surprise at Allan's earnest advocacy of the mer-hour-hand and the minute-hand on the dial point its of his friend. "Has he got nothing more together to twelve. The first stroke sounded, interesting to say to me than that," she won- and Time, true to the signal, moved his scythe. dered, privately, "after kissing my hand twice The day of the month and the day of the week yesterday morning?" announced themselves in print through the glass pedestal next; Midwinter applauding their ap They were all in the major's work-room before Allan had the chance of trying a more at-pearance with a noisy exaggeration of surprise, tractive subject. There, on the top of a rough wooden case, which evidently contained the machinery, was the wonderful clock. The dial was crowned by a glass pedestal placed on rockwork in carved ebony; and on the top of the pedestal sat the inevitable figure of Time, with his everlasting scythe in his hand. Below the dial was a little platform, and at either end of it rose two miniature sentry-boxes, with closed doors. Externally, this was all that appeared, until the magic moment came when the clock struck twelve at noon. It wanted then about three minutes to twelve; and Major Milroy seized the opportunity of explaining what the exhibition was to be before the exhibition began. At the first words his mind fell back again into its old absorption over the one employment of his life. He turned to Midwinter (who had persisted in talking all the way from the parlor, and who was talking still) without a trace left in his manner of the cool and cutting composure with which he had spoken but a few minutes before. The noisy, familiar man, who had been an ill-bred intruder in the parlor, became a privileged guest in the workshop-for there he possessed the all-atoning social advantage of being new to the performances of the wonderful clock. "At the first stroke of twelve, Mr. Midwinter,” said the major, quite eagerly, "keep your eye on the figure of Time: he will move his scythe, and point it downward to the glass pedestal. You will next see a little printed card appear behind the glass, which will tell you the day of the month and the day of the week. At the last stroke of the clock Time will lift his scythe again into its former position, and the chimes will ring a peal. The peal will be succeeded by the playing of a tune-the favorite march of my old regiment-and then the final performance of the clock will follow. The sentry-boxes, which you may observe at each side, will both open at the same moment. In one of them you will see the sentinel appear; and, from the other, a corporal and two privates will march across the platform to relieve the guard, and will then disappear, leaving the new sentinel at his post. I must ask your kind allowances for this last part of the performance. The machinery is a little complicated, and there are defects in it which I am ashamed to say I have not yet succeeded in remedying as I could wish. Some times the figures go all wrong, and sometimes they go all right. I hope they may do their best on the occasion of your seeing them for the first time." As the major, posted near his clock, said the last words, his little audience of three, assembled at the opposite end of the room, saw the which Miss Milroy mistook for coarse sarcasm directed at her father's pursuits, and which Allan (seeing that she was offended) attempted to moderate by touching the elbow of his friend. Meanwhile the performances of the clock went on. At the last stroke of twelve Time lifted his scythe again, the chimes rang, the march tune of the major's old regiment followed; and the crowning exhibition of the relief of the guard announced itself in a preliminary trembling of the sentry-boxes, and a sudden disappearance of the major at the back of the clock. The performance began with the opening of the sentry-box on the right-hand side of the platform, as punctually as could be desired; the door on the other side, however, was less tractable-it remained obstinately closed. Unaware of this hitch in the proceedings, the corporal and his two privates appeared in their places in a state of perfect discipline, tottered out across the platform, all three trembling in every limb, dashed themselves headlong against the closed door on the other side, and failed in producing the smallest impression on the immovable sentry presumed to be within. An intermittent clicking, as of the major's keys and tools at work, was heard in the machinery. The corporal and his two privates suddenly returned, backward, across the platform, and shut themselves up with a bang inside their own door. Exactly at the same moment the other door opened for the first time, and the provoking sentry appeared with the utmost