room in all the house, while Cyril kept his watch as became the last of the Denhams left on British soilin the Cedar Chamber.

A few days more, and a dark procession passed from the frowning battlemented gateway to the venerable church of St. Croix-a church as old, or older than the cathedral-a solemn minster church, with damp, dark outer aisles, and heavy Norman arches, and mould-stained pillars, and marble floors that covered in the dead of long departed ages. It was not properly the parish-church of St Croix, but it was used as such-prayers being "said" daily in the half-ruined choir, and one sermon being preached every Sunday by the churchless rector, who was also chaplain to the ancient hospital, inhabited by "twelve poor brethren," wearing flowing cloaks, with a silver cross upon the breast. The hospital had been a monastery once, and the noble pile of buildings, grand and grey withal, formed with the church three sides of a large quadrangle.

Underneath the great Norman tower, where the pilgrims used to claim their manchet of bread and their cup of ale; through the long, dim, echoing cloisters; across the damp north transept, where still the storied windows of the southern transept cast long rays of richly coloured light on worm-eaten stall and antique-lettered pavement; past the baptismal font, and up the silent choir, and again past the marriage-altar, and the table of Holy Communionshe had done with them all now-they carried the lady of Monkswood to her grave in the solemn chancel. And there they left her once more lying by her husband's side, as it had been long years ago, in the bridal, deathly Cedar Chamber. There they left her—tattered banners waving over-head, and the bat clinging to the rafters of the high-pitched roof, that half the day was lost in gloom and shadow-for there is no loftier church in all our English land than the desolate, but glorious old minster of St. Croix, with its low, square Norman tower and wonderful

triforium! There they left her, with many another of the haughty Denham race, just by the beautiful and shattered rood-screen; and the mourners, Cyril and Sir John, returned to dreary Monkswood, and in another day the heir that might have been, left his father's halls, and Sally came to Forest Range, and Monkswood was given over to desolation.

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CHAPTER XVI.

OUR NEW NEIGHBOUR.

FOR several months after the death of Mrs. Denham, her son's affairs were in the most inextricable confusion. First of all came news from South America: Gregory Denham was dead, leaving a widow, said to be a veritable descendant of the Incas-but no children; and within a few weeks came the like sad tidings from the European continent. Edward Denham also had departed this life, also dying childless; so that there only remained Cyrik and Lucretia! Augustine, indeed, might still be living, but no one knew anything about him; he had gone "up the country," as people said, with his half-caste heiress, and had great store of paddy-fields and elephants! He might be dead, he might be alive, no one knew, and no one cared to know very much, not even Cyril, who scarcely counted him as a brother, so entire and so out-spoken had been his renunciation of his family, and of any participation in the falling fortunes of the Monkswood Denhams, many years before.

But the end of it all was, that poor Cyril, through his connexion with the "Cordillera and Alleghany Mining Company," almost became a bankrupt, or an insolvent debtor-I am not certain which; and Monkswood-poor, dreary, ruinous old Monkswood, that had been his ancestors' in the days of William the Norman-was in the market! It was a wonder the proud defunct Denhams did not rise from their resting-place in the chancel of St. Croix, to resent the indignity done to their time-honoured name! Monkswood was advertised in the county papers,

and in some of the London papers too, and at the offices of Messrs. Coles and Reeves, the auctioneers at Southam; and Lot 1, Lot 2, Lot 3, etc., was affixed to various portions of the estate; for it was not thought probable that any one person would buy the whole, the house being so dilapidated, and the grounds in so wild and desolate a condition. Indeed, about Christmas, part of the roof of the untenanted mansion fell in, carrying with it the floors of several of the upper rooms; and the walls of the dismantled lodge, at the principal entrance, were pronounced unsafe.

But the auctioneers, and all other persons interested in the sale of Monkswood, were deceived. A person came forward, who wished to buy the whole estate, not only that remnant of it now offered to the public, but, if possible, those other and larger portions, alienated years ago, sold piecemeal, or mortgaged, as the entail then permitted. This gentleman, however, did not for some time come forward in propriâ persona; his lawyer, a certain long-headed, lynx-eyed Mr. Dewsbury, negotiated for him; and even after the transfer was complete, and the Monkswood house and lands were bona fide the property of its new owner, Southchester generally did not know the name of the foolish purchaser; "For," as everybody said for twelve miles round, "no one in his senses would buy the place in toto, just as it stood, for no one could live in it, without first pulling it down to the cellars, and building it up again; and as for the grounds! they were somewhat in the condition of those legendary gardens round the palace of the Sleeping Beauty, in the unknown Elfin-land! It would cost any man less money and less pains to build a spick-span new and handsome mansion, and to lay out fresh shrubberies and lawns, etc., etc."

But the latter alternative was just what the unknown master of Monkswood hated and abhorred. He had already a handsome mansion, horribly unblushingly new! and he had new lawns, which everybody knows are not to be compared with old lawns; and he had

new shrubberies, or at least embryo shrubberies, which might afford a patrician shelter and a shade in days to come-say, in the time of his great-grandson's grandson! And his heart yearned for lichen-tinted stones, and patriarchal trees with mossy trunks, and springy velvet turf, and terraces with vases, and old statues, and broad flights of steps; and ancient fish-ponds, and alleys and arbours of clipt yew, or beech, or hornbeam; and finding Monkswood advertised for sale, he determined that it should be his own, let it cost him what it might! And who, after all, was the mysterious man of money? Some said he was one of the Rothschilds, some that he was a disappointed lover, going to enact a mediæval romance, by shutting himself up with one faithful retainer in the haunted rooms of Monkswood, letting his beard grow, and eschewing civilized society. Others declared that a "mad doctor" had bought the place, and was going to bring his patients there! If so, we all agreed they never would recover; and the slightly insane would rapidly become confirmed and hopeless lunatics, while the deep stews and carp-ponds, and one black pool in the middle of a tangled wood not far from the house, would afford charming opportunities to those whose inclinations turned to suicide! Who then was to be our neighbour? for we could not imagine any one living at Monkswood who would not be our neighbour, though five miles, at the nearest, lay between us.

One morning, just as we sat down to luncheon, we were startled by the appearance of Vivian Gower, whom we did not know to be in our part of the country. He was welcomed, of course, and sat down with us readily to discuss the good things upon the board; and he talked about Kate, and the six weeks they had spent in Paris, and their return home by way of Belgium, till the repast was nearly over, and then Mr. Gower said, abruptly-"Do you know I am going to be your neighbour?

We all looked up, and some one faltered-“ No.” He went on quickly: "Yes, I ordered Dewsbury to