at length, one of its appendages. Sally Muggs was dirty, discontented, and impious, quarrelsome, ill-tempered, and mischief-loving, and yet, by some emotion of pity which one day took possession of Lord Cunnington, Sally Muggs, to the terror of her neighbours, became an inhabitant of one of these said cottages. Sally had long practised the silly superstition of fortune-telling, if superstition it can be called, when the fortune-teller had no feeling whatever, save amusement at the duplicity of her hearers, and when Sally, to use the cottagers' words, "actually settled," this settlement struck each neighbour with distress.

Alice Lemington had sometimes been terrified, and often, too, been amused, when in her walks she had encountered Sally, and felt

her own feelings wrought upon just as the fortune-teller's humour chose they should.

Nothing could be more hideous than Sally's appearance, and her taste in dress was so fantastic and bizarre, that on several occasions when she had been presented with a comfortable gown, she had wantonly cut it up, in order to add patches of red and green, blue, yellow, and every colour she could find, until the dress was like a patchwork quilt. Then over the whole she wore a dirty shawl, and her head was surmounted by a round hat, the crown of which was covered with dirty artificial flowers; her face was a mass of wrinkles and moles, her nose terribly askew, and her eyes, though sunken, were fierce and ill-natured in their expression, whilst her toothless jaws, fallen and distended, murmured so indistinctly her words, that they sounded sonorous and ominous.