deliberation at his post, waiting to be relieved. He was allowed to wait. Nothing happened in the other box but an occasional knocking inside the door, as if the corporal and his privates were impatient to be let out. The clicking of the major's tools was heard again among the machinery; the corporal and his party, suddenly restored to liberty, appeared in a violent hurry, and spun furiously across the platform. Quick as they were, however, the hitherto deliberate sentry on the other side, now perversely showed himself to be quicker still. He disappeared like lightning into his own premises, the door closed smartly after him, the corporal and his privates dashed themselves headlong against it for the second time, and the major appearing again round the corner of the clock, asked his audience innocently, "if they would be good enough to tell him whether any thing had gone wrong?" The fantastic absurdity of the exhibition, heightened by Major Milroy's grave inquiry at the end of it, was so irresistibly ludicrous that the visitors shouted with laughter; and even Miss Milroy, with all her consideration for her father's sensitive pride in his clock, could not restrain herself from joining in the merriment which the catastrophe of the puppets had pro- derwent some modification as he closed the garvoked. But there are limits even to the license den-gate behind him. The virtue called Pruof laughter; and these limits were ere long so dence and the Squire of Thorpe-Ambrose beoutrageously overstepped by one of the little came personally acquainted with each other, on party as to have the effect of almost instantly this occasion, for the first time; and Allan, ensilencing the other two. The fever of Mid-tering headlong as usual on the high-road to winter's false spirits flamed out into sheer delir- moral improvement, actually decided on doing ium as the performance of the puppets came to nothing in a hurry! an end. His paroxysms of laughter followed each other with such convulsive violence that Miss Milroy started back from him in alarm, and even the patient major turned on him with a look which said plainly, Leave the room! Allan, wisely-impulsive for once in his life, seized Midwinter by the arm, and dragged him out by main force into the garden, and thence into the park beyond. "Good Heavens! what has come to you?" he exclaimed, shrinking back from the tortured face before him, as he stopped and looked close at it for the first time. For the moment Midwinter was incapable of answering. The hysterical paroxysm was passing from one extreme to the other. He leaned against a tree, sobbing and gasping for breath, and stretched out his hand in mute entreaty to Allan to give him time. "You had better not have nursed me through my fever," he said, faintly, as soon as he could speak. "I'm mad and miserable, Allan-I have never recovered it. Go back and ask them to forgive me; I am ashamed to go and ask them myself. I can't tell how it happened-I can only ask your pardon and theirs." He turned aside his head quickly so as to conceal his face. "Don't stop here," he said; "don't look at me I shall soon get over it." Allan still hesitated, and begged hard to be allowed to take him back to the house. It was useless. "You break my heart with your kindness," he burst out, passionately. "For God's sake leave me by myself!" A man who is entering on a course of reformation ought, if virtue is its own reward, to be a man engaged in an essentially inspiriting pursuit. But virtue is not always its own reward; and the way that leads to reformation is remarkably ill-lighted for so respectable a thoroughfare. Allan seemed to have caught the infection of his friend's despondency. As he walked home he, too, began to doubt-in his widely-different way, and for his widely-different reasons-whether the life at Thorpe-Ambrose was promising quite as fairly for the future as it had promised at first. CHAPTER VII. THE PLOT THICKENS. Two messages were waiting for Allan when he returned to the house. One had been left by Midwinter. "He had gone out for a long walk, and Mr. Armadale was not to be alarmed if he did not get back till late in the day.” The other message had been left by "a person from Mr. Pedgift's office," who had called, according to appointment, while the two gentlemen were away at the major's. "Mr. Bashwood's respects, and he would have the honor of waiting on Mr. Armadale again in the course of the evening." Toward five o'clock Midwinter returned, pale and silent. Allan hastened to assure him that his peace was made at the cottage; and then, Allan went back to the cottage and pleaded to change the subject, mentioned Mr. Bashthere for indulgence to Midwinter, with an earn-wood's message. Midwinter's mind was so