expedition after their lawn-tennis was at last ended,-later in the day! -all in their light summer dresses, Frank even in shirt-sleeves, &c." But meanwhile the young people were already beginning to lead the way to the river; "Never mind, Thomas," interrupted his father, indulgently, "we have provided rolls and rolls of wraps to-day-" "My great-coat-" began his degenerate heir, looking back towards the house. "I have got it," said his wife gently, "and Ponder has our whole bundle of wraps in charge.—I want you to introduce me to Mr. Erle, I was in the gardens with the children when you all came," she added, half apologetically, as the introduction was effected, and they met as old friends, though this was the first time, really, that either had seen the other. "And I want to be introduced to the children,-have we time now?" asked Mr. Erle, "will they be gone to bed when we come back? first children are precious possessions." "And first grandchildren still more so! Come along, Erle, come, Agneta, leave your husband to wriggle into his great-coat by himself, —my dear fellow, you'll be stewed alive in it, though-come and show us the babies yourself-the old people can be waited for, for once in a way." "One moment,—I will catch you up," and the two elder men sauntered backward to the gardens, Sir Charles saying, "If that fellow hasn't had the wit to find the sweetest dearest woman going for a wife, I don't know who has! and as for these wonderful grandchildren-Master Charles is a good bouncing Wollaston, with no look of a poor puny little foreign-born child about him, is there?" as he took up the little fellow of eighteen months toddling beside his little sister's perambulator. Dorothy, though a good twelvemonth younger, began to crow, and kick her little feet with impatient joy at sight of her returning mother; and then, alas, had to be soothed at her departure: altogether, by the time this set of elders reached the river. side, the young people impatient of the long delay, had already arranged themselves in the larger boat, and were singing glees. They made a pretty group, with the mistress of the Great House, and Mrs. Denny, amongst them, to give the contrast of ripe middle-age to all their youth. “We must have some of you young people here," said Sir Charles, "I'm not too old to row, nor Erle either, I suppose, though Thomas is—” "I will come," said Kathleen, the old Squire's goddaughter, to whom she always bore a pretty special fealty; and he a tender, fatherly part. "And you, Charlie," to his second son, "there now we have some reserve force; shall you and I take oars, Erle, and shame those languid young fellows by showing what true Christ-Church men we still are ?" "Not I to-day," Mr. Erle then felt constrained to say, "I must ask Kathleen to show what a Christ-Church man's daughter can do in my stead,—Friedes wide though ought to be the one to do honour to our Alma Mater,' and show us the strength of peace."" "Friedes wide is better engaged," answered Sir Charles, kindlily, "that old shrine of S. Frides wide!-I don't think you've spelt your girl's name rightly after all,-that, in its prime, never lacked worshippers in old days, I suppose,-nor, it strikes me, will the shrine of this young namesake.” "She is very pretty-piquante," said Lady Agneta, as if correcting herself with the truer word. .. 'Yes, never knew a man with ten such good-looking sons and daughters as you have, Erle! Now, Margaret is but a pale-faced little maid, and Charlie but an ugly lad,-whilst" but here he interrupted himself to give a helping hand to Kathleen. It was a pleasant day, even to the old men; that need hardly be said,-but also to "Sir Thomas," as his young half-brothers always now persisted in calling him; a sweet English June day; and the elders, at least, were all landed within half a mile of home, before the evening dews and mist began to fall or rise, not too tired to think such a stretching of their limbs,-even further enjoyment of that lovely evening, a very pleasant ending to the afternoon of pleasure. : : Sir Charles had put Kathleen's arm through his not only that she was his goddaughter, but that her gentle ways were always very pleasing to him. For his own part he had rather Francis had chosen Kitty than Freda; but he was too wise to say so, or to expect any one of his children to marry to please him rather than him or herself and he was glad Francis showed signs, after a dozen slight various flirtations since he and Freda had alike grown too old for a continuance of their childhood's especial brother and sister-like affection, of falling seriously in love at all; particularly with one whose antecedents they all knew so well, and who came of such a duty-loving stock, as the old Erles of Brayscombe. "Does a man no good to be jack-of-all-trades, as master Julius is,” thought the old father, "I don't know but that Arthur Erle set him a bad example at 'New' there. Playing, painting, palavering on art and science, religion and morality,—all left in my young days to those who had to earn their bread thereby, and better and safer far when 'twas so ! Poor Arthur's been and gone and done for himself anyhow! and I never did like the promiscuous men and women,-pshaw, boy and girl-students in that school of art Julius must needs go to,-all sexes and all ranks, 'promiscuous,' as he himself would call it,might as well be in America at once. Well, Kitty," (aloud,) "we have not made you sing yourself hoarse, I hope; and after all you had only brought your guitar." Oh, I am so fond of my violin." "We didn't expect a water-party to be honoured with your Stradivarius." "Have you a Stradivarius ?" asked Lady Agneta, with a full appreciation of the honour, and bliss, of such a possession that made Kathleen's ordinarily quiet heart warm towards her. "Oh, yes, papa gave it to me on my last birthday! oh, I love it so! Happily, so happily, our grandfather, not caring a bit for music himself, somehow did not sell it when our great-grandfather-the Hereford organist-died