us and our feastings and mournings?" asked the gipsy, with

quiet composure.

"I think not: I am afraid not," said the good-natured lawyer, a little touched with the implied reproach.

"And yet we are the same flesh and blood, too," rejoined Lee. "Undoubtedly. God has made of one blood all nations of men to dwell upon the earth. You are quite right there."

"You want to know why I am following Mary Austin to the grave, Mr. Wainfleet. I told you, just now, she was very good to my Judith. She wasn't afraid nor ashamed to come to the gipsies' tent and the gipsies' caravan; she brought cordials to my poor dying girl, and talked gentle words to her, as if they had been sisters; she read the good book to her, and made good prayers for her. You mayn't think it, gentleman, but a gipsy has a memory for kindnesses done to him and his."

"I have no reason to disbelieve it, my friend," said the lawyer; "and I am glad to witness it."

"I told my Judith, before she died, that I'd never forget Mary Austin's kindness. It does her no good now, that I am following her to her burying; but it was all that was left for me to do."

The funeral procession had by this time almost reached Fairbourne Lodge, near to which point two roads successively branched off from that which it was traversing. One of these roads has already been mentioned in our tale as leading to the Priory; the other, turning to the right, skirted Fairbourne Park, and terminated at Fairbourne Church, which was half a mile distant from the junction of the roads; while, straight on, the road from the Wash conducted to the Grange, the seat of Sir Richard Whistler.

"Your honour does not mean to go round to the church ?" said the gipsy, after another short interval of silence. He said it half-affirmatively, half-interrogatively. It might have been taken either way.

"You are right," said the lawyer: "I have put off too much

time already. Sir Richard is expecting me, you know." He smiled as he spoke.

The gipsy merely nodded.

"By the way, friend Moses, who was that person who came up on horseback just now, and passed us?"

"Your honour knows him, I think," said Lee.

"If I did, why should I ask you? Who is he?" the lawyer repeated, more sharply than he had hitherto spoken.

"You must surely know Squire Brooke, your honour ?” "Brooke-Brooke! Do you mean to say that that person Jason Brooke, now owner of Hurlock Chase ?"

is

If Moses Lee noted the instantaneous change which passed over the lawyer's countenance at this moment, he did not appear to notice it. In another moment this sudden expression had again subsided into one of careless indifference.

"Do you know anything of Squire Brooke, as you call him, friend Lee?" he asked, with the air of a man who does not care whether you answer his question or not.

66

Very little, your honour."

"He is not among the number of your friends, then ?”

"A gipsy doesn't look for friends in such quarters, gentleman,” said Moses Lee, in a tone of what might have passed for profound humility and self-depreciation. It did not pass for such with the lawyer, however.

"You do yourself injustice, Moses," replied he, banteringly. "You have a good many friends-among the free-traders, for instance."

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Maybe, or maybe not, your honour. Anyway, Squire Brooke is not one of them," said the gipsy, composedly.

Mr. Wainfleet looked keenly into the gipsy's countenance. "I dare say you are right," he said. "But at any rate you pay a

visit to the Chase sometimes."

"To the Chase, your honour, no doubt; but not to the house. There are not many women-folks there; and a house without them isn't much good,” he added.

"Umph! Squire Brooke is not married, then ?"

"Isn't; but is to be, they say. I suppose he was going to see the lady when he passed us."

"The lady! What lady?"

"The young lady at Fairbourne Court, your honour, Miss Gilbert."

"Miss Gilbert! Not Clara ?" said the lawyer.

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'I have no knowledge of the young lady's name, besides being Miss Gilbert," said the gipsy; "but she is Squire Gilbert's only daughter."

“True; he has only one daughter, I believe; a brown-eyed girl, with a roguish, laughing face, as I remember, having met her once only. But you are mistaken, my friend. Clara Gilbert is engaged to be married to young Harry Rivers."

"Your honour does not know everything, I see," responded. Moses. "The young lady has altered her mind; the women do that sometimes.".

"Umph! And so Clara Gilbert is to be married to that man, is she?" said Mr. Wainfleet.

"To Squire Brooke; yes, gentlemán. I have seen them riding together many times of late, for the lady has been ill. If it hadn't been for that, they would have gone to church before now, I have been told; and they are only waiting till her illness is gone off."

Once more the lawyer uttered an "umph," and then walked on silently till the turning to the church was reached. Here there was another halt for changing the coffin-bearers, and Mr. Wainfleet at the same time mounted his horse. He had nodded a good-humoured farewell to the gipsy, and was waiting for the procession to turn into the church lane, as the road was called,

when he bent over the saddle-bow and whispered to his late companion, "You owe me something in that affair of Tom Previst, you know. Pay me by finding out all you can about Jason Brooke-where he comes from, what company he keeps, what he does with himself. You understand."

The gipsy nodded.

"Not that it matters to me; but I like to pick up information. Where shall I find you three days from this ?"

"I am camping on Marley Heath, your honour."

"On Marley Heath let it be, then; in the evening after dark." Once more the gipsy nodded. The next minute the funeral passed on, and Mr. Wainfleet was trotting onward towards the Grange.

"So that fellow has turned up here," he said, or rather thought to himself, as he paced along. "I am not mistaken, I think. Twenty years and more make a difference, to be sure; but he is the man. And if he is, what is it to me?" the lawyer went on, in self-communing. "And if he has mended his ways and is living cleanly, as Falstaff has it, why should I put myself out of the way to trip up his heels? But-Hurlock Chase! that he should be the owner of Hurlock Chase! I don't understand it; and I'll find out something."

And then he put his horse into a gallop.

CHAPTER XXV.

A SNOW-STORM.

THE subsequent proceedings of Mr. Wainfleet, on the day of Mary Austin's funeral, proved that if the gipsy Lee were not a true prophet, he had at least the means of obtaining correct intelligence, or else was a good guesser. As, however, the lawyer's professional visit to Sir Richard Whistler, and his dealings with

Joe Barton on the Downs Farm, and with Mr. Armitage, the sheriff's officer, have nothing to do with our story, we may pass over these incidental matters, only briefly observing that the baronet was in an irritable humour for several days in succession, after the visit of his agent, and that a distress for rent was put into the Downs Farm on the following week.

But, shrewd as was Moses Lee, there was one circumstance which he had overlooked in his vaticinations, namely, a snowstorm, which, immediately following a sudden shift of wind, met the traveller in the face as he was on the road from H- to the Priory, and beat upon him furiously. It was already dusk, the way was long-a good two hours' ride at the best of times, and the lawyer's horse was tired; but, elderly gentleman though he was, the lawyer manfully buttoned up his coat to his chin, stayed his beast while he pulled a Stockport shawl (dear to travellers in those days) from his pocket, and wrapped it in a double fold over the lower part of his face, leaving only his eyes uncovered; pulled his hat more closely down upon his brow, and then, applying his single spur gently to his horse's flanks, again started forward, bravely determined to buffet the storm, which every moment seemed to increase in intensity.

Among the many perplexing, bewildering, and baffling things in this world is a snow-storm to a traveller. At such a time familiar objects disappear or become fantastically disguised; waymarks are lost; awkward ruts and inequalities in the road are covered over, and present a treacherously even surface, into which the unsuspecting man sinks as he steps. He withdraws the entrapped limb, if it have the good luck to be uninjured, and hastens to rising ground a few yards off, where the snow cannot be so deep, and finds the rising ground to be an enormous drift, into which he plunges to the waist. Meanwhile the blinding storm continues. Big feathery flakes cover him, settle on his eyebrows, on his whiskers (if he have them), fall into his eyes,