OAK-DALE GRANGE.

How the snow falls! the ground is white already, and still it comes silently yet ceaselessly down. It has been falling all day, and the night is darkening the earth. The moorland is covered knee deep with a smooth, heavy whiteness, and the trees and hedge-rows are fringed from branch to branch with the ever-falling snow. In the shadows of the approaching night the country all around looks desolate and dreary-very dreary. There is not a footprint to be seen on the ground for miles, and still, without a moment's cessation, the large white flakes fall noiselessly, not lingering in mid-air, and chasing each other in curious windings through the sky, as if they had no intention to fall on the ground beneath them, but dropping perpendicularly down from the clouds so thickly as almost to blind the eyes to all surrounding objects, and they ache with weariness in watching their fall. And anon, as the wind is wailing wildly, the tall clusters of trees that grow beside the dreary-looking walls of Oakdale Grange bend down their long brawny branches as though they would shake off their chilly covering, and the heavy gusts wail very sadly round the desolate old pile.

Oak-dale Grange was an old mansion, massive and grand in its construction, and though still strong on its thick stone walls, the effects of time were plainly visible; they were grown grey with age, and the fretting and wearing of rains and storms had worn many a line and channel on the still noble front. It stood on a gentle slope of land, and commanded towards the sunset an extensive view of field and forest, stretching along till they mingled at last with the sky. Around the back part of the mansion, and on either side, were thick belts of patriarchal trees, extending their broad branches over the ground, as though they had acquired a prescriptive right to the tutelar deities of the place.

For many years it had, with the exception of a small portion, been unoccupied, and some of the rooms, where still the dusty old-fashioned furniture stood, were deserted and silent, visited only by the leathern-winged bats that flew in and out of the decaying windows, and by the sparrows that built their nests beneath the ivy-covered leaves.

It stood alone. The old way from the village to it was overgrown with grass, and few feet dared ever to follow its still discernible traces, or penetrate to the supposed haunted Grange lying beyond; and the villagers, as they

[PRICE 1d.

passed along the high road, averted their eyes from the crumbling old walls as if they possessed some unholy charm. But the wise ones of the village had been perplexed lately by the arrival at the old house of a woman rather advanced in years, accompanied by another, probably a servant, whose features also bore the touch of time, with a young girl not yet come to womanhood, but whose fair brow and stately bearing were sufficient to awaken all the curiosity of the villagers. They had been put down by the coach from the neighbouring town, and proceeded at once to the mansion, without exchanging a word with any of the group that the strange occurrence had gathered together. Since that day the woman had but rarely been seen in the village, and the young girl never.

Many were the rumours that went from mouth to mouth as to who the strangers might be. Some of the old people affirmed a recollection of the elder and superior stranger having many years ago lived at the same house, as the housekeeper of the last owner, who had died in one of its rooms, and whose monument was still to be seen in the church. But for the most part, the curiosity of the quiet villagers was not so easily to be satisfied, and as one tale had made its sensation in every coterie, another was raised; so that the excitement of the village was not soon likely to subside from fever heat. There was a report of the old owner, Mr. Algernon, having left a son, who had, by his extravagance and dissipation, been the cause of his father's death,-of his marrying a woman attached to a strolling party of actors; and, in short, romances were abundant touching the paternity of the young girl, and the why and the wherefore of the recent occurrences. But meanwhile, as the whole village has been alive with wonder in its vain attempts to explain the unwonted events, the old housekeeper for such the elderly person is-with the assistance of the servant, has been busily engaged in making a few rooms in the house of a tenantable condition. Fires have been lighted, and furniture has been dusted,-a great change has taken place in the within-door appearance, though outwardly the old Grange still retains its dreary aspect; but the smoke curling from the chimneys, and the fires gleaming through the windows, have divested it of its former haunted appearance.

In the large oaken parlour the wood burns brightly in the long unused grate, and on the walls the flame dances grotesquely, as if they rejoiced to enclose again human forms. The furniture is ancient and stately,-high

backed oak chairs and a round table of the same dark wood, whose long-lost polish has almost reappeared.

