Gilbert's gardener, and she sat at the open door of the lodge, knitting; but at the sound of Harry's footsteps she looked up, uttered a cry of surprise, and, hastily rising, sprang forward to meet him.

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Oh, Master Harry, I am so glad to see you again! I must shake hands. To think of it, now! But I said to Gower, I did, that it was all stories we heard. It was only this morning I said it; and to think of you coming this very day, and all on foot too!"

"I have learned to travel on foot lately, Mrs. Gower," said Harry, with a smile.

"And not much to signify either, that isn't," observed the cheery woman, quickly. "There's better men goes a'foot than rides a'horseback, if all was known. But, deary me, Master Harry, how pale and white you do look, surely!"

“But I know; and I know that you must come in and rest. It will not be the first time, Master Harry."

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"No, indeed; not the first time by very many times that had gone before." So Rivers thought and said, as he entered the lodge. He was rather glad to sit down and compose himself for the coming interview.

“You met them, I suppose, Master Harry," said the gatekeeper.

"If you mean Miss Gilbert and—and the gentleman who was riding with her, scarcely. I saw them, however, before I got into the road."

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He has been here very often of late, that gentleman, as you call him," continued Mrs. Gower.

"Has he?"

"But there's nothing in that, you know, Master Harry. One gentleman may visit another, I hope, without being obliged to marry his daughter," rejoined the comforter.

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Certainly, Mrs. Gower. You know, that gentleman, Mr. Brooke, is the owner of Hurlock Chase now."

Yes, Mrs. Gower knew it; and the more the pity it was so. "But what signifies that ?" she added. "That's no reason you should be turned off, Master Harry."

"Well, but I have not been turned off; that is to sayand Harry stopped short, for he felt the awkwardness and impropriety of attempting to explain his position. But Mrs. Gower, who had no such delicacy, broke in triumphantly with

"I told Gower so; I told him so this morning, when he would have that it is the common talk up at the house that Mr. Brooke, who is old enough to be Miss Gilbert's father or uncle, is making love to her. 'Making love to her!' I said; and making love he may be, and making himself ridic'lous as well; but making love isn't winning it, and Master Harry will soon put a stop to his making love.' That's what I said, Master Harry; and here you are to put a stop to it," said Mrs. Gower, with an encouraging smile.

Or she meant it to be; but, gathering very little encouragement from the hints of his good friend the gate-keeper, Harry rose and bade her good-bye.

"If it had been any other than that man," he whispered to himself, "I would turn back now; but no-I will make one effort to save her; poor Clara!"

Something fell close behind him as he said this, which made him quickly turn his head. The something was an old shoe, a woman's shoe. It had been on Mrs. Gower's foot not a minute before. Harry looked back at the lodge, and there stood the gate-keeper in the middle of the road, like "my man John" in the nursery rhyme, " with one shoe off and one shoe on," clapping her hands and laughing a pleasant laugh.

“'Tis all for luck, Master Harry," she cried, at the top of her voice; "that's what it is, sir."

CHAPTER XV.

EXPLANATIONS AND SECRET SPRINGS.

FAIRBOURNE COURT was a more modern mansion than "The Hurlocks," more modest also in its pretensions; it was a very respectable mansion, nevertheless, and its owner, Roger Gilbert, was a very respectable gentleman. So Sir Richard Whistler would have said, and he surely knew. Not that the Gilberts were on Sir Richard's list of familiar friends; for, as the baronet observed, a line must be drawn somewhere; and his line was drawn between old families and new ones. Roger Gilbert's was a new family. Only two or three generations earlier the Gilberts had emerged from trade, and, as Sir Richard said, "set up as gentlefolks-gentlefolks!" To make this offence the ranker, and to keep it patent before the world, it was pretty well understood that, in "setting up for gentlefolks," the Gilberts had not entirely cast off the slough of their trading habits. There was a firm of Gilbert and Company in a large seaport town some twenty miles off; and this great firm monopolized half the business, not to say of the town merely, but of the country for miles around to boot. They were bankers; and Gilberts' notes were as good as gold, and far more plentiful. They were brewers; and "Gilberts' Fine Ales," on publicans' sign-boards, met the traveller at every turn. They were carriers; and their broadwheeled waggons were on the road day and night. They were general merchants; and their great warehouses were the wonder of the town, and among its principal lions. They were shipping agents and ship-owners; and the name and fame of Gilbert and Company were known even in Holland and Spain. Now, this was very grand and gratifying; but it had its drawbacks when the elder branch of the firm made purchase of Fairbourne Court,

