fusion, where the half of half a dozen things seemed to be tacked on to the half of half a dozen other things, and nothing to have an existence all its own.

XIX.

AUSTIN IS LATE FOR BREAKFAST.

WHEN Austin awoke next morning he experienced that curious feeling which generally comes over anyone who has undergone some great excitement, or been a witness of some startling or impressive incident the last thing before going to bed. It is a strange phase of the law of reaction. At the instant the thing appears the mind's perceptions are peculiarly vivid, and what it sees is invested with exaggerated proportions and coloured with an exaggerated hue. The brain, which has been ruling as king over loyal and peaceable subjects, suddenly becomes the victim of a general insurrection; all the many peoples of his kingdomthoughts, conceptions, ideas, fancies, memories-seem, by common consent, to break loose from every restraint, and to rush, a disorganised and undisciplined band, wildly and riotously about, urged by the unconscionable influence of Appearance upon the senses. The tumult The tumult rages uncontrolled and uncontrollable. Then comes sleep, and with it visions of the night, in which, probably, the disturbances are repeated, and probably with greater violence, and with much that is grotesque and fantastic. The mind has been in the twinkling of an eye, without warning, translated into a world of intensest action and wildest excitement, and beyond it into another world, where all is weltering chaos; but the sleeper awakes, and behold, what a transformation! both worlds have vanished so completely that he sees them now at a distance as infinite as the stars, and remembers them as places where for a time he lived a strange and restless existence. All is unbroken calm; the mind's energies lie exhausted and benumbed, hardly capable of calling up the past scenes; the subjects have returned to their allegiance, and the brain is once more king over a loyal and dutiful people, whose late rebellion can scarcely be believed, for they have lapsed now into the extreme of indolence and inaction. So intense often is the change from the excess of tumult to the excess of quiet, that the sleeper as he wakes can scarcely satisfy himself that the actual events were not as much dreams as the real dreams themselves.

Much of this was Austin's feeling with regard to the incident of the night before. Had he actually seen what he had seen, or was the whole business an illusion, equally with the dreams which followed? Had he really turned down that passage and heard strange sounds and witnessed a strange sight, instead of going straight from his brother's room to his own? It was difficult to believe that it was not identical with the fantasies which had

troubled his slumbers. As he thought about the matter, the more curious did it seem to him that such a thing should have occurred in such a place. He had made up his mind, when he and Tom determined upon making a visit to the home of the Treebies, to find some rather odd people, living probably in a somewhat peculiar manner, judging from the remarkable specimen of the family which had come under his notice; but a small cottage surrounded by a few trees, standing at the end of a village, and with other houses in its immediate neighbourhood, was not exactly the place where you might have anticipated a midnight adventure of so marvellous and almost weird a character. Had it been some ancient ivygrown castle, of nearly unexplorable size, buried in deep woods, and remote from the haunts of men, that he had come to; some "lonely moated grange," with its thousand ghostly traditions of the past, and replete with the mysterious legends of a superstitious peasantry, it would have been a very different matter; he would then have felt no astonishment had he been kept awake half the night by noises the most unearthly; and as to people creeping about the passages, he would simply have concluded that those unhappy personages who, from some acts of a questionable character, "done in their days of nature," had been honoured with the tradition of haunting the place for the last score of centuries, were at that moment relieving the restlessness of their spirits in the customary

manner.

"Talk of love in a cottage," he muttered, "this, at any rate, is romance in a cottage."

Whose was that face he had seen through the glass door? Had he been called upon to swear to it, he could not have done so. He had barely caught a glimpse of it; it was only the profile he had seen, and that had been greatly concealed by masses of hair falling on to the shoulders, so that its identity (supposing he could have recognised it) had been nearly destroyed. And then, too, the rest of the person's body had disappeared down the stair, which made the problem still more difficult of solution. But putting aside conjecture as to who the people were, and what they were about at that time of night, the practical question arose, how was he to act in regard to this affair? Should he mention it at breakfast as an interesting adventure which he had had in the night, and rally the family on their house being haunted? or should he say nothing about it? He decided at once against the first of these courses, for, coupling other things which he had observed with his night's adventure, he had a lurking feeling that the mention of it would give pain to some people. Considered in every way, he thought the most philosophical course would be not to breathe a word of it to any one, not even to Tom. But, nevertheless, he did not feel so satisfied with the household as a whole, as he had done on the previous night, after bidding Tom good night. There was something mysterious in the atmosphere of the

place, and he would like to have the mystery cleared up; he would like to see his way quite plainly before he made himself too much at home with anybody. He thought that it would be a good plan, when he had been some days in the house, and had come to be on a more intimate footing, to hint the matter delicately either to Kate or to Mrs. Treeby, and see what light they had to throw on it. Until then he believed it might be advisable to put a certain restraint upon himself in his intercourse with the family; nay, to be occasionally even a little cold in his manner, and to observe closely every one around him. He was determined especially to keep his eye upon Tom and Emily. I fear that Kate's image was not now so all-absorbing; I fear that since Austin had wandered from his own bedroom door down that narrow winding passage to the right, a vulgar feeling of wonder and curiosity had been the predominating influence in his mind, driving off for a season the pretty charmer of the winning ways and pleasant singing. Doubtless he had thought to sleep with the image in his heart isolated in its divinity from all meaner shapes, and held aloof from the encroachments of every fancy less exalted, and that the sacred form would visit him in dreams, and act again those parts which had so moved him when awake. It must have been something of a disappointment to him that his hopes had been so poorly realised; no lover, particularly no lover of a few hours old, likes to have a cloud interpose itself between him and his dawning fancy.