There are pictures hanging round about the room that, strangely enough, seem not to have faded like everything around them has done, and the fire casts a fitful but cheery and vigorous light on the faces and figures half hidden in their dusky gilt frames. Some of them are portraits of former owners of the Grange-elderly, grave-looking personages, whose features are nearly concealed in caps or wigs; but there is one of a fair and stately woman, with a look like Dido had when her lover sailed away from Carthage, proud, and yet tender, her eyes were half scornful, yet full of a strange, passionate love, she was stauding erect on the green grass of a lawn that stretched down to a lake-side, and her eyes were fixed on some invisible object, chained, as though in the passion of death. Her forehead was like new-fallen snow, and her lips were full, while yet the upper one was curled with an inherent pride. The picture occupied a part of the wall directly opposite to the fireplace: and as the fitful flames caused the alternate light and shade on her noble countenance, the eye seemed to flash, and the lips to move, as if the contending passions pictured on her countenance were realities. It was a glorious picture. The painter might himself have loved her with the passion of his soul, and his heart, not his hand, have portrayed that proud mysterious figure.

Many other pictures are hanging in the room, some old and scarcely distinguishable, and others with colours still fresh; but there are none whose noble beauty so strikes the eye as the portrait of that stately lady. The curtains of the room are drawn, but the wind outside blows strangely, shaking the window-panes, as though angry, because they offer an obstruction to its entrance; and down the old-fashioned chimney gust after gust roars and riots till at times the whole house seems to be filled with strange spirits chasing each other with unnatural glee. An old-fashioned sofa is drawn up opposite the blazing fire. Upon it, with her blue-tinted eyelids halfclosed down, the young girl about whom so many different rumours have been current in the village, is half reclining with her head unfolded in her curving arm. Her cheeks are shaded by long tresses of dark hair that fall in many curls half hiding her finely formed throat, and her eyes of a melancholy blue are fixed on the bright burning wood fire in the grate. She has been looking on the picture behind her, for it has had a strange attraction for her eyes, and now she turned away from it. Still every stroke of the brush is fixed ineffaccably upon her heart.

Opposite to her, on the other side the fireplace, sits the old housekeeper, in a high-backed arm-chair. Many vicissitudes of fortune have passed over her, and it is long since she sat in that same old parlour, and in the presence of the same old stately portraits. She is clad in a long dress of black silk, high stomachered, and falling in stiff folds about her person. Round her neck hangs a gold chain, and a high and matronly-looking cap is on her head. Her eyes have frequently and keenly wandered from the picture to the form on the sofa, and from the sofa again to the picture; and within herself she is saying, How marvellously like her she is." And again her head falls gently backward, resting on the chair, and with closed eyes she is wandering again through the dimly-lighted fields of the past; and but small is the comfort her heart seems to obtain from that long and weary wandering, and her eyes open again and fall directly on the sweet fair face still lying quietly opposite to her. That same face seems to brighten as the old housekeeper's eyes fall upon it. The young girl slowly rises and walks across the room, passing in her progress the old picture of the lady, whose beauty has already so attracted her soul; and as she passes her eyes are almost involuntarily drawn upward with a strange look upon the mysterious figure before her. She

goes on, however, to the window, and stands within the folds of the curtains. What are her thoughts as she stands there, looking upon the white lawn and trees, and over to the distant plains and hills? Not of the snowstorm, nor of the rough wind still beating boisterously against the panes, but of the lady whose portrait hangs by the wall beside her. Soon, however, the housekeeper's voice rouses her from her musings. "Marian, do not stay so long at the window, dear, the wind is very cold." I am not at all cold, mother," replied she; "but the snow falls so fast and still, and I like to watch it."

A slight shade crossed the features of the old honsekeeper as Marian said " mother," but it quickly dis

appeared.

Marian had known no other mother than she who was then addressed by her as such. They two had lived together from the time of Marian's earliest recollections; and sweet to her girl-heart were the associations of her former days. They had resided in a small whitewashed cottage on the south coast of England, and round its walls still grew the soft-leaved rose-trees and pendulous fuschias, planted by Marian's own hand. From the tall cliffs near their home it had been her delight to watch the stately vessels pass slowly along with their sails outswelled by the sea breeze; and often and anxiously did she watch them in the stormy weather driven swiftly along by the prevalent winds. But with only a few days' preparation they had removed from her girlhood's home, and travelled far into the north to Oakdale Grange, much to the surprise of Marian, who put many questions to her mother (as she supposed the old housekeeper to be) why they should come to live in such an old-fashioned, out-ofthe-way place; but which the latter evaded to answer.

Marian, my dear," she says, addressing the figure nearly hidden in the folds of the window-curtains, "I am sure you are not well enough to expose yourself to the keen air that must find its way through those windowframes. Do come and sit down here."

