"Yes, and I must say it also," she firmly answered, induced by fright and excitement to remonstrate against the injustice she had hitherto not liked to interfere with. "Cruel wrongs. Oscar, if you go on like this, oppressing all on the estate, you will be murdered as They are threatening to drown Pinnett if they can get hold of him; and they do not lay the blame on Pinnett, except as your agent, but on you."

sure as you live.

"Pinnett is not my agent. What Pinnett does, he does on his As to these harsh measures-as they are called-my sanction of them was not asked."

own score.

"But the poor men cannot see it in that light, Oscar, cannot be brought to believe it," she returned, the tears running down her cheeks. "It does seem so impossible to believe that Pinnett can be allowed

to

"Let it end." And the men say they

"There, that's enough," interrupted Oscar. "Yes, but the trouble won't end, Oscar. are coming up here. There's a meeting, too, at Lee's to-night." "They can come if they please, and hold as many meetings as they please," equably observed Oscar. "Men who are living in a state of

semi-rebellion must learn a wholesome lesson."

"They have been provoked to it. They were never rebellious in papa's time."

He made no reply. Selina, her feelings strongly excited, her sympathies bubbling up, continued.

"It will be cruel to the farmers if you turn them from their farms; it is doubly cruel to have forced these poor men from their cottages. They paid their rent. You should see the miserable wives and children, huddling together on the common. I could not have acted so, Oscar, if I had not a shilling in the world."

Mr. Dalrymple wheeled round his chair to face his wife. "Whose cruel conduct has been the original cause of it?" he asked in his cold voice, that to her sounded worse than another man's anger. "Who got into secret debt, to the tune of some seven or eight thousand pounds-ay, nearer ten thousand, counting expenses-and let the bills come in to me?"

She dropped her eyes then, for his reproach was true.

"And forced me to retrench, almost to starvation, and to exact the last farthing that the estate will yield, to keep me from a prison? Was it you, or I, Mrs. Dalrymple?"

"But things need not be made quite so bad," she took courage to say in a timid tone; "you need not proceed to these great extremes." "Your father's system was one of indulgence; mine is not, and the tenants, large and small, don't know what to make of it. As to Pinnett, he does not consider himself responsible to me for his actions; and I-I cannot interfere with them. So long as I am a poor man, struggling to pay your debts, Selina, so long must Pinnett take his own

Oscar turned back again, caught up the book he had laid down, and went on reading it. Selina took a seat on the other side the table, and sat supporting her head with her hands. She wished things were not so wretchedly uncomfortable, or that some fairy would endow her with a good fortune.

Suddenly a tramp of feet arose outside the house. Oscar heard it, unmoved; Selina did not hear it, or she might have flown sooner to bar and bolt the doors. Before she could effect this, the malcontents of the common were in the hall, their numbers considerably augmented. It looked a formidable invasion. Was it murder they intended, or arson ?—what was it not? Selina, in her terror, flew to the top of the house, and a servant maid flew after her: they both, with one accord, seized upon a rope, and the great alarm-bell boomed out from the Grange.

Up came the people from far and near; up came the fire-engines, from the station close by, and felt exceedingly aggrieved at finding no fire the farmers, disturbed in the midst of their pipes and ale, rushed up from Mr. Lee's. It was nothing but commotion. Old Mrs. Dalrymple, terrified nearly to death at the alarm-bell, hastened to the scene, Mary Lynn with her, and Reuben running behind them.

Contention, prolonged and bitter, was going on in the hall. Dalrymple at one end, listening, and not impatiently, to his unwelcome visitors, who would insist upon being heard at length. He answered them calmly and civilly, not exasperating them in any way, but he gave no hope of a change in the existing policy.

After seeing his mistress seated in the hall, for she insisted on making one of the audience, poor Reuben, grieved to the heart at the aspect of affairs altogether, went outside the house, and paced about in the moonlight. It was a fine night. He had strolled near the stables, when he was accosted by some one who stood aloof, under the shade of their side wall.

"What's the matter here, that people should be running, in this way, into the Grange?"

"I should call it something like a rise," answered Reuben, sorrowfully. "Are you a stranger, sir ?"

"I am a stranger. Until this night I have not been in the neighbourhood for years. But I formerly was on intimate terms with the Dalrymple family, and have stayed here with them for weeks together."

"Have you now, though!" cried Reuben. "In the Squire's time,

sir ?"

"In the Squire's time.

"Ay, I am Reuben, sir.

Sad changes have taken place since then. My old master's gone, and Mr. Robert is gone, and the Grange is now Oscar Dalrymple's."

"I knew of Mr. Dalrymple's death. What became of his son "He soon followed his father. It will not do to talk of, sir."

"Do you mean that he died?" returned the stranger.

But before Reuben could answer, Mr. Lee came up, and commenced a warm comment on the night's work.

"I hope there'll be no bloodshed," said he, "we don't want that; but the men are growing more excited, and Mr. Dalrymple has sent off a private messenger to the police station."

"This gentleman used to know the family," interposed Reuben ; "he has come to the place to-night for the first time for years. It's a fine welcome for him, this riot."

"I was asking some particulars of what has transpired since my absence," explained the stranger. "I have been out of England, and now thought to renew my acquaintance with the family. What did Robert Dalrymple die of? I knew him well."

"He fell into trouble, sir," answered Reuben. "A random, wicked London set got hold of him, fleeced and ruined him, and he could not bear up against it."

"Died of it?" questioned the stranger.

"He killed himself," said Mr. Lee, in a low tone.

"Threw

himself into the Thames from one of the London bridges, and was drowned."

"How deplorable! And so the Grange passed to Oscar Dalrymple ?"

