MAT Drover had only been about three months acting as waiter at the Tilby Hotel, when he wrote the following letter to his uncle, Richard Drover, who still kept the inn at Coyle :

"DEAR UNCLE,---I don't much like my place here-it don't answer like an ostler. I'd rather be one than waiter, though I'm full light of foot, and as active as anyone could wish, but being used to horses all my life long, I cannot get resigned noways to indoor offices. I think if you would come down here to this side of the country you could get on better than at Coyle, which is too near other places where there are coaches passing, and your waggons aint wanted; particularly as the new railroad's just finished, and all going to ruin for coaching. Tilby is delightful in that respect-being one of the outest-ofthe-way places ever was known, and most inconvenient for the carriage of goods and transportation of travellers -only one coach at present to London, and no waggons to speak of: so it would be most profitable for you and Aunt to settle in this locality. There is a nice spot called 'The Halting Place, near Mr. Lipwell's place, (which Aunt, of course, remembers) and it was an inn in former days, but given up of late, and it would do again for an inn, to my mind, uncommonly well. It is to let, or knocked down, if somebody don't soon take it, and so I'd advise you to be quick in making up your mind; a good many rooms, and only wanting repairs, and to let cheap, with grass for cows, if required. Mr. Lipwell's son, Mr. Oliver, has just been killed in a duel, and ever since his death, the old gentleman don't care for anything, so he isn't as hard to deal with as formerly; but I hear his wife's very Eharp, and making new alterations and laws in the place that are not

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liked at all. It's reported through Tilby, that Mr. Oliver was privately married to a young woman named Price, and she was only an upper servant or governess, and ran away with lots of money and stolen goods, and was never more heard of. know it for certain, having heard Mr. Oliver himself say so on his death-bed; but it's a great secret, as Mr. Oliver didn't wish it to be known. Dear Uncle and Aunt, if you come down here I'd mind the horses, as I used, and not be fretting my life out among strangers, who don't care if I was running up and down stairs till the Day of Judgment, and call me lazy afterwards. So I'll be longing for you to come at once. So pray write without further delay to Mr. Lipwell's agent, Thomas Terry, Esq., and conclude when you see the house.

"With love to Margaret and all friends at Coyle, believe me, dear Uncle and Aunt, your attached nephew,

"MATTHEW DROVER."

This epistle was received with a considerable degree of welcome by the couple to whom it was addressed. They were still looking much as they had looked eight years ago, when first introduced to the reader; but as they were not described then, perhaps we had better here say what they were like, as we shall meet both pretty frequently in the course of this narrative.

Drover was a stout-built man, past fifty, with hair only a little grizzled, and a stolid expression of face; the eyes were neither prominent nor sunk, but they looked oftener sideways than straight before them. He was not a man of much learning, even for an innkeeper, his wife managing much of the accounts and other business of the establishment. It has always struck us as curious how such gruff, brutish sort of men ever prevailed

if we did go down there!" she said, on finishing the perusal of the letter; "It might turn out the luckiest thing in the world !"

"Ah, child, those that havn't luck in one place seldom get it in another," said Mrs. Drover, shaking her head. "You and your father may do as you like, and go from Coyle, but it's my belief you won't find yourselves a pennyworth better off at Larch Grove than you are here."

"You are always dismal, Patty," observed Drover, commencing to smoke; "but I've made up my mind that Mat's notion is a good one. I'll

just set about thinking of the Halting Place, and whatever comes of it, you can throw the blame on him and me."

"There will be great satisfaction in that," said Mrs. Drover, ironically. "Well, Richard, if you would take more of my advice than you do, maybe".

But Drover was not going to be preached to: so he took himself out of the house, bringing with him his nephew's letter, which contained much that interested him, though Mat did not dream of the extent of that interest when he wrote it.

THE inn called the Halting Place had long been untenanted. It stood on the roadside, and being now considerably out of repair, it presented a somewhat desolate aspect. Mr. Lipwell had lately been in doubt as to whether he should demolish it altogether, when his agent informed him that a respectable-looking man was in treaty about it. Had Mr. Lipwell known at first who this person was, he might, perhaps, have demurred about letting the house at all; but it was not till he had partly agreed to his terms that he understood him to be Richard Drover, the innkeeper, at Coyle not that Mr. Lipwell ever knew anything against Drover's character; but it was as we have saidhe would rather have let the Halting Place to some one else.

The rent was low; the rooms were pretty numerous, and of good size, and with the aid of fresh paper and paint might be made quite comfortable. But Mr. Lipwell refused to repair any portion of the building; he would let it from year to year without giving a lease of it, and the tenant might paint and paper for himself. Drover, after a slight remonstrance with Mr. Terry, the agent, concluded the agreement, and was put in possession of the inn, removing all his goods and chattels from Coyle, as speedily as possible, and advertising his new establishment in the Tilby Guardian. Mat Drover now gave up his situation as waiter at the Tilby Hotel, and repaired at once to join his uncle's

family at the Halting Place. Drover had only one child living with him, the young woman already introduced to the reader-an elder married daughter, who was known to have been unhappy in her wedded life, was generally supposed to be dead.

The travellers who stopped for more than an hour or two at the inn were not numerous; but it became a halting-place, as in former days, for the Tilby coach on its way to and from London, and horses were changed there, while frequently passengers partook of breakfast or dinner. The waggons which went up to London every week also got considerable employment, and, on the whole, the establishment presented a pretty fair prospect of success.

