tangue, come what will. Noo, auld woman, what gars ye put on sic fule's airs? Is na' the yang man fit to be yer grandson? Sae jest be freendly."

Margery turned away only half subdued; it was quite true that Mr. Duckett might have been her grandson, for he was full fortyfive years her junior; but old women, of Margery's standing, in the north country, cling pertinaciously to the proprieties as well as to the privileges of the sex. Mr. Duckett meant it kindly-for, as I soon found out, he was one of the kindest of men, in spite of his overweening vanity and his foppish affectation; but "Mrs. Wray,' to whom he made all sorts of apologies, could not take his attentions as they deserved. But, mollified at last by his deferential manner, and piqued perhaps by Martin's carelessness of his rights, she condescended to say, "Niver moind lad, niver fash, say na mair aboot it; if he dinna fash, why for suld I? Nae doot ye meant it reaight kindly, and I gie ye thanks; but it's na t' fashion my counthry!"

Then Mr. Duckett took his leave, promising to visit us again next morning; "but now," he concluded, "I must go straight up to the Castle and see my lady before dinner. She desired me to certify to her that you had safely reached the Gate-house. If you are in any difficulty, Mrs. Wray, send your little maid up to the house; she knows the way to the housekeeper's room, and she can find Mam'sell Sophie, who is my lady's 'lady.'"

We all went into the house, and there stood the "little maid” referred to, a cleanly, strapping young damsel of fourteen or thereabouts, who had been chosen by the marchioness as Mrs. Wray's servant. Fancy Margery with a servant of her own! there would be singular relations I imagined between the maiden and her mistress. The house was not really so large as it looked; but to my idea it was a perfect palace, quite the sort of house I had read about in my favourite Scott's novels;-why I could actually go to bed if I liked, up a winding stone stair, very steep and narrow, and eminently calculated for breaking necks,-a stair in a round tower, which was pierced with arrow-slits or loopholes, whence one might take sure aim at an enemy, if only there would come one and attack the gateway. There was another and a more convenient way certainly; but the windows were all glazed, and the stairs were of good sturdy dark old oak instead of mouldering stone, worn with the footsteps of long-past generations,-possibly of knights and fighting men who defended the Gate-house when the Castle was besieged. Being of a romantic turn of mind, I naturally preferred the dilapidated steps, and rather relished the notion of having my candle blown out on gusty nights; for I do not think I was afraid of ghosts, though I lived in mortal terror of rats, bats, " and other

small deer." To say the truth, I don't like rats now, and would infinitely prefer a house haunted by ghosts to one tenanted by rats. Perhaps it is a natural antipathy; perhaps I am a descendant of the luckless Bishop Hatto who fared so badly, in the paws of these noisome rodents, in his tower of Bingen on the Rhine.

But if I ran wild with delight that first night in my new home, my companions did not. Martin looked serious and perplexed; the place and its appointments awed him. Margery walked doggedly from room to room, sinking down in each, and starting up oddly enough whenever the seat yielded to her pressure. She had been accustomed all her days to hard, uncompromising wood, and a cushion stuffed with hay she had always accounted as the climax of luxury. When at last she sat down on the special, chintz-covered, spring-cushioned easy-chair provided for her own use, she jumped up again with a shriek: "The deil's in t'chair," she muttered. "I thocht I was gaun fleein thro t' air I did.” It was some time before Margery could be persuaded to use that chair continually. She came however at last to own that it was "varra comfortable, and gude for auld banes ;" and at length she reached the point of taking it in high dudgeon if any one presumed to sit in it without her express permission. So kindly do we take to luxuries, whatever be our prejudices, and howsoever hardy the habits of a lifetime.