preestness and simplicity which raised him immensely in the major's estimation, but which totally failed to produce the same favorable impression on Miss Milroy. Little as she herself suspected it, she was fond enough of Allan already to be jealous of Allan's friend. "How excessively absurd!" she thought, pettishly. "As if either papa or I considered such a person of the slightest consequence!" "You will kindly suspend your opinion, won't you, Major Milroy ?" said Allan in his hearty way at parting. "With the greatest pleasure!" replied the major, cordially shaking hands. "And you, too, Miss Milroy ?" added Allan. Miss Milroy made a mercilessly formal bow. "My opinion, Mr. Armadale, is not of the slightest consequence." Allan left the cottage sorely puzzled to account for Miss Milroy's sudden coolness toward him. His grand idea of conciliating the whole neighborhood by becoming a married man un occupied or so languid that he hardly seemed to remember the name. Allan was obliged to remind him that Bashwood was the elderly clerk whom Mr. Pedgift had sent to be his instructor in the duties of the steward's office. He listened without making any remark, and withdrew to his room to rest till dinner-time. Left by himself, Allan went into the library to try if he could while away the time over a book. He took many volumes off the shelves and put a few of them back again—and there he ended. Miss Milroy contrived in some mysterious manner to get, in this case, between the reader and the books. Her formal bow, and her merciless parting speech, dwelt, try how he might to forget them, on Allan's mind; he began to grow more and more anxious as the idle hour wore on to recover his lost place in her favor. To call again that day at the cottage, and ask if he had been so unfortunate as to offend her, was impossible. To put the question in writing with the needful nicety of ex pression proved, on trying the experiment, to be a task beyond his literary reach. After a turn or two up and down the room, with his pen in his mouth, he decided on the more diplomatic course (which happened, in this case, to be the easiest course too), of writing to Miss Milroy as cordially as if nothing had happened, and of testing his position in her good graces by the answer that she sent him back. An invitation of some kind (including her father, of course, but addressed directly to herself) was plainly the right thing to oblige her to send a written reply-but here the difficulty occurred of what the invitation was to be. A ball was not to be thought of in his present position with the resident gentry. A dinner-party, with no indispensable elderly lady on the premises to receive Miss Milroy-except Mrs. Gripper, who could only receive her in the kitchen-was equally out of the question. What was the invitation to be? Never backward, when he wanted help, in asking for it right and left in every available direction, Allan, feeling himself at the end of his own resources, coolly rang the bell, and astonished the servant who answered it by inquiring how the late family at Thorpe-Ambrose used to amuse themselves, and what sort of invitations they were in the habit of sending to their friends. "The family did what the rest of the gentry did, Sir," said the man, staring at his master in utter bewilderment. "They gave dinner-parties and balls. And in fine summer weather, Sir, like this, they sometimes had lawn-parties and picnics-" "That'll do!" shouted Allan. "A picnic's just the thing to please her. Richard, you're an invaluable man-you may go down stairs again." Richard retired wondering, and Richard's master seized his ready pen: "DEAR MISS MILROY,-Since I left you it has suddenly struck me that we might have a picnic. A little change and amusement (what I should call a good shaking-up if I wasn't writing to a young lady) is just the thing for you after being so long indoors lately in Mrs. Milroy's room. A picnic is a change, and (when the wine is good) amusement too. Will you ask the major if he will consent to the picnic, and come? And if you have got any friends in the neighborhood who like a picnic, pray ask them too-for I have got none. It shall be your picnic, but I will provide every thing and take every body. You shall choose the day, and we will picnic where you like. I have set my heart on this picnic. Believe me, ever yours, "ALLAN ARMADALE." On reading over his composition before sealing it up, Allan frankly acknowledged to himself this time that it was not quite faultless. "Picnic' comes in a little too often," he said. "Never mind-if she likes the idea she won't quarrel with that." He sent off the letter on the spot, with strict instructions to the messenger to wait for a reply. In half an hour the answer came