"

"I love to watch the snow so much, mother; it falls so beautifully," Marian replied, coming, however, away from the window, and seating herself in her old place on the sofa. How bright the fire burns," she added; "the room looks so cheerful, we don't need candles at all. Mother, what do you think? Watching that snow has reminded me of a dream I had last night. I thought I I had been out all day, wandering about on a barren moor, where the snow-flakes were falling silently and swiftly, as they do now, until I was so numbed with cold that my limbs could not bear me, and I fell down, while still the snow was falling, and falling, and covering me deeper than ever, and my eyelids were closed down heavily. I thought I fell into a pleasant sleep, and was awoke by the sound of a voice, calling me by name. It was not your voice, mother, but deeper and stronger. I seemed to know it, but I cannot remember when I could have heard it before. It thrilled through me, and made me tremble all over; and when I had opened my eyes, I saw a lady standing beside me, half covered with snow herself; her feet were very wet, and her shawl was white with snow. I had never seen her face before, but it was very much like the one in that picture, only her eyes were not so proud and scornful, and there was no curl on her lip. She took me by the hand, speaking kindly to me all the time, and led me till I got away from the moorland and the snow, and then left me. But the more I look at that picture the more I fancy it was that same lady came to me in my dream."

And as Marian finishes her words, she leans backward again on the soft pillow, and shuts her eyelids as if she would enclose within them the picture of her dream for

ever.

There is a silence, and they sit opposite each other again--the young and the old, the flower-fading and the

flower-budding--and still the firelight flickers upon the proud handsome features of the picture and the fair fragile form of Marian, and still the eyes of the old housekeeper wander from the one to the other, and many past things are crowding into her mind-clouds that were dark and nights that were long; and before her sits the girl who has for many years called her by the name of mother.

Half an hour has gone quietly and quickly. There has been no sound in the room save that of the fitful windgusts revelling in the chimney, and shaking the decayed window frames.

Marian seems asleep, and her heart wandering far in dreamland, in that mysterious paradise from which the soul has not yet been driven. But the charm is broken, the wings upon which she flew falter and fall, her eyelids unclose, and she says, Mother, you have never told me why we came to this strange place. I am sure we were as happy in our old house by the sea as here, and we never had a storm of snow and sleet like this."

"Listen to me, Marian," says the old lady. And after pausing awhile proceeds: "Perhaps what I am about to tell you may give you some answer to your inquiry. I lived in this same house many years ago, long before you were born. I came here when I was quite young. Then an old gentleman lived here, who has long been dead; that is his portrait hanging on the side wall. He was married at that time, and I came as nurse to his son, then a baby. I lived here till the old gentleman died. Mr. Algernon was his name, and a kind, loving-hearted man he was; and his wife was like him. Most part of the village belonged to them; and while they lived there was no happier place in all England. The boy grew up; he was fair-haired and rather pale; but I am afraid that Arthur-that was his name-brought many a grey hair upon the heads of his father and mother. He was so wild and wayward in his doings no one could control him. He was not like other young men. When he grew older, near eighteen or twenty, he used to keep away from home for days together, without telling any of us about it. Strange and dark days they were for us at home, for though he was so wild, yet there was not one in the house but loved him. One night, I remember, as usual when he was out, all in the house had gone to bed, leaving one door at the back of the premises unbarred, for the yarddog was a guard to it, and the old fellow knew Arthur's foot as well as I know yours. After we had been some time in bed, I, who was just sinking away to sleep, heard a knock at my chamber door; and one of the servants, Mary, came in with a face blanched and pale.

"What in the world do you want at this time of night, Mary?' I said, as she walked trembling forward. Her teeth chattered between fear and cold; and as quickly as her agitation would allow her she said :

"I have been awake for the last quarter of an hour hearing such strange noises (she slept in the room over the front kitchen, and near the door we had left unbarred). I heard the dog whine and wail as if he was dying, and then his chain dragged along the ground, and there was a noise as if he had made a spring towards something he had been unable to reach. I thought I could hear other sounds besides, but I could not stop in my room any longer, and I dare not go back again till you come.' This put me about strangely. What could it be? I got up quickly, and, dressing myself, asked whether she had looked into the yard, as it was moonlight, and any object might easily be seen even at a distance. She answered me that she dare not look, and all the while was trembling from head to foot like a child. I led the way into her room carefully and silently so as not to disturb Mr. and Mrs. Algernon with any noise, especially if, as it might prove, it were on no account. The window-blind was down, but I drew it on one side, and the yard was almost as bright as day with the clear moonlight, and

there, sure enough, was the poor dog whining piteously, and vainly endeavouring to free himself from the leathern collar and chain attached to his neck. There was no person in sight; right down the valley lay the village all

at rest.