some hundred years ago,-oh, so many precious things were sold then,-a harpsichord that Handel had once played, a―" Sir Charles watched her glowing cheeks with fond amusement, "a spinet of the time of Queen Anne,-and music I would give anything to possess now, but oh, father, how do you think my Stradivarius did escape that dreadful sale! we have the old catalogue now, and the harpsichord went for—” "Don't cry, Kitty! probably it would have been used as firewood before now, if it ever had come to Brayscombe! for my mother was a most unmusical woman, and my father always looked shyly on the musical connection of which I have lived long enough to see a daughter grow so proud." "We saw the Emperor's precious Stradivariuses at Moscow," said Lady Agneta," and was not the Duke of Edinburgh I mean-playing on one at that private concert at the Winter Palace ?" "Don't make poor Thomas speak, Aggie,-unless you can first provide him with a respirator," said her father-in-law with a laugh, seeing his son walking handkerchief to mouth, "but how is it your Stradivarius has survived all its dangerous surroundings at the Rectory? Ah, Erle! I see your eyes twinkle! is it a Stradivarius at all ?" "Oh, yes, indeed it is !" cried Kitty, "he couldn't deceive me if he had tried, but I know he wouldn't. Oh, you didn't, did you ?" she you?" cried pathetically, in sudden inconsistent terror. "No, dear Kitty, I would not-and did not. No, I will tell you how it was saved. Old Andrew's grandfather was just then first violinist in Brayscombe church—and his instrument had got burnt in the fire that swept down all the then thatched 'old Row' one summer's night a hundred years ago;-do you just remember the successors being burnt down, also by a spark from the old forge, in our childhood, Charles? and our respective nurses standing to gossip over the still smouldering ruins, and frightening us with tales of the earlier fire, and all manner of close and horrible escapes from both calamities? I do! and I remember, as distinctly as if it were yesterday, Nurse Woodward saying, 'And there was, lucky for Tandy Shadby, after that first fire, an old fiddle a-lying up in the rectory lumber-room as had got overlooked at old Mr. Burridge's sale,-and that's not gone with his poor old clock and cat, because he's always kept that one in the old chest next the door, Mr. George;' and I should think, the very · year, old Tandy' must have died and left that old fiddle to me, because I used to love to slip out to hear the old man play on it anywhere-stables, cottage, church, or 'kiddlie-wink,'-I'm afraid it was all the same to me, Kitty.—The wonder is that it was not destroyed when left to me not only as mere rubbish, but because a taste for music in boy or man, was, in those days, considered to lead to almost everything evil under the sun. I think Nurse Woodward had the wit to put it straight away out of sight and mind in the lumber attic, whence it had been routed fifty years before; and let me go up and 'try to play like old Tandy on it,' only on Hereford Magistrates' day when my parents were safe out of hearing." next "Ah, with little Kathleen's advantages, you'd have rivalled her powers." "Outdone them again and again!” cried Kathleen, "been a second Joachim or Piatti, I've no doubt. Oh, how cruel that age was in stifling natural aspirations." "You young Rectory people have not suffered from your father having himself been brought up in its repressive-" "Oh, no! he has been so good to us! we are so grateful to him!" said Kathleen, fervently: her father and Sir Thomas and his wife had slackened their pace, and the old man and young girl were walking fast ahead, "I am afraid I could never have forgiven my parents such irreparable injury had I been he! one cannot learn music too early-one cannot take it up with any hope of real success even in early middle life." "My dear Kitty! may I tell you that there are better things perhaps in the world than even Music and the Fine Arts generally, and perhaps a healthier moral atmosphere in which to grow up than even the kindly fostering forbearing one that has been your own blest lot:” he was so much in earnest, if very kind and courteous earnest, that Kathleen's sweet blue eyes were fixed on him with much of the receptive, angelic look of her own childhood: "one of which' Duty' is the watchword and such was the home in which your father and uncle and aunts had the blessedness of being reared; it mightn't be musical, or very tender, or very expansive, but I'd back one of the old Erles of Brayscombe' to think of duty before love or ease,` or any fear of moral or physical consequences resulting from their acts,—against any race, I know.' Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra.'—That ought to have been the motto of the house as I first knew it fifty years since; but, if not in words, it was in deeds." : "Oh, and I hope that it is still!" said Kathleen, catching the old man's fire, and for the time seeing with his eyes. "I hope so too, my dear,—and am very far from saying that it is not. Only I think I don't like it'—'I don't wish' to go there, or to do this or that,—are phrases dangerously often on all young people's lips now-a-days, and spoken and given in all innocence and unconsciousness of their really hideous and unchristian selfishness, as quite sufficient and irresistible reasons for shirking all the rougher paths of daily life. In great emergencies-" 'Oh, I think we still come out well," said Kathleen; “think of Arthur and your own son, sir, in the floods two years ago." 'Risking their lives for that poor sow floating down the Avon with her litter!-yes," and the father smiled, well pleased if still amused, "and there was no romance about that proceeding! it was not a mother and babe, nor even a dog and puppy! I'm afraid poor Frank was a long time in hearing the last of that pons porcorum !” "It was a great shame! they were fellow-creatures; and Arthur caught a dreadful cold beside the old creature biting Frank-as we |