THE ARGOSY.

OCTOBER, 1881.

COURT NETHERLEIGH.

BY MRS. HENRY WOOD, AUTHOR OF "EAST LYNNE."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

LAST WORDS.

DECEMBER was in, and winter weather lay on the earth.

Court Netherleigh looked out on a lovely view, fantastic as the pictures in a scene of fairyland. The snow clung to the branches of the trees like feathery forms of beauty; icicles sparkled in the sun. A new and fair and strange world might have replaced the old one.

Margery Upton lay on the sofa in her dressing-room; an apartment tastily fitted up. She was able to go into it most days, but she had now given up going down stairs. During the months that had gone on since the autumn and the time of Lady Adela's sojourn, the fatal disease, which had fastened on Miss Upton, had made its silent, persistent ravages, and her condition was now no longer a secret; though few people suspected how very near the end might be. Her warm loose dressing-gown of soft violet silk, for she remained loyal to her favourite colour, and her cap of fine lace shading her face, she lay between the fireplace and the window, gazing at the snowy landscape. She did not look very ill, and Grace Chenevix might be excused for the hopeful thought, now crossing her mind, that perhaps Aunt Margery would rally, after all. Grace had come down to spend a few days with her. She sat on the other side the hearthrug, tatting, the small ivory shuttle passing rapidly through her fingers.

"You do not have this beautiful scene in London, Grace," observed Miss Upton.

"Not often, Aunt Margery. Now and then the trees in the park are so ornamented; once, say, in four or five winters. Of course

we never see so beautiful a prospect as this is in its entirety."

I wonder if our scenery in the next world will be much more

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beautiful-or if it will even be anything like this?" came the dreamy remark from the invalid. "Ah, Grace, I suppose I shall soon know now."

Lady Grace checked a sigh. She thought it best to be cheerful. The shuttle had to be threaded again, and she got up to reach the ball of thread.

"Who was your letter from this morning, Gracie? Annis said you had one from 'foreign parts' she took care to inform me."

Grace smiled. "Yes, I had, Aunt Margery; I had forgotten it for the moment. It was from Harriet. They are still in Switzerland, and mean to stay there."

"I thought they were to go to Rome for Christmas."

"But Adela objects to it so much, Harriet says; so they intend to remain where they are, in the desolate old château. They have made it as air-tight as they can, and keep up great wood fires. Adela shrinks from meeting the world, and Rome is unusually full of English."

"How is Adela?"

"Just the same. Worse, if anything; more sad and spiritless. Harriet begins to fear she will become really ill; she seems to have a sort of low fever upon her."

"Poor girl!" sighed Margery Upton. "How she has blighted her life! I had a letter, too, this morning," she resumed, "from Mrs. Lynn. She is very ill; thinks she cannot last much longerFrancis told me so when he was here last week. I wonder "-in a half whisper-"which of us will go first, she or I? I wonder whether either of us will last out to see Christmas?"

"Was Mr. Grubb here last week, Aunt Margery?"

"For a few hours. I like him to come to me sometimes; he is a great favourite of mine. Grace, do you know what I have often wished that that old story, that he proposed for you, had been fact instead of misapprehension. With you he would have found the happiness he missed with Adela."

A flush passed over Grace's fair, placid face. She bent her head: there appeared to be a knot in the tatting.

"Marriages are said, you know, to be made in heaven," she remarked, looking up with a smile; so I conclude that all must have been right. Were the years to come over again, Adela would act very differently. She-oh, Aunt Margery, the beautiful feathery sprays are disappearing!"

"Ay; the sun has come out, and melts the snow. Few pleasant things last long in this world, child; something or other comes to mar them. But I thought you meant to go to Moat Grange this morning, Grace. You should start at once; it has struck

eleven."

"I said I should like to see Selina, and to call on Mrs. Cleveland on the way."

"Well, do so. Selina will receive you with open arms. She must be amazingly lonely, shut up in that dreary house from year's end to year's end. They see no company."

Grace put her tatting into its little basket, and rose.

"But are

you sure you shall not feel dull at being left, Aunt Margery?" she stayed to ask.

"I never feel dull, Grace."

Barely had Grace started on her walk when the maid came to the dressing-room to say the Rector had called.

Miss Margery?" she inquired.

"Will you see him,

"Yes, Annis, I wish to see him," was Miss Upton's reply; as she rose from her recumbent position on the sofa and sat down upon it. Ann folded a gray chenille shawl over her mistress's knees, put a footstool under her feet, and sent Mr. Cleveland up.

After a short while given to subjects of more vital importance, Miss Upton began to talk of her worldly affairs, induced to it possibly by a question of the Rector's, as to whether all things were settled.

"You mean my will, I suppose," she answered, slightly smiling. "Yes, it is settled and done with. Will you be surprised to hear that I made my will within a month of coming into this estate, and that it has never been altered?"

"Indeed!" he remarked.

"I added a codicil to it last year, specifying the legacies I wish to bequeath; but the substance of the will, with its bequest, Court Netherleigh, remains unchanged."

Mr. Cleveland opened his lips to speak, and closed them again. In the impulse of the moment he was about to say "To whom have you left it?" But he remembered that it was a question he could not properly put.

Tro

"You were about to ask me who it is that will inherit this perty, and you do not like to do so," she said, nodding to him pleasantly. "Well, it

"I beg your pardon for it," he interrupted. "The thought did arise to me, and I nearly forgot myself."

"And very natural that it should arise to you. I am about to tell you all about it. I meant to do so before my death: as well now as any other time."

"Is it Lord Acorn ?"

"No, that it is not," she replied, in a quick decisive tone, as if the very suggestion did not please her. "Lord Acorn and his wife have chosen to entertain the notion; though they have not had any warranty for it from me, but the contrary: understand me, please, the contrary. Court Netherleigh is willed to Francis Grubb."

Mr. Cleveland's surprise was so great that for the moment he could only gaze at the speaker. He doubted if he heard correctly. "To Francis Grubb !" he exclaimed