Owing to its near vicinity to Larch Grove, the Halting Place was a good deal frequented by Mr. Lipwell's servants, and much gossip concerning all that was done at the Grove, whiled away many an evening hour at the inn. One night the conversation turned upon Mr. Oliver Lipwell's death, and on the rumour that he was actually married to a young woman of inferior position, which, somehow, began to gain ground in the vicinity.

"They say she'll surely turn up some of these days to claim her rights, said the Larch Grove butler. "People declare she was seen abroad lately."

"I believe she wouldn't gain much by coming back," observed Drover, supplying his guest with a frothing

Ay, or in both, maybe," said Mrs. Drover, in an irritated tone.

"No, but it's more likely what I heard last night," said Jack Plummet, the blacksmith.

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What was that, Jack?" demanded Drover with interest.

"That the two ghosts of Mr. Oliver and herself have been seen going, arm-in-arm, round the ponds at the Grove at midnight ever since Mr. Oliver was killed."

"Phew!" exclaimed the butler, sceptically. "If the game-keeper catches them ghosts, he'll soon make short work of them! There's an awful lot of poaching going on of late. I hear them say the pheasants are going off like shot; and the trout even are caught away out of the pools as if it was enchantment. Master Hopton is down with us now at the Grove, and he's mad for fishing. I think he wouldn't mind sitting up at night to catch the poaching chaps, himself."

"Ay, but these ghosts are no poachers," continued the blacksmith; they were seen plain, going to and fro; and she had her hand pressed on her throat this a-way," said the man, clasping his great dark neck with his black fingers.

The conversation was now interrupted by Mrs. Drover overturning a large saucepan on the fire, which caused a general scattering of the company sitting round it; but as soon as they were again seated, the butler once more resumed the subject of the Governess and Mr. Oliver Lipwell.

Do you know, it was said that Miss Price, or Mrs. Oliver, or whatever we are to call her, never went from England at all," he said. "They say David Wynne knows more about her than he chooses to say.

"That may be," observed Mrs. Drover-"Wynne is a very close man, and he and Mr. Lipwell were always as thick as thieves."

There's different times at the Grove, now, to what there used to be when Wynne was hired there," said the butler somewhat bitterly. "I believe he ruled the house entirely, and every servant had to curry favour with him, and bribe him, or they couldn't have kept their places an hour. I've heard that, great a man as he looks, Wynne would sell his soul for money, if it came to that."

DAVID WYNNE had completed his morning round of inspection and fault-finding, and was leisurely smoking a pipe while he awaited the arrival of the officers of the board, who were to meet that day, when, at about eleven o'clock or so, he was informed that a man named Richard Drover wished to speak with him.

"Send him here, then," said Wynne, who happened to be sitting on an inverted barrel, in his own yard, perfectly at his ease.

Drover soon made his appearance, and he and Wynne shook hands with a semblance of cordiality, though neither looked the other straight in the face.

"Hope you're well, Mr. Wynne," said Drover, smilingly, and with a little obsequiousness.

"Oh, uncommonly well," replied David. "How are you all down your side of the country? Getting on well I hope?"

"Pretty well, thank you--we can't complain much. Considering the lonely situation of the Halting Place, we're doing a pretty smart business; but I think the rent too high-far too high; and Mr. Lipwell should repair the place, and"

"Mr. Lipwell don't care a trump for having the place let, Drover, returned Wynne, impatiently. "You may give it up to-morrow, and he'll only be delighted, and Mr. Terry, too; so never fret about it being on your hands you can soon get rid of it if wish.' you

Ay, but not without expense, Mr. Wynne," said Drover, flashing his eyes at the paving-stones of the yard, and its walls-everywhere, but in the direction of the man whom he was talking to, and angry with. "It's not easy for a man to move his family and his furniture, and horses, thirty miles backwards and forwards, without feeling his purse the lighter for

it.

Give up the Halting Place, indeed! No, I believe we'll stay in it, high rent and all, rather than move again."

So I thought," said Wynne,

quietly.

For some time Drover did not

mention the reason for which he had come that day to Tilby; but at length, after discussing a great many irrelevant matters, he entered upon the subject of which he had been thinking all the while.

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'You'll be surprised, Mr. Wynne," he said at last, "to hear that I have a relative living here since she was an infant. Goodness knows it's with grief I say it."

"Which is that?" asked Wynne, utterly unmoved by the intelligence."

"A grandchild," said Drover, covering his face for an instant with his large hands.

Finding, however, that Wynne was not in the least surprised or excited, he went on more coolly.

So

"This child, I believe, has gone by the name of Flaggs since she came to the Almshouse, and God knows she may keep it for all she deserves to bear her unlucky father's name. let it be Flaggs all along; I'll not quarrel with it, nor try to change it. But you see, Mr. Wynne, I think it my duty to relieve the Almshouse of her now when I am able to keep her under my own roof. It is only latterly I heard of her at all. You have heard me speak of my poor daughter Mary that married unknown to me? -Well, she's her child!"

"Humph," said Wynne; "and what's to be done with her now?"

"She's to come home to me to her grandfather and grandmother." "And why didn't she go to you long ago."

Because we knew nothing at all about her. Poor Mary is only dead a short time, and on her death-bed she wrote to me to say how she had left this child some years ago at the Tilby Almshouse, and begging me and her mother to look after it as it advanced in years; so I'm come now to say I'm willing to take her home with me to do what I can for her."

"Well that's a good thing for her, no doubt," said Wynne, looking pretty sharply at Drover. "Mr. Lipwell was speaking the other day of getting her apprenticed to a dressmaker, or taking her over to the Grove to teach her how to wait upon the young