not. If there is one who as a right claims your confidence, suspend it but a few short hours, till my singular tale is told. Till to-morrow's dusk be silent, and be secret. Chasten your heart from love of pomp and pride; for I can give, and I can take away-can enrich your heart, and beggar your hand."

One lingering look he cast upon his astonished companion, as, drawing his cowl closer round his head, he was lost to her amongst the crowd which accompanied the coming procession.

CHAPTER XXIV.

WHILST Matilda slowly left the church, and indeed, during the whole of her drive homewards, she in vain endeavoured to form some probable conjecture, as to the character of the strange being with whom she seemed so unaccountably connected, or as to the nature of the communication he had promised. Sometimes she half persuaded herself that it was a maniac, who, availing himself of some accidental acquaintance with the name of herself and family, owed the rest to his own disordered imagination. But, on the other hand, the singular reserve which

it has been remarked always appeared on the part of her uncle, as to any inquiry respecting the incidents of her early life, had always struck even her unsuspicious mind as extraordinary, and had served to keep alive a conviction, that there was some family secret which had been concealed from her. She therefore determined to comply with the request of the mysterious monk for another interview; and she was still revolving in her mind the best means of effecting it at the hour he had mentioned, and without suspicion; when, upon her return home, her thoughts were diverted into another channel by the communication, on the part of mam'selle Felicie, of another equally unexpected event.

"Oh, Miladi! of all the world, who think you shall be arrived?"—" Who, Felicie; Madame Hilas, with my gown? Have I kept her waiting.?"

"Oh, no, Miladi!-of all the world, the guard of the chase, at Delaval."

"Who, pray?"

"The-Bah!-the what's-you-call gamekeeper, Monsieur Boulby."

Strange as it may seem, Felicie's intelligence was literally true. Old Dick Boulby, seeing, in despair, that from the progress rapidly making in the new rail-road, the utter destruction of Delaval Park was inevitable, unless prevented by higher authority than any he had it in his power to exert, and his own snug lodge, in which he had been born, falling one

of the first sacrifices to the new improvement, had formed the resolution of finding out his master and mistress, wherever they might be; though he had never in his life been further from Delaval Park than to the neighbouring quarter-sessions, to assist at the prosecution of a poacher. Yet, in execution of his plan, he proceeded, per coach, to London, and hearing there that Sir James was at Rome, he availed himself of the facilities for the furtherance of loco-motive propensities, provided in Piccadilly; where, with a single stroke of the pen, a traveller is booked indifferently for Naples or for Knightsbridge.

Once started, he was faithfully handed from courier to courier, like a bale of goods; and he now stood before Sir James, even as he had left Delaval Park-a figure more strange to Roman eyes than any the carnival had produced-in green plush jacket, red waistcoat, and corduroys: the only change his dress had undergone consisting in his cumbrous white beaver having been exchanged for a light jean travelling-cap, at the instance of his companion, the courier, whose nose the former had sorely incommoded during his uneasy slumbers.

We may pass over the first astonishment of Sir James at this unexpected arrival; and also his insinuation, that the old fool must have been mad, to presume to trouble him at such a distance, on such a subject. At last, however, provoked at the pertina

city with which Dick Boulby argued upon the profaneness of destroying "our" old place, his master desired him, somewhat sharply, to hold his tongue.

"Haud my tongue!-Like enough I've comed all this way to haud my tongue!-Haud my tongue!— Like enough I've sit ten days, cheek by jowl with a Mounseer, mumchance, just thinking about nothing but how I'd tell you a bit of my mind, to haud my tongue at the end on't!-Lord! Lord! I thought no good would come of your taking my Lady out of old England. But even in these here outlandish parts, I've never seed any thing like that piece of work you're making in our park."

"Come, Sir," said Sir James, "if you are to be allowed to remain in my service (which is a favour you don't deserve) you must learn to treat your master with more respect."

"Remain in your service! How can I remain ? -when you wo'nna keep your park, how can I be your park-keeper?-How can I be your game-keeper, when all't'game you'll have left will be black game, in shape of coal-carts?-After opening lodgegate, man and boy, these sixty years to my Lord's friends, do you think as I will take money at your toll-house?-Lord! Lord! to think how things have turned out! Ah!" added he, with a kind of despairing head-shake, "if my Lady had but married Lord Ormsby (as we all hoped,) this would never have happened."

Lord Ormsby," said Sir James, hastily; "what's that you say about Lord Ormsby?"

"Why, if you mun have the truth, when she were to ha' married Lord Ormsby (then the Honourable Augustus Arlingford,) there was'na two opinions in all the country side; auld and young were ready to shower blessings on their handsome heads. But when you comed, and we were all told you had plenty of pelf in your pocket, tho' we never seed ony of it, we shook our heads, and partly mistrusted how it would be."

"Do you mean," said Sir James, "that you insolent bumpkins presumed ever to suppose that Lord Ormsby was ever going to marry Lady Matilda?”

"Presumed to suppose?-I loike that. Why, be that news to you? Why, I thought every fool knowed that."

The violence of the various emotions which this unexpected communication excited in Sir James, was too powerful for utterance, and he turned in silence away for a moment; when at the same instant, Matilda entered, and not observing the Baronet, kindly welcomed the early friend of her childhood; and the pleasure he derived from the sight of his hereditary mistress, in a moment restored the somewhat ruffled serenity of the ancient dependant.

"You must be very much fatigued with such a tremendous journey," kindly inquired Lady Matilda.