"I could not imagine why the dog still continued his crying. There happened to be no man-servant in the honse that night; both had leave of a holiday the day before, and I began to feel rather frightened, fearing there might be some thieves or mischief about. Mary daren't look out of the window at all; but I saw at a glance it would never do to let matters remain so. I went back to my room, and put on a warm shawl with my bonnet to go and try to pacify the dog, as I was afraid his ceaseless whinings would awaken the other people in the house.

Mary begged me not to leave her, but I told her if she liked she might watch from her window, or if not might come with me, as I should not go farther than the yard: she preferred going with me to being left alone, and down stairs we went. Cautiously and slowly we opened the unbarred door and entered the yard. The dog heard our footsteps, and with a quick motion bounded as far as his chain would let him towards us. I patted his head and called him by his name, 'Don, Don,' but still he continued whining, and sniffed with his nose on the ground, as if there was something wrong somewhere. I thought I would try an expedient, rather a bold one for a woman, but the dog knew me, and I was not afraid of him; so I unfastened his chain from the staple in the wall, and holding the end of it in my hands let the dog go on. Very quickly he did, scarcely giving me the power to take breath, and had not Mary been fearful of being left behind she would have come but sluggishly to the pace at which we ran. We had got on the high road leading from the village, and about a quarter of a mile from the house. I was beginning to blame myself for being led on this strange errand, and was trying to hold in the dog, for he had certainly once or twice nearly dragged the chain out of my hands, when he suddenly stopped at some dark object in the footpath. To confess the truth, some idea of this kind had brought me so far from home. I knew the dog would not whine in the way he had done for nothing. It was Arthur lay there with his face to the ground. I knew him in a moment, though his face was disfigured, there was blood about him, and his coat was dusted and worn as if he had been dragged along the ground, and his hands were torn. Mary seemed better now she saw the danger and who it was in it. I stooped down by him as he lay and tried to lift his head from the ground; his body was quite warm, and his heart I felt was still beating, though but faintly. We scarcely knew what to do. To carry him home would be impossible. There was a brook running beside the road, and I told Mary to fill her hands with water and sprinkle it on his face. This in some way revived him, and his eyes opened, but he did not recognise us, nor speak, only moaned painfully now and then. We lifted him up as well as we could, to try if he was able to walk home between us, and very slowly we walked back, he not speaking a word, but with his head leaning down on one side like one in a painful dream. It appeared afterwards that he had been thrown from his horse as he was coming home.

"When the surgeon came in the morning he pronounced his case desperate, he had internal injuries of which he could not recover.

"Then to see his father and mother bending over his bed, those grey locks of the parents mingling with the golden locks of the son in the consciousness of a speedy parting.

"Before he died, however, he told to them a secret, which till then he had never divulged. He had been married for nearly a year to a girl who lived in the town

ten miles off. The girl had been, he said, an actress in a theatre, and he had fallen in love with and married her unknown to his parents, fearing lest they should offer some obstacles to his plans.

"The pangs of grief in losing their son swallowed up every thought and word they might have had of remon strance. These were bitter cups to drink in such quick succession. Arthur told them where his wife lived, and that she had borne him a daughter, who was a few months old, and was still with her mother, and then entreating their forgiveness, and bequeathing to their care his wife and child, he died, hoping that though he had been so ungrateful, they would not visit his sin upon the heads of those he left behind.

"With his death their love of life seemed gone; they were not the same as before. The child one day shortly after his funeral was sent for and brought home; they never saw the wife, and although numerous inquiries were made after her in the town where she had lived, nothing could be explained as to whither she was gone; it was generally supposed she had again joined the actors among whom she had before lived. But a year afterwards, while the old people were still mourning over their son, one day there arrived by the coach, securely packed in a wooden case, that picture there on the wall, accompanied by a letter in a woman's hand, saying that it was the portrait of Arthur's wife, a woman who had loved him with all the passion of her soul, and would wear her weeds of widowhood till death.

"Soon after this the old people died, leaving the little girl, Arthur's child, to my care, and, Marian, though you have called me mother ever since you could talk or remember anything, yet I am not your mother, but she whose portrait you have been so earnestly looking at tonight."