back on scented paper, without an erasure any where, fragrant to smell and beautiful to see. The presentation of the naked truth is one of those exhibitions from which the native delicacy of the female mind seems instinctively to revolt. Never were the tables turned more completely than they were now turned on Allan by his fair correspondent. Machiavelli himself would never have suspected, from Miss Milroy's letter, how heartily she had repented her petulance to the young squire as soon as his back was turned, and how extravagantly delighted she was when his invitation was placed in her hands. Her letter was the composition of a model young lady whose emotions are all kept under parental lock and key, and served out for her judiciously as occasion may require. "Papa" appeared quite as frequently in Miss Milroy's reply as "picnic" had appeared in Allan's invitation. "Papa" had been as considerately kind as Mr. Armadale in wishing to procure her a little change and amusement, and had offered to forego his usual quiet habits, and join the picnic. With "papa's" sanction, therefore, she accepted, with much pleasure, Mr. Armadale's proposal; and, at "papa's" suggestion, she would presume on Mr. Armadale's kindness to add two friends of theirs, recently settled at Thorpe-Ambrose, to the picnic party-a widow lady and her son; the latter in holy orders, and in delicate health. If Tuesday next would suit Mr. Armadale, Tuesday next would suit "papa"being the first day he could spare from repairs which were required by his clock. The rest, by "papa's" advice, she would beg to leave entirely in Mr. Armadale's hands; and in the mean time she would remain, with "papa's" compliments, Mr. Armadale's truly-"ELEANOR MILROY." Who would ever have supposed that the writer of that letter had jumped for joy when Allan's invitation arrived? Who would ever have suspected that there was an entry already in Miss Milroy's diary, under that day's date, to this effect: "The sweetest, dearest letter from I-know-who; I'll never behave unkindly to him again as long as I live?" As for Allan, he was charmed with the success of his manœuvre. Miss Milroy had accepted his invitation-consequently Miss Milroy was not offended with him. It was on the tip of his tongue to mention the correspondence to his friend when they met at dinner. But there was something in Midwinter's face and manner (even plain enough for Allan to see) which warned him to wait a little before he said any thing to revive the painful subject of their visit to the cottage. By common consent they both avoided all topics connected with Thorpe-Ambrose-not even the visit from Mr. Bashwood, which was to come with the evening, being referred to by either of them. All through the dinner they drifted farther and farther back into the old endless talk of past times about ships and sailing. When the butler with Allan's request. He ran over in the same feeble flow of words with which he had deluged Midwinter on the occasion when they first met. drew from his attendance at table, he came down | loudness of Allan's voice, and the bluntness of stairs with a nautical problem on his mind, and asked his fellow-servants if they any of them knew the relative merits "on a wind," and "off a wind," of a schooner and a brig. The two young men had sat longer at table than usual that day. When they went out into the garden with their cigars, the summer twilight fell gray and dim on lawn and flower-bed, and narrowed round them by slow degrees the softly-fading circle of the distant view. The dew was heavy; and after a few minutes in the garden, they agreed to go back to the dryer ground on the drive in front of the house. They were close to the turning which led into the shrubbery when there suddenly glided out on them, from behind the foliage, a softly-stepping black figure-a shadow moving darkly through the dim evening light. Midwinter started back at the sight of it, and even the less finely-strung nerves of his friend were shaken for the moment. "Who the devil are you?" cried Allan. The figure bared its head in the gray light, and came slowly a step nearer. Midwinter advanced a step on his side, and looked closer. It was the man of the timid manners and the mourning garments, of whom he had asked the way to Thorpe-Ambrose where the three roads met. "Who are you?" repeated Allan. "I humbly beg your pardon, Sir," faltered the stranger, stepping back again confusedly. "The servants told me I should find Mr. Armadale-" What, are you Mr. Bashwood?" "Yes, if you please, Sir." "I beg your pardon for speaking to you so roughly," said Allan, "but the fact is, you rather startled me. My name is Armadale (put on your hat, pray), and this is my friend, Mr. Midwinter, who wants your help