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Jack the Giant-Killer.

CHAPTER IV.

JACK GOES TO SLEEP IN THE WOOD.

EATHERSTON VICARAGE was

a quaint, dreary, silent old baked block of bricks and stucco, standing on one of those low Lincolnshire hillocks-I do not know the name for them. They are not hills, but mounds; they have no shape or individuality, but they roll in on every side; they enclose the horizon; they stop the currents of fresh air; they give no feature to the foreground. There was no reason why the vicarage should have been built upon this one, more than upon any other, of the monotonous waves of the dry ocean of land which spreads and spreads about Featherston, unchanging in its monotonous line. To look from

the upper windows of the vicarage is like looking out at sea, with nothing but the horizon to watch-a dull sand and dust horizon, with monotonous waves and lines that do not even change or blend like the waves of the sea.

Anne was delighted with the place when she first came. Of course it was not to compare with Sandsca for pleasantness and freshness, but the society was infinitely better. Not all the lodging-houses at Sandsea could supply such an eligible circle of acquaintances as that which came driving up day after day to the vicarage door. The carriages, after depositing their owners, would go champing up the road to the little tavern of "The Five Horseshoes," at the entrance of the village, in search of hay and beer for the horses and men. Anne in one afternoon entertained two honourables, a countess, and two Lady Louisas. The countess was Lady Kidderminster and one of the Lady Louisas was her daughter. The other was a nice old maid, a cousin of Mrs. Myles, and she told Mrs. Trevithic something more of poor Mary Myles' married life than Anne had ever known before.

"It is very distressing," said Anne, with a lady-like volubility, as she walked across the lawn with her guest to the carriage, "when married people do not get on comfortably together. Depend upon it, there are generally faults on both sides. I daresay it is very uncharitable of me, but I generally think the woman is to blame when things go wrong," said Anne, with a little conscious smirk. "Of course we must be content to Sandsea was far pleasanter than

give up some things when we marry. this as a residence; but where my husband's interests were concerned, Lady Louisa, I did not hesitate. I hope to get this into some order in time, as soon as I can persuade Mr. Trevithic."

"You were quite right, quite right," said Lady Louisa, looking round approvingly at the grass-grown walks and straggling hedges. "Although Mary is my own cousin, I always felt that she did not understand poor Tom. Of course he had his little fidgety ways, like the rest of us."

(Mary had never described her husband's little fidgety ways to anybody at much length, and if brandy and blows and oaths were among them, these trifles were forgotten now that Tom was respectably interred in the family vault and beyond reproaches.)

Lady Louisa went away favourably impressed by young Mrs. Trevithic's good sense and high-mindedness. Anne, too, was very much pleased with her afternoon. She went and took a complacent turn in her garden after the old lady's departure. She hardly knew where the little paths led to as yet, nor the look of the fruit-walls and of the twigs against the sky, as people do who have well paced their garden-walks in rain, wind, and sunshine, in spirits and disquiet, at odd times and sad times and happy ones. It was all new to Mrs. Trevithic, and she glanced about as she went, planning a rose-tree here, a creeper there, a clearance among the laurels. "I must let in a peep of the church through that elm-clump, and plant some fuchsias along that bank," she thought. (Anne was fond of fuchsias.) And John must give me a hen-house. The cook can attend to it. The place looks melancholy and neglected without any animals about; we must certainly buy a pig. What a very delightful person Lady Kidderminster is; she asked me what sort of carriage we meant to keep—I should think with economy we might manage a pair. I shall get John to leave everything of that sort to me. I shall give him so much for his pocket-money and charities, and do the very best I can with the rest. And Anne sincerely meant it when she made this determination, and walked along better pleased than ever, feeling that with her hand to pilot it along the tortuous way their ship could not run aground, but would come straight and swift into the haven of country society, for which they were making, drawn by a couple of prancing horses, and a riding horse possibly for John. And seeing her husband coming through the gate and crossing the sloping lawn, Anne hurried to meet him with glowing pink checks and tips to her eyelids and nose, eager to tell him her schemes and adventures.

Trevithic himself had come home tired and dispirited, and he could

scarcely listen to his wife's chirrups with very great sympathy or encouragement.

"Lady Kidderminster wishes us to set up a carriage and a pair of horses!" Poor Trevithic cried out aghast, "Why, my dear Anne, you must be must be . . . . What do you imagine our income to be?"

"I know very well what it is," Anne said with a nod; "better than you do, sir. With care and economy a very great deal is to be done. Leave everything to me and don't trouble your foolish old head."

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"One

'But, my dear, you must listen for one minute," Trevithic said. thousand a year is not limitless. There are calls and drains upon our incomings

"That is exactly what I wanted to speak to you about, John," said his wife, gravely. "For one thing, I have been thinking that your mother has a very comfortable income of her own," Anne said, "and I am sure she would gladly . . .

"I have no doubt she would," Trevithic interrupted, looking full in his wife's face, "and that is the reason that I desire that the subject may never be alluded to again, either to her or to me. He looked so decided and stern, and his grey cagle eyes opened wide in a way his wife knew that meant no denial. Vexed as she was, she could not help a momentary womanly feeling of admiration for the undaunted and decided rule of the governor of this small kingdom in which she was vicegerent; she felt a certain pride in her husband, not in what was best in his temper and heart, but in the outward signs that any one might read. His good looks, his manly bearing, his determination before which she had to give way again and again, impressed her oddly: she followed him with her eyes as he walked away into the house, and went on with her calculations as she still paced the gravel path, determining to come back secretly to the ⚫ charge, as was her way, from another direction, and failing again, only to ponder upon a fresh attack.

And meanwhile Anne was tolerably happy trimming her rose-trees, and arranging and rearranging the furniture, visiting at the big houses, and corresponding with her friends, and playing on the piano, and, with her baby, in time, when it came to live with them in the vicarage. Trevithic was tolerably miserable, fuming and consuming his days in a restless, impatient search for the treasures which did not exist in the arid fields and lanes round about the vicarage. He certainly discovered a few wellto-do farmers riding about their enclosures on their rough horses, and responding with surly nods to his good-humoured advances; a few old women selling lollipops in their tidy front kitchens, shining pots and pans, starch caps, the very pictures of respectability; little tidy children trotting to school along the lanes, hand in hand, with all the strings on their pinafores, and hard-working mothers scrubbing their parlours, or hanging out their linen to dry. The cottages were few and far between, for the farmers farmed immense territories; the labourers were out in the fields at sunrise, and toiled all day, and staggered home worn-out and stupefied at night;