"No."

Was the Lieutenant likely to have been scouring the country in search of that young man ?

"It is very strange. If he found himself unable to get here by the time he expected to meet us, it is a wonder he did not send on a message. I hope he has met with no accident."

"No, there is no fear, Madame," said the Lieutenant, "he will overtake us soon. He may arrive to-night, or to-morrow before we go-he can not make a mistake about finding us. But you do not propose to wait anywhere for him ?"

"No," I say decisively, "we don't. Or if we do wait for him, it will not be in Ken

dal."

The Lieutenant seemed to think that Arthur would overtake us soon enough; and need not further concern us. But my Lady appeared to be a little anxious about the safety of the young man until it was shown us that, after all, Arthur might have been moved to give the Major's cob a day's rest somewhere, in which case he could not possibly have reached Kendal by this time.

We go out into the sunlit and breezy street. We can almost believe Bell that there is a peculiar sweetness in the Westmoreland air. We lounge about the quaint old town, which, perched on the steep slope of a hill, has sometimes those curious juxtapositions of door-step and chimneypot which are familiar to the successive terraces of Dartmouth. We go down to the green banks of the river; and the Lieutenant is bidden to observe how rapid and clear the brown stream is, even after coming through the dyeing and bleaching works. He is walking on in front with Bell. He does not strive to avoid her now -on the contrary, they are inseparable companions—but my Lady puzzles herself in vain to discover what are their actual relations toward each other at this time. They do not seem anxious or dissatisfied. They appear to have drifted back into those ordinary friendly terms of intercourse which had marked their setting-out; but how is this possible after what occurred in Wales? As neither has said any thing to us about these things, nothing is known; these confidences have been invariably voluntary, and my Lady is quite well pleasNEW SERIES.-VOL. XVI., No. 3.

Certainly, if Bell was at this time being pressed to decide between Von Rosen and Arthur, that unfortunate youth from Twickenham was suffering grievously from an evil fortune. Consider what advantages the Lieutenant had in accompanying the girl into this dreamland of her youth, when her heart was opening out to all sorts of tender recollections, and when, to confer a great gratification upon her, you had only to say that you were pleased with Westmoreland, and its sunlight, and its people and scenery. What adjectives that perfervid Uhlan may have been using-and he was rather a good hand at expressing his satisfaction with any thing-we did not try to hear; but Bell wore her brightest and happiest looks. Doubtless the Lieutenant had been telling her that there was no water in the world could turn out such brilliant colors as those we saw bleaching on the meadows

that no river in the world ran half as fast as the Kent-and that no light could compare with the light of a Westmoreland sky in beautifying and clarifying the varied hues of the landscape that lay around. He was greatly surprised with the old-fashioned streets when we had clambered up to the town again. He paid particular attention to the railway station. When a porter caught a boy back from the edge of the platform and angrily said to him, "Wut's thee doin' theear, an' the traäin a coomin' oop?" he made as though he understood the man. This was Bell's country; and every thing in it was profoundly interesting.

However, when the train had once got away from the station, and we found ourselves being carried through the fresh and pleasant landscape-with a cool wind blowing in at the window, and all the trees outside bending and rustling in the breeze-it was not merely out of compliment to Bell that he praised the brightness of the day and the beauty of the country around.

"And it is so comfortable to think of the horses enjoying a day's thorough rest," said Tita; for when we start again to-morrow, they will have to attack some hard work."

"Only at first," said Bell, who was always ready to show that she knew the road; "the first mile or so is hilly; but after that the road goes down to Windermere and runs along by the lake to Am

22

bleside. It is a beautiful drive through the trees; and if we get a day like this

No wonder she turned to look out with pride and delight on the great and glowing picture that lay around us, the background of which had glimpses of blue mountains lying pale and misty under light masses of cloud. The small stations we passed were smothered in green foliage. Here and there we caught sight of a brown rivulet, or a long avenue of trees arching over a white road. And then, in an incredibly short space of time, we found ourselves outside the Windermere Station, standing in the open glare of the day.

For an instant, a look of bewilderment, and even of disappointment, appeared on the girl's face. Evidently, she did not know the way. The houses that had sprung up of late years were strangers to her-strangers that seemed to have no business there. But whereas the new buildings, and the cutting of terraces and alterations of gardens, were novel and perplexing phenomena, the general features of the neighborhood remained the same; and after a momentary hesitation she hit upon the right path up to Elleray, and thereafter was quite at home.