Austin's cogitations at this time were interrupted by Charles first knocking at his door and then thrusting his head in to say that Mrs. Treeby wished to know whether Mr. Reefer would like a cup of tea before he got up. Mr. Reefer, in reply, begged to decline, with many thanks, but looked at his watch, jumped out of bed, and set about dressing himself. As he stood brushing his hair before the looking-glass in front of the window he could see some distance along the Ferneyhurst-road, up which he and his brother had driven the night before. Marshward lay close by, with its cottages straggling hither and thither in various directions, and its little square church-steeple rising out of a clump of naked boughs some quarter of a mile distant. There had been rain in the night, and the roads were swimming in the slush of the fastmelting snow; while the sun, which had risen on a cloudless morning, was helping on the work, and sending streams of water over the cottage eaves. The village was all awake, and setting about its wonted employments. He could see a woman at a cottage-door in the foreground sweeping the slush from the doorstep, and ever and anon making a furious dart with her broom at a half-starved cur which persisted in sniffing round a pot of something savoury which stood cooling on the window-ledge; he could see another woman in a garden close by scolding at her husband, who was digging up potatoes, and who seemed to take

the vixen's railing quite as a matter of course; he could see a milkman coming down the road with his pails, and a grocer's trap driving away towards Ferneyhurst. The milkman was stopped by a slatternly looking woman running down her garden, shouting, with a broken jug in her hand, which the milkman filled; the grocer gave his nag a sharp cut across the withers, and waved his hand to a man in knickerbockers; further along the road he could see a drover trying to keep five pigs from making a counter-march to Ferneyhurst; and about a hundred yards further still he could descry a burly figure in a long black coat, swinging open the gate of a shrubbery. "The vicar himself, no doubt," thought Austin, as the figure passed up the walk. In the court-yard below, Trotter was hissing away at the Baronet, whom he had tied up to a nail outside the stable door during the operation of currycombing; and in a little outhouse by the stable Charles was to be seen, bare-armed and aproned, brushing shoes. A low wing of Treeby Cottage ran at right angles to Austin's room, and through a window on the ground-floor, which was evidently that of the kitchen, he could perceive the fat cook standing beside the dresser, and ladling out preserves from a huge jar. And beside her, talking fast and laughing merrily, and bringing grim smiles on the gnarled face of the kitchen deity herself, stood Kate Treeby, the picture of health and happiness. The picture made the philosopher suspend the operation of hair-brushing, and stand idly observant. As the cook ladled the preserve out of the big jar, Kate filled various little jars with it, and stuck a label on to the side of each, first writing some words in pencil on the label. Presently the little door cut out in the great court-yard door opened, and the milkman, whom Austin had seen coming along the road, entered, whereupon Kate left the preserves, and, seizing a large bowl from a shelf, flew out to him. The back door was almost directly under Austin's window, so that the dialogue carried on between the two came up to him pretty distinctly.

"Good morning, Archer," said Kate; "how late you are this morning.'

"Yes, miss, I know I be, and I hope you haven't noways been inconvenienced by it; but my wife was taken so bad this morning, that I was obliged to fetch Dr. Mortemn just at milking time, and that put me a bit behind."

"Well, it was quite right of you to run off for the doctor and let the cows wait; and of course you're being late didn't make any difference to us, and doesn't signify a pin. What's the matter with your wife, and what did Dr. Mortemn say about her, and how did you leave her?"

"Oh, miss, you do ask so many questions straight on end! My wife's got her side bad again, and was taken frightful bad with spasms this morning, and Dr. Mortemn he says if they goes on much longer he won't warrant her life more'n two hours."

"And after being told that, you go your rounds as usual instead of staying at home and watching beside her. Why, you unnatural man, you may find her dead when you go back. A nice set of husbands you are, to be sure."

"Oh, Miss Kate, you be the funniest miss as ever I've seen in this world; you du lay your horders on us strict and sharp, and no mistake. But I didn't say as my poor wife had the spasms when I left her, because they'd gone, every blessed one of 'em, thank the Lord! before ever I moved a hinch from her bedside."

"Well, that was very nice of you, and you aren't such a bad man after all; but you're a very stupid one not to have told me that at once, instead of making me think your wife was nearly dying," said Kate. "Wait a minute, till I get a pot of greengage jam, which you must take her, and tell her I say it's sure to do her good, and that she must take some every night for supper."

She returned in a minute with a pot of jam carefully tied up and labelled

"Lor, miss, you be halways thinking of us," said the milkman, taking the pot; "it'll make my wife near cry with joy to see this, for I can't get her to take a tastin', or drink a drop of mostly hanything; ain't eaten no more since yesterday mornin' than a sparrer; and she du like something in the sweet line if she likes hanything at all. Mrs. Treeby keeping well this fine mornin', I 'ope, miss? Nobody don't need to ask how you are yourself, miss; your cheeks be like two damask rosebuds in summer time, that they be."

Why, Archer, you're getting quite poetical in your compliments; that's the finest one you ever paid me. Good morning. We've got visitors, and I must go to breakfast. Don't forget the message to your wife."

Kate went into the house, and the milkman, turning to Trotter as he left the yard, said:

"Wisitors—them two gentlemen Mr. Treeby drove 'ome in the trap yesterday?"

"Yes; going to stay a week, I 'ear; rolling in money, Charley says; guv'ner's in high spirits; brought 'em down here for a purpose, I expect. Whoa, ho, boy!"

This exclamation was addressed to the baronet, not to the milk

man.

"So!" said Austin to himself, "down in the kitchen filling jam-pots, and receiving compliments from a milkman! I wish Lucy, and Fanny, and Geraldina had all been here; I should like to have seen their expressions. And the Polsons! What would they say if I told them of the scene and said I admired it?"

Austin," cried Tom, bursting into the room, "aren't you coming to breakfast? We've half finished, and Mrs. Treeby was afraid you had over-slept yourself."