I think that any one who has followed the story so far must have realized that all the doings of any of us in Barton were very quickly and completely known to all the rest. Probably Barton is not at all peculiar in this, for no doubt it is the same in all little country places of its kind. There was one person, however, of whom it would perhaps not be right to speak as belonging to Barton (the more correct mode, it may be, would be to say that Barton belonged to him)-Lord Riverslade-who was an entire exception to this rule. His whole position, of course, was quite exceptional. When we spoke of Barton people we meant the villagers, the Vicar and the doctor, and the few people living in the better houses in its immediate neighborhood. The county people were quite apart, and Lord Riverslade was not only one of the county people, but perhaps the most important of them all. At the same time his position as lord of the manor, and actual proprietor of the greater part of the village, naturally brought him into a peculiarly close relation with it.

When Miss Sophy was at the Castle we heard a good deal of what went on there, but during the greater part of each year she was away in London or in Paris, and at such times the Castle life went on behind blank walls, so far as we were concerned, except for an annual garden party, at which divers

sorts and conditions were gathered in a communion that was singularly uncongenial to all who shared in it. And if the whole life of the Castle was thus shut off from us by a blank wall, the owner of the Castle himself was more inscrutable still on account of the equally dense wall of reserve a sec ond line of fortifications, as it werewith which it pleased him to surround himself. His outward person and de meanor were, of course, perfectly familiar to us. His dress always ap peared the perfection of quiet taste. We never saw him in the rough shooting clothes that men generally wear in the country, and the colors that he affected were either of a hue so sombre that they looked almost black or of a delicate gray. He wore his beard.

which was become nearly white, trimmed most neatly to a point. His complexion was pale, but so clear and healthful that a young girl might have envied it. The shape of his face was a fine oval, and an aquiline nose, with the skin seeming to be drawn so tightly over the bridge as to appear in a state of constant tension, added to his singularly aristocratic and courtly aspect. It was supposed that he was peculiarly proud of the smallness of his hands and feet, and certainly he was most particular and careful in the matter of his gloves and boots. No one could remember seeing him without gloves in the open air, and when he took them off, within doors, the delicacy and whiteness of his hands. the fine taper fingers and beautifully kept nails, seemed to justify him in ali his precautions. His whole appearance had an air of studied perfection. and his manner, cold but scrupulously courteous, was in absolute accord with it. Dr. Charlton, who knew him far better than most of us, affirmed that he was entirely lacking in a sense of humor, and though it never was said of him, even after his son's loss, as it

He

was of the poor King Henry, that he was never seen to smile again, still there was no one who could say that they had ever heard him laugh. could smile, although in rather a distant manner, as if he felt that even this measure of unbending from his usual impassivity was hardly consistent with the dignified repose which he cultivated, but so vulgar a sound as laughter it was almost impossible, it seemed almost wrong, to imagine that he could utter. Dr. Charlton had a particular and unconcealed dislike for him, and in answer to a stranger who had asked what Lord Riverslade was like, he is said to have replied tersely, and rather profanely, as we thought "He-he's a piece of polished ungodliness."

On the whole it was not altogether surprising, though it was very vexatious, that we never succeeded in discovering by what means Lord Riverslade came to know of the frequent meetings of his heir and nephew, Jack Rivers, with Miss Vera, his unacknowledged grandchild. Whether some evilminded little bird carried the news, or whether Lord Riverslade himself observed the young people and certain tender passages between them, or whether the base and hackneyed device of the unsigned letter was employed by some maker of mischief we never knew, but on the very day following that on which Miss Vera had bravely told her lover that by the force of circumstances it was necessary they should part, Lord Riverslade sent for his nephew into his study and treated the young soldier to some of his most cruel and refined observations. For such account of the interview as reached us eventually we were indebted to Mr. Jack Rivers himself-Lord Riverslade never, as far as was known, spoke of It to a soul-and therefore we heard one side of it only. It has to be confessed that his lordship had some

grounds for deeming himself rather hardly used by fate and by the family of Fraser, seeing that his only son had ruined his life, and probably had found his death, by running away with the mother, and that his nephew, who had become his heir, was now threatening, as it appeared, to disgrace the family further by a dalliance with the daughter of this unhappy and unauthorized union. The case was hard.