Now there rests in our Bell's mind a strange superstition that she can remember, as a child, having sat upon Christopher North's knee. The story is wholly impossible and absurd; for Wilson died in the year in which Bell was born; but she nevertheless preserves the fixed impression of having seen the kingly old man, and wondered at his long hair and great collar, and listened to his talking to her. Out of what circumstances in her childhood this curious belief may have arisen is a psychological conundrum which Tita and I have long ago given up; and Bell herself can not even suggest any other celebrated person of the neighborhood who may, in her infancy, have produced a profound impression on her imagination and caused her to construct a confused picture into which the noble figure of the old Professor had somehow and subsequently been introduced; but none the less she asks us how it is that she can remember exactly the expression of his face and eyes as he looked down on her, and how even to this day she can recall the sense of awe with which she regarded him, even as he was trying to amuse her.

The Lieutenant knew all about this story; and it was with great interest that he went up to Elleray Cottage, and saw the famous chestnut which Christopher North has talked of to the world. It was as if some relative of Bell's had lived in this place-some foster-father or granduncle who had watched her youth; and who does not know the strange curiosity with which a lover listens to stories of the childhood of his sweetheart, or meets any one who knew her in those old and halfforgotten years? It seems a wonderful thing to him that he should not have known her then-that all the world at that time, so far as he knew, was unconscious of her magical presence; and he seeks to make himself familiar with her earliest years, to nurse the delusion that he has known her always, and that ever since her entrance into the world she has belonged to him. In like manner, let two lovers, who have known each other for a number of years, begin to reveal to each other when the first notion of love entered their mind: they will insensibly shift the date further and further back, as if they would blot out the palid and colorless time in which they were stupid enough not to have found out their great affection for each other. The Lieutenant was quite vexed that he knew little of Professor Wilson's works. He said he would get them all the moment that he went back to London; and when Bell, as we lingered about the grounds of Elleray, told him how that there was a great deal of Scotch in the books, and how the old man whom she vaguely recollected had written about Scotland, and how that she had about as great a longing-when she was buried away down south in the commonplaceness of London and Surrey-to smell the heather and see the lovely glens and the far-reaching sea-lakes of Scotland as to reach her own and native Westmoreland, the Lieutenant began to nurture a secret affection for Scotland and wondered when we should get there.

I can not describe in minute detail our day's ramble about Windermere. It was all a dream to us. Many years had come and gone since those of us who were familiar with the place had been there; and somehow, half unconsciously to ourselves, we kept trying to get away from the sight of new people and new houses, and to discover the old familiar features of the neigh

borhood that we had loved. Once or twice there was in Tita's eyes a moisture she could scarce conceal; and the light of gladness on Bell's bright face was preserved there chiefly through her efforts to instruct the Lieutenant, which made her forget old memories. She was happy, too, in hitting on the old paths. When we went down from Elleray through the private grounds that lie along the side of the hill, she found no difficulty whatever in showing us how we were to get to the lake. She took us down through a close and sweet-smelling wood, where the sunlight only struggled at intervals through the innumerable stems and leaves, and lit up the brackens and other ferns and underwood. There was a stream running down close by, that plashed and gurgled down its stony channel. As we got further down the slope, the darkness of the avenue increased; and then all at once, at the end of the trees, we came in sight of a blinding glare of white-the level waters of the lake.

And then, when we left the wood and stood on the shore, all the fair plain of Windermere lay before us, wind-swept and troubled, with great dashes of blue along its surface, and a breezy sky moving over head. Near at hand, there were soft green hills, shining in the sunlight; and, further off, long and narrow promontories, piercing out into the water, with their dark line of trees growing almost black against the silver glory of the lake. But then again the hurrying wind would blow away the shadow of the cloud; a beam of sunlight would run along the line of trees, making them glow green above the blue of the water; and from this moving and shifting and glowing picture we turned to the far and ethereal masses of the Langdale Pikes and the mountains above Ambleside, which changed as the changing clouds were blown over from the west.

We got a boat and went out into the wilderness of water and wind and sky. Now we saw the reedy shores behind us, and the clear and shallow water at the brink of which we had been standing, receiving the troubled reflection of the woods. Out here the beautiful islands of. Lady Holm, Thompson's Holm, and Belle Isle were shimmering in green. Far up there in the north the slopes and gullies of the great mountains were showing a thousand hues of soft velvet-like grays and blues,

and even warming up into a pale yellowish green, where a ray of the sunlight struck the lower slopes. Over by Furness Fells the clouds lay in heavier masses, and moved slowly; but elsewhere there was a brisk motion over the lake, that changed its beauties even as one looked at them.