in the steward's office." "We hardly stand in need of an introduction," said Midwinter. "I met Mr. Bashwood out walking a few days since, and he was kind enough to direct me when I had lost my way." "Put on your hat," reiterated Allan, as Mr. Bashwood, still bareheaded, stood bowing speechlessly, now to one of the young men, and now to the other. "My good Sir, put on your hat, and let me show you the way back to the house. Excuse me for noticing it," added Allan, as the man, in sheer nervous helplessness, let his hat fall, instead of putting it back on his head; "but you seem a little out of sorts-a glass of good wine will do you no harm before you and my friend come to business. Where "It was on the road, Sir," he began, addressing himself alternately to Allan, whom he called "Sir," and to Midwinter, whom he called by his name, "I mean, if you please, on the road to little Gill Beck. A singular name, Mr. Midwinter, and a singular place; I don't mean the village; I mean the neighborhood-I beg your pardon, I mean the 'Broads,' beyond the neighborhood. Perhaps you may have heard of the Norfolk Broads, Sir? What they call lakes in other parts of England they call Broads here. The Broads are quite numerous; I think they would repay a visit. You would have seen the first of them, Mr. Midwinter, if you had walked on a few miles from where I had the honor of meeting you. Remarkably numerous, the Broads, Sir, situated between this and the sea. About three miles from the sea, Mr. Midwinter - about three miles. Mostly shallow, Sir, with rivers running between them. Beautiful; solitary. Quite a watery country, Mr. Midwinter; quite separate, as it were, in itself. Parties sometimes visit them, Sir-pleasureparties in boats. It's quite a little net-work of lakes, or, perhaps—yes, perhaps more correctly, pools. There is good sport in the cold weather. The wild-fowl are quite numerous. Yes. The Broads would repay a visit, Mr. Midwinter, the next time you are walking that way. The distance from here to Little Gill Beck, and then from Little Gill Beck to Girdler Broad, which is the first you come to, is altogether not more—" In sheer nervous inability to leave off, he would apparently have gone on talking of the Norfolk Broads for the rest of the evening, if one of his two listeners had not unceremoniously cut him short before he could find his way into a new sentence. "Are the Broads within an easy day's drive there and back, from this house?" asked Allan; feeling, if they were, that the place for the picnic was discovered already. "Oh yes, Sir; a nice drive-quite a nice easy drive from this beautiful place!" They were by this time ascending the portico steps; Allan leading the way up, and calling to Midwinter and Mr. Bashwood to follow him into the library, where there was a lighted lamp. In the interval which elapsed before the wine made its appearance, Midwinter looked at his chance acquaintance of the high-road with strangelymingled feelings of compassion and distrust-of abouts did you meet with Mr. Bashwood, Mid-compassion that strengthened in spite of him ; winter, when you lost your way?" "I am too ignorant of the neighborhood to know. I must refer you to Mr. Bashwood." of distrust that persisted in diminishing, try as he might to encourage it to grow. There, perched comfortless on the edge of his chair, "Come, tell us where it was," said Allan, sat the poor broken-down nervous wretch, in trying, a little too abruptly, to set the man at his worn black garments, with his watery eyes, his ease, as they all three walked back to the his honest old outspoken wig, his miserable mohouse. hair stock, and his false teeth that were incapaThe measure of Mr. Bashwood's constitution-ble of deceiving any body-there he sat, politeal timidity seemed to be filled to the brim by the ly ill at ease; now shrinking in the glare of the lamp, now wincing under the shock of Allan's sturdy voice; a man with the wrinkles of sixty years in his face, and the manners of a child in the presence of strangers; an object of pity surely, if ever there was a pitiable object yet! "Whatever else you're afraid of, Mr. Bashwood," cried Allan, pouring out a glass of wine, "don't be afraid of that! There isn't a headache in a hogshead of it! Make yourself comfortable; I'll leave you and Mr. Midwinter to talk your business over by yourselves. It's all in Mr. Midwinter's hands; he acts for me, and settles every thing at his own discretion." He said those words with a cautious choice of expression very uncharacteristic of him, and without further explanation, made abruptly for the door. Midwinter, sitting near it, noticed his face as he went out. Easy as the way was into Allan's favor, Mr. Bashwood, beyond all kind of doubt, had in some