Marian speaks not. She has been listening attentively to the words of the old housekeeper, and now she covers her face with her hands, and in the deep bitterness of her soul weeps like one before whose eyes has passed a vision of Eden, never more to return.

The speaker proceeds: "Soon after the death of your grandparents, we left this house and went to reside by the sea, in the cottage where you have passed nearly the whole of your life.

"And my mother," suddenly exclaims Marian; "have you heard anything more of her? Where is she? Oh! mother! mother!" and afresh she weeps, and the fastfalling tears and sobs choke her utterance.

Shall I ever see her again?" at last she groans, with her face still hidden in her hands.

"I have recently received a letter from her. How she knew where we lived, in that lonely spot, I cannot tell: in it, she spoke of coming here to see you; she was in France, and was very ill, but the prayer of her soul was to see you once more, and when I received it we immediately left the cottage and came here, as it is here where her husband died she wished to see you,-she is to come to-day."

"To-day? Was she to come to-day?" exclaims Marian, raising her head, and her eyes brightening through her tears. "Oh! but it is night now-she cannot come now. Oh! mother, mother, will you not see your daughter once more!"

"The coach comes in late, and she has to travel from London, so she may be here yet, although the night is coming on."

And in the long silence that follows, the sound of a horn is clearly heard, though there is as yet no sound of wheels; and the old housekeeper hastily lights a candle, and goes out of the room, leaving Marian on her pillow; she would have followed her, but a strange bewildering feeling keeps her still sitting where she was.

In agonising suspense, she remains till the sound of

voices is heard in the hall; a strange voice one was, rich and half-haughty, musical and yet broken, though it still had a sweetness that went right to Marian's heart.

The door is flung open, and before she has time to see the features of the stranger, Marian is clasped in the embrace of her mother, strained to her bosom with almost supernatural strength of passion. "My child, my child." cries the same rich voice she had heard below, now thicker and half-choked, for the tears are falling fast from the eyes of both the women, as there in that oaken parlour they meet never again to part on earth.

She is tall and erect, but the sorrow and suffering of many years have made havoc with her features. There is yet the same clear blue eye, the same short upper lip, the same small round chin, but there are also lines of care on her brow, and indelible furrows in her cheek, and the hair which once was so luxuriant, revelling in long tresses down her neck, is thin, and tinted here and there with grey. She is a ruin-a proud, noble ruin-still shapely, still beautiful (for beauty cannot die), but careworn and timeworn, and the blanched face and lips tell too plainly that she has come there to see her child and die.

The night is growing late when that long embrace is broken, and then they will not be parted; mother and daughter sit side by side, looking at each other as if one moment's cessation of that gaze would be death. For a whole month they do not go out of each other's sight,they sleep together, they sit together, and meanwhile the mother's strength is failing. The day is approaching that is to sever them, and they both know it and feel it, but the happiness of the present is too deep to be stayed by the approaching waves of misery that the future will bring.

It is a fine sharp day in the latter end of February, the sun is shining in the chamber where they still are together; the mother is lying on her bed, the daughter sits beside her, and their hands are locked. The mother speaks in a low soft voice-her strength is fast giving way-the day is come; she feels the finger of death has touched her.

"My child, I have been wicked, cruel to you, and cruelly have I suffered. I have long walked in my pride, but it has fallen, fallen; and now, now my child, Marian, press my hand once more, kiss me once more; I am going."

"Oh! my mother," sobs Marian, " do not leave me." But the lips of the dying one are closed.

Tremblingly, with her cold hand she draws from her bosom a golden locket with a ringlet of fair hair enclosed, and holds it to her chill lips for a moment, and then laying it in Marian's hand, gasped, "It was Arthur'syour father's; no other eye has seen it,--keep it,-love it as I have done."

And there is a silence, broken only by Marian's sobs, as that worn and weary spirit escapes away. And the silence that follows is never broken.

LANCASHIRE STUMP ORATORY AND REMINISCENCES OF THE LABOUR BATTLE. BY A PRESTONIAN. CHAPTER V.-FALLACIES.

WHEN fire, flood, or tempest has levelled or seriously damaged one's property, be it a gorgeous marble palace, a monster brick cotton-mill, or a humbly-thatched hovel, before we set to work seriously to repair the damage and take measures for future security, we find it necessary to clear away some of the rubbish which disfigures the locality and conceals the foundations of the dilapidated edifice.

In every fierce struggle between two powerful interests,