"Mademoiselle," observed the Lieutenant, as if a new revelation had broken upon him, "all that you have said about your native county is true; and now I understand why that you did weary in London, and think very much of your own home."

Perhaps he thought, too, that there was but one county in England, or in the world, that could have produced this handsome, courageous, generous, and true-hearted English girl-for such are the exaggerations that lovers cherish.

We put into Bowness, and went up to the Crown Hotel there. In an instantas rapidly as Alloway Kirk became dark when Tam o' Shanter called out — the whole romance of the day went clean out and was extinguished. How any of God's creatures could have come to dress themselves in such fashion, amid such scenery, our young Uhlan professed himself unable to tell; but here were men-apparently in their proper senses-wearing such comicalities of jackets and resplendent knickerbockers as would have made a harlequin blush, with young ladies tarred and feathered, as it were, with staring stripes and alarming petticoats, and sailors' hats of straw. Why should the borders of a lake be provocative of these mad eccentricities? Who that has wandered about the neighborhoods of Zürich, Lucerne, and Thun, does not know the wild freaks which Eng. lishmen (far more than English women) will permit to themselves in dress? We should. have fancied those gentlemen with the variegated knickerbockers had just come down from the Righi (by rail) if they had had Alpen-stocks and snow-spectacles with. them; and, indeed, it was a matter for surprise that these familiar appurtenances were absent from the shores of Windermere.

My Lady looked at the strange people. rather askance.

"My dear," says Bell, in an undertone,. "they are quite harmless."

We had luncheon in a corner of the great room. Dinner was already laid; and our plain meal seemed to borrow a certain richness from that long array of colored wine-glasses. Bell considered the

sight rather pretty; but my Lady began to wonder how much crystal the servants would have broken by the time we got back to Surrey. Then we went down to the lake again, stepped into a small steamer, and stood out to sea.

It was now well on in the afternoon; and the masses of cloud that came rolling over from the west and south-west, when they clung to the summits of the mountains, threw a deeper shadow on the landscape beneath. Here and there, too, as the evening wore on, and we had steamed up within sight of the small island that is called Seamew Crag, we occasionally saw one of the great heaps of clouds get melted down into a gray mist that for a few minutes blotted out the side of the mountain. Meanwhile the sun had also got well up to the north-west; and as the clouds came over and swept about the peaks of Langdale, a succession of the wildest atmospheric effects became visible. Sometimes a great gloom would overspread the whole landscape, and we began to anticipate a night of rain; then a curious saffron glow would appear behind the clouds; then a great smoke of gray would be seen to creep down the hill, and finally the sunlight would break through, shining on the retreating vapor, and on the wet sides of the hills. Once or twice a light trail of cloud passed across the lake, and threw a slight shower of rain upon us; but when we got to Ambleside, the clouds had been for the most part driven by, and the clear heavens-irradiated by a beautiful twilight-tempted us to walk back to Windermere village by the road.

You may suppose that that was a pleasant walk for those two young folks. Every thing had conspired to please Bell during the day, and she was in a dangerously amiable mood. As the dusk fell, and the white water gleamed through the trees by the margin of the lake, we walked along the winding road without meeting a solitary creature; and Queen Titania gently let our young friends get on ahead, so that we could only see the two dark figures pass underneath the dark avenues of trees. "Did you ever see a girl more happy ?" she says.

"Yes, once-at Eastbourne."

Tita laughs, in a low, pleased way; for she is never averse to recalling these old days.

"I was very stupid then," she says.

That is a matter upon which she, of course, ought to be able to speak. It would be unbecoming to interfere with the right of private judgment.

"Besides," she remarks, audaciously, "I did not mean half I said. Don't you imagine I meant half what I said. It was all making fun, you know, wasn't it?"

"It has been deadly earnest since."

"Poor thing!" she says, in the most sympathetic way; and there is no saying what fatal thunderbolt she might have launched, had not her attention been called away just then.