remodelled and partially rebuilt the mansion, and willed to be a country gentleman. "For how can a man meet on an equality

with a fellow of that sort?” Sir Richard Whistler wanted to know. It was Roger Gilbert's grandfather who first started on this race of gentility, and died before the alterations in Fairbourne Court were completed. To him succeeded his son (Roger's father), who finished what his father had begun, had a numerous family, and, after providing for his younger sons and daughters, in approved fashion, he died also. To him succeeded Roger himself (Clara's father), whose patrimony was necessarily diminished by the aforesaid provisions, and who found, to his mortification, that he was rather coolly looked down upon by those whom he aspired to equal.

It was soon after Roger Gilbert became master of Fairbourne Court, and when Clara was a little child, that Mr. Rivers (Harry's father, of course) conferred two not inconsiderable obligations on that gentleman: first, by taking him by the hand and giving him his countenance; and next, by lending him a large sum of money on an emergency which threatened (for a short time, and in some commercial panic) the whole superstructure of Gilbert and Company. The loan was soon repaid, but the benefit was not forgotten, and Roger Gilbert was profuse in his acknowledgments to his benefactor.

From that time a familiar friendship sprang up between “The Hurlocks" and Fairbourne Court; frequent visits were interchanged; and little Henry, the motherless child of Mr. Rivers, passed almost as much time at the Court as at his own home. Thus his acquaintance with Clara commenced. As time rolled on this juxtaposition was interrupted by several years of school life, when, except during the holidays, the boy and girl saw little of each other; but, school days ended, the intercourse was renewed with greater warmth, and with what result the reader has already been informed.

How far this result had been foreseen or contrived by older heads, it is impossible to predicate with any degree of certainty; but it is certain that nothing could have fallen in more favourably with Mr. Gilbert's wishes. A near relationship with an old family was the one thing greatly to be desired to strengthen his own position in the county; and the prospective union of the two great estates of Hurlock Chase and Fairbourne Court, to say nothing of the Priory as a small appendage to the former, flattered both his vanity and his ambition. No wonder, therefore, that no obstacles were thrown in the way of the early engagement. It may be as well to add that no whisper of Mr. Rivers' ruinous but secret addiction to gambling, and of his deep embarrassments, had at that time reached the ear of Clara's father.

And when the sudden death of the owner of "The Hurlocks” brought these hideous things to light, the engagement had been carried too far to be summarily cancelled; so, in his perplexity, Mr. Gilbert argued; for he had a sense of honour. Moreover, he hoped that things would not turn out so badly after all, and he gave his best advice to Harry, in the tedious law-suit which he was persuaded to wage in defence of his patrimonial rights; and it was not till this suit was finally and adversely decided that he saw to its fullest extent how terrible a mistake that early engagement had been. We must do Mr. Gilbert the justice to admit that even then he shrunk from dealing the death-blow to Harry's hopes, while he waited anxiously and watched carefully to see what would next turn up.

That which did turn up was the very thing which Mr. Gilbert had most of all desired. He received from Harry, who was then in London, a manly letter, the purport and effect of which have already been told. It is needful, however, to continue these explanations through another stage of the history.

A few weeks before the date of our story Mr. Gilbert, who retained a considerable share in the profits, though not in the