Some of the furniture from Waterhead had been transmitted to Dovercourt, the rest was in safe custody at Eaglesmere. The sneezy eight-day clock had duly arrived, and had been set up in what both Martin and Margery persisted in calling the "houseplace," greatly to the perplexity of Rebecca, the young servant, who recognised it as "the parlour." It must once have been worthy of the name of "drawing-room.' drawing-room." Indeed even then it merited the title far more than any of the little stuffy, crowded, gaudily furnished dens which I have since heard styled "drawingrooms" by their pretentious and vain-glorious possessors. Both the walls and the ceiling were panelled, and both showed the legendary inscription and the emblematic raven of the Dovercourts, and the beautiful oriel window glowed with the device of the family, quartered in violets and emeralds, and blood-red ruby tints, with those of the heiresses with whom the lords of the noble house of Dovercourt had from time to time intermarried. I soon learned to know them all. Heraldry seemed to come to me quite naturally, and I took an immense pride and interest in the marquis's long pedigree. Two hundred years ago the Gate-house had been the dwelling-place of younger brothers, or of the unmarried female branches of the family; and as late as the commencement of the eighteenth century it had been the temporary residence of the Lady

Dorothea Walton, a grim, solitude-loving spinster aunt of the then reigning marquis. This accounted for many pieces of stateliness, many antique and elaborate decorations, which would have been singularly inconsistent in a mere keeper's lodge.

I was glad to recognise the sneezy clock, and to my amazement I found out, when Phoebe's bedtime came, that it was actually right to a minute. I had listened to the chiming quarters of the church clock all the evening; now it struck eight, and, lo! and behold, the venerable horloge, which had travelled so far, struck eight likewise. Surely the air of Dovercourt must be favourable to truth telling I thought. But the veracity of our old friend pleased not its lawful owners. Margery was speedily irate, and Martin said that would never do, and we with so much on our shoulders; we should be behind time for ever and a day. So the hands were triumphantly pushed forward to twenty minutes after nine, and the old people were contented.

Margery went upstairs with Phoebe, and Martin and I were left alone. I saw that something was on his mind, that he was weighing certain words he wished to utter, and I prepared myself for information. It came as I expected after a preliminary pause, but it was scarcely of the nature I had anticipated.

"Laddie," said the old man, speaking in the most Southern accent he could command, "ye mind when that chap i' the fine claithes-Mr. Duckett didna he ca' himself?-ca'ed you Maister Wray, takin' you naturally enough for my own grandson and for li'le Phoebe's brother?"

"Yes," I answered, "I mind; I remember of course; it was very stupid of him."

"None sae stupid, laddie; t' man could na' ken what he did na' ken, an' what no one would telt him. Folk here think you belong to us; why shouldn't they? The folk at Eaglesmere knew weel you did na, for they knew all our kith and kin; they knew that Margery and me had nae bairns i' this warld. There was our Ailie; she were living when first you came amang us, but a' folk kenned-I mean knowed-as she were naething to you. As for t' ither bairns, they'd bin i' the Kingdom years and years, for Ailie was our last, and cam' late when we didna expect anither wean, t' wife and me being na' sae yang as ance we were. Sae, t' neebors could na be med to think as you were our ain, ye percave." "Why should they?" I replied, haughtily. like a Wray."

"And I do not look

"Noo, ye dinna-I mean ye don't. Hech, sirs; but it's hard to break yourself o' bad habits, an' I canna somehow gie my stupid auld tangue the reaight South-country twist. Noo, ye're nane like the Wrays; I wish ye were."

"Why? Is it not better that people should grow up like their own folk?

"Na doot when they hev folk o' their ain; but, Hughy, my laddie, ye've na folk i' this warld belonging to ye. Ye've lost baith father and mither, puir bairn, an' there's nane for ye to leuk to but me and yer granny. It's better that here among unco' folk ye suld be thocht to be li'le Phoebe's brother, or at least her cousin."

"I don't like pretences," I said, hotly. "If I am not Phoebe's relation, why should I try to make people believe that I am? What is it to anybody whether Phoebe and I are kin or no?"

"It's not that, bairn; it is na touching t wean Phoebe I'm consarned; on'y if ye be our ain and Phoebe's our ain ye twa maun be sib. Canna ye see?"

"I see what you mean, grandfather; but I am as far as ever from understanding your reasons. I am Captain Vassall's son, and I will not be called Wray-I may as well say it at once-for I don't like it, and I will not be called by a name that is not mine. It would be a sort of lie, you know, and you are always angry and so is granny if you think either Phoebe or I do not speak the very truth, though for the matter of that I never did tell a lie that I recollect, and I hope I never will.”

