"GENIUS," 'tis said, "is Patience." An altogether opposite idea has got abroad this rapid age; and yet Buffon's definition, I warrant, is not far from truth.

No Preface ought to contain more than two short paragraphs. Was it worth while penning thus much in order to say (with all humility) that this book has been twice rewritten? And will the result only be, that severe critics-would there were more of them! - will exclaim, "Pity 'twas not written a fourth time"? Any way, I submit. The majority are never wrong.

FIVE YEARS OF IT.

CHAPTER I.

"O blest retirement!"-GOLDSMITH.

THEY who are acquainted with the chi-
valric pages of Froissart and of Joinville will

surely remember that those worthy chro-
niclers narrate, with an especial satisfaction,
how their pet knights were accustomed,
before spurring to the field of battle, to
engage awhile within their oratories in
devout exercises and sacred meditation.
Holy men, and even worldly sophists,

assure us that life is one long, arduous combat, from beginning to end. Would it not therefore seem that none of us would do amiss, were we to prepare for our struggle by those solemn thoughts which are to be cultivated only in seclusion.

Of this mind at least seemed to be my hero, Edgar Huntingdon, whose struggles will be narrated in the ensuing pages. His oratory he found in a spot about sixteen miles from the home of his childhood, the village of Afrel, on the banks of the river Scarf. As if to counteract the too effeminate fertility of the valley in which it lies cradled, hills on either side, rugged, wild, and stretching far away, encompass it in their stern and sterile girdle. Here, whilst yet a child, Edgar had spent some of his

happiest days. His former home was

tenanted by strangers: the great London was to be henceforth his only hearth;beyond its shelter was he a stranger and a wanderer.

Afrel is no watering-place, even in the most liberal sense of the word. But its romantic beauty, and its water, which however boasts no property beyond extreme purity, make it a resort for perhaps a hundred visitors, and these principally children, during the summer months. Here, then, had Edgar Huntingdon sat down, a temporary recluse. Yet he knew every denizen of the place; he had known them from his infancy: so that, despite his retirement, there were homely faces round him still. Afrel has but two streets. Through one, the beck, swollen by the tribute of streams that rise far away among the hills, makes pleasant music the long