For as we went along in the twilight it seemed to us that the old moss-covered wall was begining to throw a slight shadow, and that the pale road was growing warmer in hue. Moved by the same impulse, we turned suddenly to the lake, and lo! out there beyond the trees a great yellow glory was lying on the bosom of Windermere, and somewhere--hidden by the dark branches-the low moon had come into the clear violet sky. We walked on until we came to a clearance in the trees, and there, just over the opposite shore, the golden sickle lay in the heavens, the purple of which was suffused by the soft glow. It was a wonderful twilight. The ripples that broke in among the reeds down at the shore quivered in lines of gold; and a little bit further out a small boat lay black as night in the path of the moonlight. The shadow cast by the wall grew stronger; and now the trees, too, threw black bars across the yellow road. The two lovers paid no heed to these things for a long time they wandered on, engrossed in talk. But at length we saw them stop and turn toward the lake; while Bell looked back towards us, with her face getting a faint touch of the glory coming over from the south.

All the jesting had gone out of Bell's face. She was as grave, and gentle, and thoughtful-when we reached the two of them-as Undine was on the day after her marriage; and insensibly she drew near to Tita, and took her away from us, and left the Lieutenant and myself to follow. That young gentleman was as solemn as though he had swallowed the Longer Catechism and the Westminster Confession of Faith. He admitted that it was a beautiful evening. He made a remark about the scenery of the district which would have served admirably as a motto for one of those

views that stationers put at the head of their note-paper. And then, with some abruptness, he asked what we should do if Arthur did not arrive in Kendal that night or next day.

"If Arthur does not come to-night, we shall probably have some dinner at the King's Arms. If he does not come in the morning, we may be permitted to take some breakfast. And then, if his staying away does not alter the position of Windermere, we shall most likely drive along this very road to-morrow forenoon. But why this solemn importance conferred on Arthur all of a sudden ?"

Oh, I can not tell you."
Nobody asked you."

"But I will give you a very good cigar, my dear friend."

"That is a great deal better-but let it be old and dry."

And so we got back to Windermere station and took train to Kendal. By the time we were walking up through the streets of the old town, the moon had swum further up into the heavens, and its light, now a pale silver, was shining along the fronts of the houses.

We went into the inn. No message from Arthur. A little flutter of dismay disturbs the women, until the folly of imagining all manner of accidents-merely because an erratic young man takes a day longer to drive to Kendal than they had anticipated is pointed out to them. Then dinner, and Bell appears in her prettiest dress, so that even Tita, when she comes into the room, kisses her, as if the girl had performed a specially virtuous action in merely choosing out of a milliner's shop a suitable color.

[Note by Queen Titania.-" I hope I am re

vealing no secret; but it would be a great pity if any one thought that Bell was heartless or indifferwritten about by one who makes a jest about the ent, a mistake that might occur when she is most serious moments in one's life. Now it was quite pitiable to see how the poor girl was trouWindermere. She as good as confessed to menot in words, you know, for between women the least hint is quite sufficient, and saves a great deal of embarrassment that she very much liked the Lieutenant, and admired his character, and that she was extremely vexed and sorry that she had been compelled to refuse him when he made her an offer. She told me, too, that he had pressed her not to make that decision final; and that she had admitted to him that it was really against her

bled as we walked home that night by the side of

own wish that she had done so. But then she put it to me, as she had put it to him, what she would think of herself if she went and betrayed Arthur in this way. Really, I could not see any it would be fair to Arthur to marry him while she betrayal in the matter; and I asked her whether secretly would have preferred to marry another. She said she would try all in her power not to marry Arthur, if only he would be reconciled to her breaking with him; but then she immediately added, with an earnestness that I thought very pathetic, that if she treated Arthur badly any other man might fairly expect her to treat him badly too, and if she could not satisfy herself that she had acted rightly throughout_she would not marat all. It is a great pity I can not show the readers of these few lines Bell's photograph, or they would see the downright absurdity of such a resolve as that. To think of a girl like her not danger at this moment was that, in one of these marrying is simply out of the question; but the

ry

foolish fits of determination, she would send the Lieutenant away altogether. Then I think there might be a chance of her not marrying at all; for I am greatly mistaken if she does not care a good deal more for him than she will acknowledge. I advised her to tell Arthur frankly how matters stand; but she seems afraid. Under any circumstances, he will be sure to discover the truth; and then it will be far worse for him than if she made a full confession just now, and got rid of all these perplexities and entanglements, which ought not to be throwing a cloud over a young face."]

[From Macmillan's Magazine. (To be continued.)