They

Her

he has

"Yes," said the farmer. "He married the elder of the young ladies, Selina. And something not pleasant arose with them. went to London, and there she ran very deeply into debt. husband brought her back to the Grange; and since then been an awful landlord, grinding us all down to powder. Things have come to such a pass now that we expect a riot. The poor labourers who tenanted the Mill Cottages have been ejected to-day; they have come up to have it out with Oscar Dalrymple, leaving their families and chairs and tables on the common. One of them, Thoms, could not be forced out, so they just took his roof off and his doors out."

The stranger seemed painfully surprised. "I never thought to hear this of a Dalrymple!"

But here Reuben interposed. Jealous for the name, even though borne by Oscar, he told of the leasing of the estate to Pinnett, and that it was he, not Oscar, who was proceeding to these cruel extremities.

"I should call that so much nonsense," said the stranger. "Lease the estate that has a curious sound. Has he leased away all power over it? One cannot believe that."

"No, and we don't believe it," said the farmer; "not one of us, Mr. Dalrymple can't make us, though he tries hard to do so. He is playing Old Nick over us, sir, and nothing else. It was a fatal night for us that took Mr. Robert."

"You would have been better off under him, you think?"

"Think!" indignantly retorted the farmer. known Robert Dalrymple, to ask it."

"Robert Dalrymple died in debt, I take it. this neighbourhood?"

"Nothing here."

"You could not have

Did he owe much in

"Not he. Why,

"Did he owe you anything?" "Me!" cried the farmer. only a day before his death I had sent five hundred pounds to him to invest for me. He had not time to do it himself, but a gentleman who took a great deal of interest in Mr. Robert, and saw to his affairs afterwards, did it."

"What gentleman was that?"

"It was Mr. Grubb: he is Sir Francis Netherleigh now, and has come into Court Netherleigh. His sister-who is at the Grange to-night with old Mrs. Dalrymple-and Mr. Robert were to have been married."

"Robert Dalrymple may not be dead," abruptly spoke the stranger. But this hypothesis was received with disfavour; not to say scorn. The stranger maintained his opinion, saying that it was his opinion.

"Then perhaps you'll enjoy your opinion in private," rebuked Mr. Lee. "To talk in that senseless manner only makes us feel the fact of his death more sharply."

"What if I tell you I met him abroad, only a year ago?"

There was a dead pause. Reuben breathed heavily. "Oh, don't play with us!" he cried out; "if my dear young master's alive, let me know it. But he cannot be alive," he added mournfully: "he would have made it known to us before now."

The stranger unwound a shawl-handkerchief, in which his voice and chin had been muffled, raised his soft round hat from his brows, and advanced from the shade cast by the stable wall, into the moonlight.

"Reuben! John Lee! do I look anything like him?"

Reuben sank on his knees, too faint to support himself in the overwhelming surprise and joy. For it was indeed his young master, Robert Dalrymple, raised, as it seemed, from a many years' grave. The old servant sobbed like a child.

"It is nothing less than magic," cried the farmer, when he had wrung Robert's hand as if he would wring it off, and both he and Reuben had had time to take in the full truth of the revelation. "Dead-yet living!"

"I never was dead," said Robert. "The night that I found myself irretrievably ruined"

But here Robert Dalrymple's explanation was interrupted by a noise. The malcontents, driven wild by Oscar's cold equanimity, which they took to be purely supercilious, were rushing out of the Grange by the front entrance, fierce threats and oaths pouring from their lips.

Oscar Dalrymple might go to perdition.

They'd fire the place over

his head, commencing with the barns and out-houses.

"Stay, stay, stay! let me have a few words with you before you begin," spoke one, meeting them with assured but kind authority and his calm voice acted like oil poured upon troubled

waters.

It was Sir Francis Netherleigh. Hearing of the riot, he had hastened up. He reasoned with the men, promised to see what he could do to get their wrongs redressed, and told them that certain barns and out-houses of his were being warmed and made comfortable for them for the night, and their wives and children were already on their way to take possession. Finally, he subdued them to peace and

good temper.

But while this was taking place in front of the house there had been another bit of by-play near the stables. Mary Lynn, terrified for the effect of the riotous threats on Mrs. Dalrymple in her precarious state of health, begged her to return home, and ran out to look for Reuben. Mr. Lee discerned her leaning over the gate of the kitchen-garden, gazing about on all sides in the moonlight. A bright idea struck him, quite a little bit of romance.

"I'll fetch her to you here, Mr. Robert," he said. "I'll break the glad news to her carefully. And you won't turn us out of our homes, will you, sir?" he lingered to say.

"That I certainly will not; and those who are already out shall go back again. But," added Robert, smiling, "I fear I shall be obliged to turn somebody out of the Grange."

"If

"There's Pinnett, sir," came the next doubting remark. Mr. Oscar Dalrymple has leased him the estate, who knows but the law may give him full power over us

"Leased him the estate!" interposed Robert. "Why, my good friend, it was not Oscar Dalrymple's to lease: it was mine. Be at rest."

Relieved at heart, the farmer marched up to Mary; managing, despite the most ingenious intentions, to startle and confuse her. He opened the conference by telling her, with an uncomfortably mysterious air, that a dead man had come to life again who was waiting to see her and Mary's thoughts, greatly disturbed, flew to a poor labourer who had died, really died, that morning.

:

"Why, what do you mean, Mr. Lee ?" she interrupted with some awe. "You can't know what you are saying. Colter come to life again!"

"There! I know how I always bungle over this sort o' thing," cried the abashed farmer. "You must just forgive me. And you can well afford to, Miss Mary, for it's not Colter come to life at all; it is young Mr. Robert Dalrymple.-And here he is, walking towards you."

The farmer discreetly disappeared. Mary staggered into the shade