That

Precisely what words Lord Riverslade used we never did know, but in a general way we heard, either at first hand from Mr. Jack or from Miss Sophy at secondhand, who had it from Mr. Jack himself in much more detail than he told it to any one else in Barton, that he had said "horrible things"; and it was well to be believed that this statement was not exaggerated. he said them in the most courteous manner possible was also to be believed, and did not seem to make them less "horrible." What Mr. Jack said to him in answer was even less exactly known, for if there was one thing that was clear at all about the interview it was that the young man lost his temper completely, and when a young man has lost his temper he does not remember all the things that he says, and perhaps it is quite as well that some of them should be forgotten. Of course this put him more than ever at his uncle's mercy. On one point, however, it seemed that he did contrive to turn the tables, for when Lord Riverslade remarked that the girl naturally would think that she was doing a good thing for herself, she being what she was and he the heir to a barony and broad acres, then he was able to tell his uncle that as soon as ever the girl discovered that she had no proper claim to the name she bore, she refused absolutely to consider the idea of letting him marry her in the future or continue her lover in the present. It was part of the code by which Lord

Riverslade regulated his life that he should show no surprise, but it appeared that he really was taken more than a little aback by this intelligence. He affected to disbelieve it, although the candor of Mr. Jack Rivers's nature was so apparent that no one seeing him even for the first moment could question the truth of anything that he should say; and being forced at last to accept even so surprising a statement as this as a true one, Lord Riverslade then affected to receive it as evidence of the rusé character of his unfortunate grandchild. It was difficult for him, no doubt, to believe good of any one, and it was in speaking of him that Dr. Charlton had first enunciated one of his favorite maxims, that the lowest opinions of human nature are generally the result of introspection. Perhaps it was introspection that prevented Lord Riverslade from believing that Miss Vera could have been genuine when she forbade Mr. Jack Rivers to make love to her as soon as she understood her position in society.

I think it was this refusal on the part of his uncle to believe anything but what was ill of the innocent young girl he loved, that drove Mr. Rivers to say things that he certainly had better not have said. The conclusion of the matter was that he left the Castle abruptly on the following morning, and the months passed into years before we saw him again in Barton.

It was not till long afterwards that we heard all about poor Vera's troubles at this time, but a few weeks later a sorrow which was known to all of us, and in which we all could give her our fullest sympathy, came to overcloud her young life still more heavily. This was the death of Colonel Fraser, her grandfather. The intelligence that he was dead came to us as a shock, but it could hardly be said that it came as a surprise. The old soldier had looked for many months as if he

was failing, and the doctor's report on the state of his heart had suggested the possibility that at any moment death might overtake him. It was death in the most peaceful and beautiful manner that can be imagined. His servant. coming in the evening to pull down the blinds and light the lamp, found him leaning back in his armchair quite dead. His face had a most happy expression, freed from the anxious lines that had been so distressing during the later months of his life. His Bible lay open on the table before him, and he had evidently been reading it when death came to him. Dr. Charlton, who was summoned immediately, said that he had probably been dead about an hour by the time that he arrived. appeared as if the Colonel himself had had a presentiment that he might die at short notice, although he never alluded to his health or called in the doctor's services; for all his affairs were found in perfect order, his will was signed, leaving all the very little that he had to leave, after his impru dent speculations, to his grandchild. and a lawyer in Y was appointed as his sole executor.

It

Miss Vera bore her great loss with a wonderful fortitude, considering how young she was, but we felt that she had had so much experience of sorrow and trouble in her short life that she was really far older than her years, although her life since she came to Barton had of course been a very quiet one. It seemed grievous to think of her left alone, or only with servants, in that silent house with the Colonel's body awaiting burial, and on the very day of his death Miss Carey proposed to Vera that she should come and stay with her until things were settled; but she could not induce Vera to consent. She thanked Miss Carey very much. but said that it would be dreadful to leave him (meaning the dead body) alone: she would much rather stay. Of

Course Miss Carey could not press her to come against her wish, but after the simple funeral, when the old soldier's body had been laid in Barton churchyard, Vera consented then, with gratitude, to come to Miss Carey. At first, for a week or two, she came as a guest, but when the simple money matters had been settled it was arranged that she should stay on with Miss Carey permanently, contributing some very small sum to the weekly books by way of payment of her board; and we all were very glad to hear that things

had been settled in this way. It seemed in every respect the best possible arrangement, both for Miss Carey and for Vera, who otherwise would have been left very much to herself on the world, and very poorly off financially; for her grandfather at the Castle showed no disposition to offer her a home, though we observed with approval that he had attended the Colonel's funeral, and had sent a wreath from the Castle green-houses to place on his old friend's coffin.

Horace G. Hutchinson.

