briskly. A superb girl, isn't she? A woman worth any man's winning.'

'A woman to make a good man a noble wife,' answers Westray gravely; but a woman whom a worldly man ought to avoid.' 'Why?'

'Because she is not of the world, but above it.'

Can a man have too good a wife?' asks Dewrance incredulously.

I can imagine no greater misfortune for a man than to be mated to a woman who is above him.'

'His self-respect or vanity would be wounded by finding a superior in his wife; is that what you mean?'

I mean that his whole life would be out of joint. To be reasonably happy, or fairly united, a man and his wife should be on the same level. No good ever came, in legend or fairy tale, of the union of mortal and immortal.'

Ah,' sighs the Curate dubiously, you have such a romantic way of looking at things. I only wish I had the shadow of a chance with Miss Morcombe;' this with a deeper sigh. 'I am not too proud to say that I think myself infinitely below her, yet I am bold enough to believe that I could make her life happy and my life worthy of her.'

That is quite possible. But you are a better man than I. You have definite aims, and high ones. You are in earnest, and have proved your earnestness by the sacrifice of worldly advantage. Now I have no aim beyond winning a certain measure of transitory popularity, and as much money as publishers or managers will give me for my wares. Nothing earnest, nothing exalted there. And

how could such a life as mine mate with Miss Morcombe's? There is not an hour of the day in which our opinions and feelings would not differ.'

'Pourvu that you have not committed murder or forgery, and that your worst sin is want of earnestness, I don't suppose that Miss Morcombe would be afraid to undertake your reformation,' says the Curate, with a shade of bitterness. He has seen that Westray has made more impression upon the lady's mind in a few hours than he has been able to make in two months, despite the fact that Editha's sympathies are all with him and his work.

Upon my word, Dewrance,' says Herman seriously, if I thought there were the slightest danger of my falling in love with that young lady, I would pack my portmanteau, and go back to London by the mail.'

'If you are of that way of thinking, pack your portmanteau,' replies Dewrance with energy. Editha Morcombe is not a woman for whom a man can measure his regard. To know her is to admire

her; and who can tell in what moment admiration may ripen into love?'

'I am not afraid,' answers Westray lightly. In the first place, I have long since used up my susceptibility, and in the second, I detest strong-minded women. Now while I admit that your Miss Morcombe is eminently noble, I can see that she is strong-minded.' She is certainly not weak-minded, and she thinks for herself.' 'Precisely. Now a woman who thinks for herself would never do for me. My wife-if ever I marry-must be subordinate as the moon to the sun. I will love her and cherish her and work for her, and her wigwam shall be as fair as my toil can make it; but my squaw must be a fond and gentle creature, whose thoughts and likings will take their colour from mine.'

'Heaven forbid that Editha Morcombe should ever be reduced to such a level!' ejaculates Dewrance fervently.

My dear fellow, there is no such thing possible.

"It were as well that I should love a star,

And think to wed it."

CHAPTER II.

'Hélas je n'oserai vous aimer, même en rêve !
C'est de si bas vers vous que mon regard se lêve !
C'est de si haut sur moi que s'inclinent vos yeux !'

THE Squire's injunction to be early has not been forgotten. Mr. Dewrance and his friend drive away from the pine-groves of the Cambria on the stroke of noon. The day is warm and bright, the

sky almost Italian; the russet hills in the background of the landscape, the verdant undulations of the foreground, smiling under a vault of cloudless sapphire; a day on which the mind goes to sleep, and the sensuous delight in sunshine and beauty is paramount in every breast; a day on which life loses the sharp edges and angles of care and thought, and lapses into the indistinct sweetness of a dream.

Dewrance drives the dog-cart. He is always ready for the active duties of life; Westray sits beside him, for the most part silent, looking dreamily at the landscape, which, after the first three miles, is new to him. They enter a region of wooded banks, where oak and larch and mountain-ash grow tier above tier on rough ledges of earth rising sheer like a wall, and held together by fern and intermingling roots; a region of loftier hills and deeper valleys; a region of infinite beauty.

'Yes, it's a pity,' says Herman at last, after a long silence. 'What's a pity ?'

That you and Miss Morcombe can't make a match of it. You would suit each other admirably.'

Perhaps,' says Dewrance; but unfortunately she doesn't see things in that light.'

Time may open her eyes to the fact.'

'Do you think if I had any chance of success that I would take you there?'

'What, have you so exalted an idea of my fascinations?' asks Westray, with a little laugh.

'I think you are just the kind of man to attract the fancy of a girl brought up like Miss Morcombe.'

'Well,' sighs the man of letters, I have told you my ideas about marriage; but even those are purely abstract notions, which I doubt if I shall ever reduce to personal experience. I am remarkably well off as a single man; I enjoy ever so many privileges and pleasures which I should lose if I were to marry. I earn more than enough money for my own requirements, and, indeed, have been able to invest a few superfluous thousands. I live just the life that pleases me. Why should I exchange the known for the unknownplacid contentment for uncertain bliss? Why assume responsibilities which may or may not be counterbalanced by the joys they bring with them ?'

You live the life that pleases you, you say,' replies Dewrance, contemplating his friend with grave scrutiny. 'Is there nothing unworthy in that life-nothing you would shrink from revealing to your mother or your sister ?'

