"Well, no," said Lady Lavinia, after a pause ; "with all due deference, dearest Lady M'Adam, to your greatly superior age and experience

"Not such a great difference, Lady Lavinia, as you seem to suppose," interrupted Lady M'Adam, snappishly.

"I'm sure I beg your pardon," answered Lady Lavinia; "I was only going to say, that knowing the poor dear Duchess's idiosyncrasies, and prejudices, and crazes, as we do, I think we had better wait

"And watch," interrupted Miss Scheimes.

"Thank you, dearest Helen," continued Lady Lavinia; "and watch-yes, watch and wait. Sir Thomas Clarion was saying only the other day that the Fortieth are likely to be moved here; then we shall perhaps see more, and be more in a position to move with effect. I shall tell Papfaddle-such a faithful creature!—to be on the look-out for the first soldier that goes up to Miss Manwaring's apartments, and if I learn anything, you may depend on hearing from me. Now I must run away and dress for dinner."

Lady Lavinia's prudent counsels prevailed, and forthwith the Vehme-Gericht was dissolved.

"Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth; and the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity; it is an

unruly evil, full of deadly poison." So speaks the Inspired Word; but Luther having blasphemously termed the Epistle of S. James an "Epistle of Straw," these very protestant ladies probably did not look on his inspired dictum as binding on their "consciences."

CHAPTER XXII.

THE LOST FOUND.

ARLY in the ensuing month of May, the expected change of regiments took place, and a troop of the Fortieth Dragoons succeeded to the troop of Hussars, which, to the utter despair of Lieutenant Sprattles, was despatched to Brighton. This honest young warrior had lost his heart entirely, and his admiration for Miss Manwaring knew no bounds. When the change took place, the Duke of Ribblesdale probably did not regret that he had failed to induce Sprattles to consent to effect an exchange with him.

Two or three days after the arrival of the new troop, upon a tender spring afternoon, Evelyn went forth to wander by herself in Bushey Park. The day had been what George Herbert so beautifully calls

"A Bridal of the earth and sky,"

and the afternoon did not belie the fair promise of the morning. The grand avenue of chestnuts, it is true, had well-nigh lost every one of its myriad candelabras of silver and pale-rose, and the still lingering hawthorn blossoms had changed from their creamy tint to a faint red; but, all around and above, the scene was as lovely as an English May could make it. The opening leaves were in their livery of tenderest green; the brownish spirals of the young brakes were curling up amidst the still beautiful red, dried fronds of last year's growth, which now hid and now revealed a belated hyacinth of heavenly blue. In the more open spaces the fragrant cowslips blossomed, and here and there a stately oxlip starred the mossy turf. The cuckows gave forth their familiar note, as they flew from thorn to thorn; the green woodpecker laughed for very joy; the throstles and blackbirds sang their sweetest; and once Evelyn fancied she heard the notes of a nightingale issuing from a thicket of brambles, where perhaps the hen-bird brooded over her modest nest of dried grass as brown as her own loving little body, while her mate, with his breast against a thorn, told her his tale of love. Evelyn chose the part of the Park where the dry, red fern grew the highest, and where she and Floss-for her

faithful dog, as usual, was her companion-could feel themselves the most alone and unconstrained; for she heeded not the noble stags and dappled does which ever and anon she started from their ferny coverts. The girl loved the country from her heart; and amidst the thankfulness she felt for the peaceful home which the royal bounty had provided for her, she was sometimes thrilled with deep yearnings after her wild North-country fells, for the swelling swathes of purple heath, and for the rocky banks of the swirling Arrow. "If I did not see the heather once a-year at the least, I think I should die," said Sir Walter Scott; and Evelyn felt a like sentiment with regard to her old home and its surroundings. Ou this particular afternoon the girl's spirits were higher than usual, and she ran with Floss amongst the bracken and under the ancient thorns with as light a step as the springing deer around her. She held her straw hat in her hand, and her wondrous hair streamed out on the wind behind her like a golden cloud.

"Now, Floss," cried the girl, "I am tired, and must sit down, and you must let no one come to disturb me; and you must be a good dog, and sit quietly beside me, and not hunt the good Queen's deer."