unaccountable manner failed to find it! The two strangely-assorted companions were left together-parted widely, as it seemed on the surface, from any possible interchange of sympathy; drawn invisibly one to the other, nevertheless, by those magnetic similarities of temperament which overleap all difference of age or station, and defy all apparent incongruities of mind and character. From the moment when Allan left the room the hidden Influence that works in darkness began slowly to draw the two men together, across the great social desert which had lain between them up to this day. Midwinter was the first to approach the subject of the interview. The testimonial was very briefly and very coldly expressed, but it was conclusive as far as it went. Sir John considered it only right to say that he had no complaint to make of any want of capacity or integrity in his steward. If Mr. Bashwood's domestic position had been compatible with the continued performance of his duties on the estate, Sir John would have been glad to keep him. As it was, embarrassments caused by the state of Mr. Bashwood's personal affairs had rendered it undesirable that he should continue in Sir John's service; and on that ground, and that only, his employer and he had parted. Such was Sir John's testimony to Mr. Bashwood's character. As Midwinter read the last lines, he thought of another testimonial, still in his own possession-of the written character which they had given him at the school, when they turned their sick usher adrift in the world. His superstition (distrusting all new events and all new faces at Thorpe-Ambrose) still doubted the man before him as obstinately as ever. But when he now tried to put those doubts into words, his heart upbraided him, and he laid the letter on the table in silence. The sudden pause in the conversation appeared to startle Mr. Bashwood. He comforted himself with another little sip of wine, and, leaving the letter untouched, burst irrepressibly into words, as if the silence was quite unendurable to him. "I am ready to answer any question, Sir," he began. "Mr. Pedgift told me that I must answer questions, because I was applying for a place of trust. Mr. Pedgift said, neither you "May I ask," he began, "if you have been made acquainted with my position here, and if nor Mr. Armadale were likely to think the tesyou know why it is that I require your assist-timonial sufficient of itself. Sir John doesn't ance ?" Mr. Bashwood-still hesitating and still timid, but manifestly relieved by Allan's departuresat farther back in his chair, and ventured on fortifying himself with a modest little sip of wine. "Yes, Sir," he replied; "Mr. Pedgift informed me of all—at least I think I may say so -of all the circumstances. I am to instruct, or perhaps I ought to say to advise—” "No, Mr. Bashwood; the first word was the best word of the two. I am quite ignorant of the duties which Mr. Armadale's kindness has induced him to intrust to me. If I understand right, there can be no question of your capacity to instruct me, for you once filled a steward's situation yourself. May I inquire where it was ?" "At Sir John Mellowship's, Sir, in West Norfolk. Perhaps you would like-I have got it with me-to see my testimonial? Sir John might have dealt more kindly with me-but I have no complaint to make; it's all done and over now!" His watery eyes looked more watery still, and the trembling in his hands spread to his lips as he produced an old dingy letter from his pocket-book, and laid it open on the table. say he might have put it more kindly, but I don't complain-Sir John doesn't say what the troubles were that lost me my place. Perhaps you might wish to know-?" He stopped confusedly, looked at the testimonial, and said no more. "If no interests but mine were concerned in the matter," rejoined Midwinter, "the testimonial would, I assure you, be quite enough to satisfy me. But while I am learning my new duties, the person who teaches me will be really and truly the steward of my friend's estate. I am very unwilling to ask you to speak on what may be a painful subject, and I am sadly inexperienced in putting such questions as I ought to put; but perhaps, in Mr. Armadale's interests, I ought to know something more, either from yourself, or from Mr. Pedgift, if you prefer it-" He, too, stopped confusedly, looked at the testimonial, and said no more. There was another moment of silence. The night was warm, and Mr. Bashwood, among his other misfortunes, had the deplorable infirmity of perspiring at the palms of the hands. He took out a miserable little cotton pocket-handkerchief, rolled it up into a ball, and softly dabbed it to and fro, from one hand to the other, with the regularity of a pendulum. Performed |