'Nothing-now,' answers Westray. I do not say that my life has been altogether blameless, or that there have not been episodes in it which I look back upon with regret.'

'And at two-and-thirty you hope to escape all future temptation-all peril of peace or character-without the safeguard of wife or home ?'

'Why not? You are content to stand alone.'

'I have my duty, which is more than wife or children,' replies Dewrance gravely. There is a quiet depth of earnestness in the Curate's character, despite its surface lightness.

'Some one has said that the man who marries has given hostages to Fortune,' says Westray. 'Now I am not so sure of Fortune that I care to engage myself to her so heavily. Fortune may be friendly enough to a bachelor who asks her for no more than a bedroom near St. James's, and the run of two or three clubs; yet may turn her back upon a married man who has to pay houserent and taxes and servants' wages and milliners' bills, and to take his wife and babies to the sea-side, and send his eldest boy to Eton.'

Dewrance answers with a sigh.

I am willing to admit that civilised life is a problem,' he says. The Maories have no such difficulties.'

They are descending into a valley, a deep cleft between two hills; a narrow river-sorely shrunken at this dry season-flows over its stony bed at the bottom of the gorge, and in a verdant hollow between the river and the higher ground along which the dog-cart is driving lie the ruins of Lochwithian Priory.

Little of these remain-neither archway nor tower-only the solid foundations of chapel and cloisters, the massive stonework that formed the steps of the high altar, the broken base of a clustered column here and there at an angle.

The monks of old had a knack of finding the pleasant places of this earth,' says Westray. 'Valleys flowing with milk and honey, hill-sides famous for the produce of unapproachable mutton, woods peopled with game.'

And they occasionally planted themselves on such fertile spots as Mount Athos or St. Bernard,' answers Dewrance, whose Anglican mind has a keen sympathy with the Church of the past.

'I daresay their kitchen was built over that trout-steam, and that the scullions washed their dishes in the running water,' says Westray. But pray where do our friends reside? Do they encamp among those low walls, or have they a comfortable cavern in the hill-side ?'

The new Priory stands before you,' replies Dewrance, pointing to it with his whip.

A wind in the road has brought them face to face with the mansion of the lord of the soil; by no means a modern habitation, but of the Elizabethan era, with steep gables, mullioned windows, an oriel here and there at a corner. The house is built upon the slope of a hill, and stands above the raised road along which Dewrance and Westray are driving. It is large, rambling, irregular, and has evidently been expanded, but not within the last century. Time has mellowed the tints of the masonry, deepened the dark red of the brickwork, embroidered the massive chimney-stacks with mosses and lichens. The garden lies on a southward-fronting slope, and one can fancy that the red wall yonder, behind the house, and on a higher level, is rich in ruddy peaches and apricots; an old-fashioned garden overrunning with flowers. Straight gravel-walks intersect square grass-plats. Here stands a stone sundial, there a quaint old fountain. Raleigh might have smoked his peaceful pipe in just such a garden.

Thank Heaven it is not a perky modern place, all stucco and stuckupishness,' cries Herman.

'You dislike modern houses?'

'I would go ever so far out of my way to avoid living in one; and if I could not afford Queen-square, Westminster, would prefer Bloomsbury to Belgravia. Even Abbotsford, despite its cherished

associations, jarred upon me a little because I knew its mediavalism was all carton-pierre.'

They are at the lodge-gate by this time. Below them, at the bottom of the valley, walled-in on three sides by hills, stands a graystone church with a tall spire, modern Gothic-small, but perfect; beside it the village school, a pretty Gothic building, larger than the sparse population of the district would seem to warrant. An inn of no great pretensions-the inns in Wales are of small account-and a little cluster of cottages make up all that is visible of the village of Lochwithian. Westray looks about him wonderingly.

6 It is like the end of the world,' he says.

The gate is opened, and they drive up to the Priory. The fine old timber porch offers a cool and shadowy shelter from the blazing day. The door within stands hospitably open, and they can see the hall, with its darkly-bright oak-panelling, and fitful gleams of colour, and flash of armour against the deep-hued wood. The light from a painted window plays and flickers upon the carved coatof-arms over the lofty chimney-board, and leaves the rest of the hall in shadow. A family portrait looks out here and there through the dusk.

'What a delicious place!' exclaims Herman. Miss Morcombe will inherit this in due time, I suppose?'

'Not unless her two brothers and their young families perish untimely in order to make room for her.'

'She has brothers, then ?'

'Yes; one, a captain of artillery, in Bengal; the other, incumbent of a small living in Devonshire. Both of them married, and richly provided with olive-branches.'

'One, whom she idolises; older than herself; a confirmed invalid; something amiss with the spine. She rarely leaves her own room, or receives visitors; but she and I are firm friends.'

Three or four dogs come out to look at the arrivals, and recognise Dewrance, and are friendly to obtrusiveness: an old Scotch deerhound, a couple of grayhounds-numerous in this part of the country-and a black-and-tan colly; which last the Curate distinguishes with especial kindness.

'Good Lancelot, brave old Lancelot!' he says, as the animal fawns upon him.

The colly is Miss Morcombe's favourite,' remarks Westray

sagely.

'How do you guess that ?'

'By inductive reasoning. The favour you showed him enlightened me.'

After the dogs appears an elderly serving-man, who rings the