Martin groaned. "Ah, laddie, it's hard to thole"-i.e., "endure or bear "—" crookit ways. Noo, I dinna want ye to tell lees, nor to answer to name o' Wray if ye dinna like it; but ye are ower hasty, ower hasty, Hughy, as yer father were afore ye; m'appen it's i' ť bluid, an' ye canna help it. Noo listen: when ye say t' Church Catechism, and ye're askit, 'What is your name?' what do ye answer?"

"Why, Hugh Travis," I responded, for that was indeed my Christian name as I was informed, only the second name was more for show than for use, as I had never called myself or been called "Travis," and I uniformly signed myself "Hugh Vassall" at the bottom of my copies and exercises. So that I should have quite forgotten that my godfathers and godmother had given me two names in my baptism had not the catechism, dominically repeated, perpetually reminded me of it.

"And Travis' is your name, yer ain name, quite as much as Hugh or Vassall ?"

"Yes! I suppose so, though it does not feel like it; I never think of myself as Travis, ye see.”

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Aweel, ye are Travis; there canna' be t' glint o' doot aboot it! Noo, what I want ye to do is just to say, when folk speer aboot yer name, as they're sure to do, 'Hugh Travis,' and leave oot t' Vassall! Ye understan' that, sure-ly?"

"No, I do not. I do not understand why I must not own to my father's name, nor why I should be ashamed of it. Grandfather, why cannot you speak out, and tell me all about myself? I must know some day; why not now? Perhaps if you told me, what I am sure there must be to tell, I might feel that it was best to call myself only Travis, leaving out the Vassall that I love so much, and that I am so proud of. But I am too old to be treated like a baby."

"Hech, sirs! what's to be dune?" cried Martin, in real distress, and appealing as it would seem to the sneezy clock; "he wunna be guided; he wunna obey them as is set over him, and we'll a' be ruinated, ay, and mair na we. Heaven help us a'. T'auld woman were reaight; t' Lord niver ca'ed us South, and we suld ha' tarried safe an' blithe amang our own folk at hame. Laddie, ye little ken the mischief ye'll do if ye perseest in bein' sae headstrang. A bairn may set a stane a-rollin' from fell-top wi' ane keek o' his wee futie, but ten growed men canna' stap it when ance it's fairly startit. An' I tell ye, Hugh, ye may mek a terrible mischance wi'out meanin' ony ill, and when ye wad gie yer ain life to stop it ye wunna be able."

Martin's evident trouble touched me: in spite of a great deal of self-will and boyish conceit, and what Margery called my "headstrang pride," I loved Martin dearly. I should never have given in to Margery, for the antagonism between us was growing stronger and stronger daily; but I could not bear to hear the old man's tremulous tones, or to see his piteous, beseeching glances directed towards my own stubborn, sullen countenance, which I was trying to make as impenetrable as possible. But I felt I was giving way; I could not hold out much longer, and I made one more effort, trying, but in vain, to speak as doggedly as before-"If you would only tell me all about it."

"My laddie, I canna tell ye!" and Martin's voice deepened, and his manner became very serious. "I'm pledged, ye see, Hugh; I'm under a solemn vow! it was amaist an aith; indeed, I think it was quite an aith. I canna spake the noo, it maun na' be, or I wad spake oot, for yere a bairn o' sense, though ye are a varra queer bairn. Bide a wee, Hughy, and ye sall ken a' that is to be kenned, I gie ye my wurd. An' till then be a gude and meek bairn, and do as yer tould wi'out speering for the why and the wherefore. It will na' hurt ye, Hughy, ye ken fu' weel that your auld granddad would niver ask ye to do aught to yer ain ill; he'd suner dee than ye suld come to harm."

"Tell me one thing only," I said, with softened heart and choked voice; "tell me one thing, and I will be content; at least I will try to be content, and I will not vex you with any more questions; in this thing that I must not ask about is there any shame?"