to talk about that, I hope before you leave you will come to the Grange, and take up your quarters there as long as you like. Do now. You are a good sportsman, Mr. Henry, and there are plenty of birds, strong on the wing and just wild enough. Don't say no" for Harry had begun to frame a negative" there are guns enough at the Grange, I hope, and there's Malbro-a capital dog, Malbro.”

"I am glad he has fallen into such good hands, Sir Richard," said Harry, cheerfully.

"He shall be used well, and valued all the more for having belonged to you once, Mr. Rivers, of which I was not altogether aware till now; for Pankhurst here, my keeper, bought him. And say you will come to the Grange, then, to-morrow. No? Well, the day after, next week, any time. We have no company; and if we had, you should be the top of them all. Do say yes, Mr. Henry."

The invitation was so cordially and honestly given, that Harry had some difficulty in evading it, by explaining that his presence was required almost immediately in London, to make preparations for his future course. And so, after reiterating his thanks, and delivering up Malbro to Pankhurst, after patting him once more, our young hero went on his way.

Now, Sir Richard Whistler was one of the proudest aristocrats in the county, and, in the hey-day of Hurlock Chase prosperity, barely had tolerated, as a presumed equal, a man who had blended with a large landed estate the mechanical calling of a blacksmith, as he had once contemptuously called Mr. Rivers. This, however, was during a contested election, when the Hurlock interest was opposed to that of the Grange, and when, as a matter of course, such mud-pelting was deemed fair play. But, setting this aside, the two families had been at arms' length, and Harry was touched by the delicate kindness he had just received, though vexed at the meeting.

F

The train of his thoughts was now for some time broken; and he hastened on, humming rather dolorously to himself the old strain which, in happier times, he had taught his father's forgemen to sing :

and so on.

"Hallo, my fancy, hallo!

Stay, stay at home with me:

I can thee no longer follow,"

The footpath trodden by Henry Rivers terminated on a carriage-road, which, in addition to being narrow and rough, as all carriage-roads were then, was hemmed in on either side by steep banks and high hedges. It was a road dear to Harry's memory; for there, one quiet summer evening, years ago, he had, while strolling with his former playfellow, Clara Gilbert, discharged his soul of its dear secret, and had seen in her downcast, swimming, glorious brown eyes, and in the pleased, mantling blushes of her dimpled cheeks, that his love was returned. The spot thus cherished in Harry's fond remembrance was within two or three hundred yards of the large swing gates and the gatekeeper's lodge, and the broad avenue which conducted through a small but pleasant park to Fairbourne Court; and often, in later spring-times, the two lovers had strolled along that rough and narrow road, searching the steep banks for early violets, and recalling to mind the delicious incidents of that first engagement. Then indeed the course of love ran smooth: but now

Henry Rivers was thinking afresh of that happy "then," and this wretched "now," as he approached the gap in the high hedge which opened into the road. If his mind had not been too much occupied with these sweet and bitter reflections, he might have been aware by the sound of horses' hoofs, that riders were approaching from the direction of Fairbourne Park, and would have waited until they had passed and the sounds had died away. But, oblivious to sound, if not to sight, he had

pushed through the gap, and had half-descended the bank by a series of rude steps which led diagonally down into the road, before he was made aware by his awakening senses that he was not alone. He would have turned and re-entered the fields till the riders had passed; but it was too late; and his only alternative to plunging down the bank, at the risk of coming into contact with the approaching horses, was to hastily catch hold of an overhanging bough, and thus maintain his position until the road was cleared.

Until now, the riders, whoever they might be, were hidden from sight by a sharp turn in the road; and before they came into sight, a soft, silvery laugh, which proclaimed that one of them was of the gentler sex, smote upon Harry's ear, and thrilled through his heart. Another moment, and, so close to him as he then stood rooted on the bank that by stretching out his arm he could have laid his hand upon her, swept by a young lady, in riding coat and hat, and mounted on a cantering bay horse which seemed proud of his beautiful burden. She was not alone. Riding close by her side was a gentleman of middle age, who was evidently deeply engrossed in conversation with that horse's fair rider. They moved slowly on, and a few words from the lips of the gentleman reached the ear of the unintentional bystander -words to which once more was returned the soft, silvery laugh of the young lady.

Had Harry's life depended on his retaining silently and unmovably his position on the bank, he could not have avoided a slight start and a smothered exclamation; and in a moment the young lady turned her head, and her dark brown, full, liquid eyes rested for another moment on his agitated countenance. Then a low, feeble shriek fell upon his ear; but before his trembling tongue could utter the name which burst from his heart, the vision had passed away, and the sound of their horses hoofs rang more and more faintly on the hard, stony road.

Bewildered and wretched, Henry Rivers descended the bank, and leaned against it, with his throbbing head hidden in his half-folded arms. The lady-rider was Clara; and her companion —that familiar attendant who had dared, and had been permitted, to address such words to her ear-was Harry's late triumphant opponent at law, and the present possessor of "The Hurlocks" and Hurlock Chase, Jason Brooke.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE GATE-KEEPER.

HENRY RIVERS remained leaning against the bank until the last sound of the horses' hoofs had ceased to ring upon his ear; and then he slowly recovered himself and walked on.

"I did not think I should be so weak," he murmured to himself: "I did not know how weak I am.

I thought I should have thought-that I could have borne this, even this, like a man, at any rate, and not like a puling, silly boy. And I will bear it too," he said aloud, suddenly rousing himself; "but I will know what it means.

"And what is it to me," he went on, more reflectingly, "if it does mean that? What is Clara Gilbert to me now, or what am I to Clara, that I should be angry? Angry; angry with her! Poor Clara; dear Clara! There is no harm in saying 'dear Clara,' though she is no longer mine." He thrust his hand, as he thought this, into his bosom, and tremblingly drew forth the portrait which nestled there. "Poor Clara!" he repeated to himself softly, as he gazed upon the familiar features before he restored the locket to its resting-place. "I could have borne it if it had been any other than that man. I should have had no

title to complain, much less to interfere. But to know her married to him-to a wretch who broke his first wife's heart by his coarse brutality! To think of Clara as his wife-he, a gambler, a black-leg, a cheat, a scoundrel! And so soon, too; so very soon after. Clara, Clara! you little know the sorrow that lies before you.

"And I shall have been the cause of it," continued Harry, still communing with himself, because he had no other auditor, while he still walked slowly towards the gates of Fairbourne Park. "Poor Clara! dear Clara! It was here, under the dark shade of this yew-tree, that I first, first- Oh, folly, and worse than folly, to remember it now! But it is I who have cast her off, not she me. If I had but waited-if my foolish notions about honour had not interfered, and if I had only waited patiently, patiently and hopefully, for a little while, I might have been spared this; for Clara would have been true to me. Fool, fool that I have been!

"Poor Clara! no wonder she started at seeing me; that she hurried on without speaking. No wonder, even, if she feels angry with me, thinking of me, as she does and must do, as fickle, ungrateful, changeable. Ah, but she little knows my heart! dear Clara!

"Yes, it is my fault, all my doing;" so Rivers proceeded; "and if Clara should be persuaded to marry that man, I shall never forgive myself for being the cause of her unhappiness. It must not, shall not be, if I can prevent it. At least her parents shall be warned. They cannot know that man, or they would never permit even his visits, or receive the slightest courtesy from his hands; and they shall not reproach me hereafter for my silence. Yes, I will see them; I will not turn back now."

Until now, Harry had hesitated whether to go on; but he hesitated no longer, and, quickening his pace, he soon reached the gate-keeper's lodge. The gate-keeper was the wife of Mr.