unite her to their son, they blessed her with real affection.

The swift years passed by, laying the aged baronet and his faithful partner in the family vault, and giving the young Sir Harry and his beautiful Clara possession of Ashton Park.

While they mourned the loss of the kindest of parents, they were too happy in each other to sorrow as those without hope. Their tempers and tastes suited; they had riches, health, and a good name; the poor blessed them, the great courted them; none envied them, for it seemed that they but possessed advantages to share them with others.

They kept on the even tenour of their way, and no dark thread seemed woven into their web of life. Sir Harry had his hunters, Lady Lisle her nursery. Sir Harry was a magistrate, and did his duty to his country and his fellow-creatures with impartiality and kindness. Lady Lisle had her schools and her clubs. Whig or Tory, liberal or conservative, simple or learned, alike found a seat at their hospitable table; they had room and benevolence enough for all.

Prosperity is certainly a sweet soother of our nature, and a happy medium through which to look upon our fellow-creatures, and when met by a naturally cheerful and even temper, as was the case with Sir Harry and his wife, earth, under its influence, would appear almost the realization of perfect bliss. Clara Lisle had known adversity, and she endeavoured to guard herself from the alluring and dangerous influence of prosperity; but, with every wish gratified and every hope realized, she felt the task was a difficult

one.

People said they were too happy, too lighthearted, it could not last; it was all light; it would be better for them if they had a few crosses to bear now and then.

"Ay, let 'em alone, poor things," said old dame Parkins to her friend and gossip, Mary Bennett, when on Sunday afternoons they used to trudge home together to the almshouses Sir Harry's kind heart had built and endowed; "let 'em alone; I've lived under the Lisle family there's many and many a long year, and so did my good man, who lies

there hard by yon yew tree. Mary, I've shown you his pleasant resting-place many's the time, han't I, and there never was a Lisle yet that didn't come to some trouble, lived he only long enough, bless 'em all! but let 'em alone for a bit, though I dunna want to bespeak evil for 'em; but they're young yet: let ten years more pass over 'em-we'll see. Nay, nay, Mary; may be we shanna see it, but them as come after us will see it. Now they wunna look so blithesome in their large square pew as they did this arternoon, with the bright colour in their cheeks, and the smiles on their brows."

Ay, bless 'em right and left!" replied Mrs. Mary Bennett, who was no way disposed to contradict her friend's experience; "they bring light like the broad sunbeam wherever they go. I guess no lawyer ever seed the inside of Sir Harry's halls; no, nor his father's neither, only when he's axed to dine. They never litigate with poor folk about their mills and their lands; and as to Mr. Dosum, th'apothecary, I warrants he drinks more out of my master's cellars in one day than they

takes out of his 'spensary in a round twelvemonth. Bless 'em!"

""Tis what I was a thinking of, Molly," said Mrs. Parkins. "Here, will ye help me ower this stile? My stick's no so good as a friendly arm; and now come along with me, and tak' your cup of tea, neighbour; I'm 'specting the clerk's wife, and old Shovel the sexton, and we'll drink Miss Alice's health at the Park yonder, the sweet babe! four yearn old this blessed day. There's a rale Lisle for ye, with her blue laughing eyes and her flaxen lockies."

"Thank'ee kindly, neighbour; one good turn deserves t'other, the folks say, so you maun all on you keep the merry Christmas in my tidy little parlour-the more's the merrier-over the beef and plum-pudding when they come."

CHAPTER II.

"The discovery of truth by slow progressive meditation is wisdom."

LAVATER.

"REAL life! a tale of real life! I call that a stupid title! I'm sure it must be a stupid book! No, no; this will not do to restore my good humour! I don't want to know what everyday scenes of life are, as if we did not all see enough of them, each in his own private home."

So saying, the half-smiling, half-pouting Annie Mowbray put down the book, whose leaves she had been carelessly reviewing, and vigorously applied the india-rubber to the halffinished portrait that lay before her.