And now the good old couple were sleeping tranquilly, he trusted; without a pang for the deep mortifications which it was his brother's pleasure to inflict upon him. It needed, perhaps, every inducement to patience which he could bring together, to strengthen him in his resolution to bear and forbear; for he finished watering his flowers hurriedly, and then, passing through a door in the wall, after washing his hands at the pump in the angle of the building, he went round the back of the house, to a broad terrace on the brow of the hill, of which from a boy he had been fond, and which had lately become a more favourite walk with him, than ever.

This long avenue, planted on each side with elms, had once been an approach to the house, but it was now disused and grass-grown. He had often, in former times, come home that way from Maydwell Place. A very shady track, still serviceable for carts, wound down

the hill and through the valley; but Lewis did

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not descend. He kept high up on the brow, and walked backwards and forwards under the tall trees, with the wind sighing through their branches. It was very seldom, so near the sea, and in that elevated situation, that, even in the summer evenings, they remained perfectly still.

Below, in the valley, full in sight, was the old mansion among the woods, where so many pleasant hours of his past life had been spent, but, which, now, there seemed little chance of his re-entering. The clear hue of the northern sky showed plainly the outline of the hills, which, rising high immediately behind the house, fell away on either side, letting in vistas of the blue distance. Lewis knew well every field-footpath, every grassy hollow of the downs. The castellated peaks of the hills, more than one of which had been a fortified camp, were as familiar to him as the trees above his head; but he did not watch the sunlight departing from the heights, the shadows

deepening in the hollows. His eyes were fixed on one spot, the gravelled terrace-walk in front of the windows of Maydwell Place,—and, even of this, his observation was limited to the small space occupied by two figures hardly distinguishable, — tiny dark specks moving slowly along it, from end to end.

He seemed to find some mysterious satisfaction in regulating his pace by theirs, turning when they retraced their steps, and following them with his eyes. Nothing else was stirring in the landscape. The cattle were lying down, or driven home from the meadows. The sheep at the bottom of the hill were quiet in their fold. Only the ever-restless boughs of the elm-trees, himself, and those dark spots on the terrace, were still in motion.

Gradually the shadows of evening stole on. The sharp outline of the hills seemed to grow more defined, but all intermediate objects became indistinct. It would have been impossible for the keenest vision to detect whether

VOL. I.

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any one was still walking on the terrace at Maydwell. Most likely it was deserted; for a chill mist was rising up from the brook and the lowlands, and creeping on among the trees; and lights were twinkling from the windows of the lower story of the mansion.

Lewis Pemberton walked up and down for more than an hour longer. His impatience seemed quieted by the serene aspect of the hills of the evening sky-perhaps, most of all, by the starry sparks, which, as every other object became fainter, gleamed more strongly forth, among the thick plantations. It was not the first evening that he had waited and watched for those glancing lights. He seemed scarcely able now to go to his task-work, without pacing the elm-tree walk in the dusk, and perhaps drawing inspiration from them.

He wrote page after page with marvellous rapidity, when he got back to his own room. All his ireful passions were now subdued. He was able to give himself entirely to the subject

which claimed his attention, and the literary labours through which he looked forward to freeing himself from what was fast becoming the intolerable burden of his brother's grudging hospitality. Lewis resolved to bear with him. as long as possible, and earnestly desired to part in amity; but a time, he foresaw, was coming, struggle as he might and would, when he feared that the heart of flesh within him would yield to the temptation which was daily and hourly recurring, and prompt him to give back scorn for scorn.

Truly, as the wise man says, the first angry word is like the letting forth of water. The flood grows and gathers, till none may stay its course; and, of all bitterness, that which accumulates in the hearts of near kindred, where love sitteth not by the hearth, is most intense. Brother cannot part with brother, and say, "It is all over between us! Henceforth, let us take no thought for each other." A sort of family compact binds, and, at the