Horsted Keynes, the name of whose Junction is familiar to those who travel by the Newhaven express, is a charming, well-wooded parish in the centre of the Weald of Sussex. The place itself lies at some little distance from the station, perched astride of one of the high wooded ridges that sweep south from the bare moorland of Ashdown Forest. The whole of the countryside looks as if it had been ploughed by a gigantic plough. Ridge after ridge lie roughly parallel, the ground falling steeply, by sequestered woods and copse-ends, to streams that run swiftly, hidden among hazels and alders. These beautiful valleys, where the sunlight scems caught and held captive on still summer afternoons, are a paradise of wildflowers and birds. They are intersected by many fieldpaths, winding among pastures and woods, where one can walk for hours without meeting a wayfarer. There are two ancient and beautiful manorhouses in the parish. One of these is Broadhurst, the fragment of a larger house, belonging to the Brands of Glynde. This stately building, with •The particulars here given are mostly taken from Vol. i. of the "Sussex Archæolog

its great chimney-stacks, lies remote among low woods, rising over barns and byres, with a chain of old fishponds, where the water murmurs through sluices, among the grass-grown terraces of its ancient garden, and straggling clumps of immemorial yewtrees. Tremans, belonging to the Danehurst estate, lies to the south of the village, with an avenue of old Scotch firs, and an enormous yew hedge shielding it from the road-an almost incredibly picturesque house, with a Georgian front of red brick, many weather-tiled gables and shapely chimneys, crowned with a pretty cupola. The village itself is more modern, but contains some beautiful old stone-tiled Sussex houses. The church is an interesting cruciform building, with a slender spire, but it has unfortunately lost the old chantry of the Lightmaker family, to whom Broadhurst belonged, where the re mains of the great Archbishop Leighton repose, who, after his deprivation, lived long in the secluded manor-house. Hard by the church is the Rectory, with its pretty glebe and lake; and here is preserved the curious document ical Collections" [1853], in which the greater part of the Day-book was printed.

of which we would more particularly speak. It is a long, stout, parchmentbound ledger, in which an old Rector of Horsted Keynes kept, with remarkable fidelity, an account of his expenses, the books and groceries he bought, the offerings he received, the journeys he took. There can be but few volumes in England which give so minute an account of the life of a country parson in the seventeenth century. The book well deserves to be printed entire, for the sake of students of economic history, and as a very full record of the current prices of the time. It is absolutely perfect and legible. The rector must have been a man of wonderful precision, anxious to know to a penny how he stood. Moreover, the book is an interesting commentary on the conditions of social life then prevailing.

The Rev. Giles (or Egidius) Moore was rector of the parish from 1656 to 1680. He says that he had formerly been taken prisoner by Essex's Horse, so that he had either been a soldier, or perhaps a chaplain in the royal army. He was obviously a convinced Royalist, though, like the Vicar of Bray, he subordinated his principles to his livelihood. He was certainly a man of peace, as we see him in his day-book, a considerable student, and interested in agricultural operations. He was admitted, as he says, on February 1, 1656, by the "Commissioners for the approbation of Publique Preachers, sitting at Whitehall." These were the so-called "Triers" appointed, under an Order in Council, by the Protector, in 1653, to supply the vacant livings into which, as the preamble of the Act runs, "many weak, scandalous, Popish, and ill-affected persons had intruded themselves." This Commission is parodied in a curious tract given in Nicholl's Calvinism and Arminianism Compared, in which, under the presidency of Dr. Absolute, the names,

among others, of Mr. Fry-Babe, Mr. Damman, Mr. Narrow Grace, Dr. Dubious, Mr. Know Little, and Mr. Impertinent are set down.

"The parsonage," says Mr. Moore, "was left to mee in so ruinous a state that it cost me £240 before I could make it fit to dwell in. Should I leave a widow behind mee, let him, whoever my successor may bee, deal alike kindly by her as I have done by Mistresse Pell, and shee will have no complainte for the present, nor will hee himselfe bee a loser for the future." He goes on to say that he paid Mrs. Pell, the widow of the late incumbent, all the tithes up to Lady Day, 1656.

He begins the book in a moralizing mood, with some very bad Latin verses, adding: "Wee reckon up our expenses, but not our sins; wee account what wee expend, but not wee offend." And having made this conces sion to religious feeling, he plunges into what was evidently a more congenial task than reflections upon his corrupt heart and fallen nature.

He engaged a maid for £3 a year, and a gardener for £5, and he paid his day-laborers, to get the garden straight, a shilling a day. He adds: "I gave my wife 15 shillings to lay out at St. James faire at Lindfield, all which shee spent except 2s. 6d., which she never returned mee." He made his house comfortable, paying as much as £2 10s. for "a fine large coverlett with birds and bucks." He went to London to shop, and bought cloth for a suit, adding a "Levitical girdle" of silk, and two "worsted canonical girdles.” new hat and band cost him £1 4s.

His

He records that in the same year an assessment was made to raise £60,000 "by the moneth, for the use of his Highnesse the Protector." He paid his share, which was 198., out of the £33 charged on the parish, and then explodes in some treasonous Latin verses: