HELMSLEY HALL.

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CHAPTER I.

"The machinery for dreaming, planted in the human brain, was not planted for nothing. That faculty, in alliance with the mystery of darkness, is the one great tube through which man communicates with the shadowy." De Quincy.

THE following narrative, a page from the romance of real life, or rather, for its few and unimportant incidents do not merit the title of romance,-one of those tales of household love and sorrow, "the common growth of mother Earth," which are more touching to the heart in some moods, than the most elaborate fiction, was given to the author by an old and valued friend, a lady

from the North, to whom its incidents were related, and from whose words they are here transcribed.

It is so runs her story-now upwards of twenty-five years ago since I first crossed the border, and went to reside for several months in an ancient cathedral city in the west of England, for the purpose of visiting the family of a clerical friend, lately translated to a prebendal stall there. I had never before seen a Cathedral, or even enjoyed the privilege of the Daily Service; and you may imagine how delightful was the change to one educated as I had been from childhood, in the most devout feelings of reverence towards the Church; and whose sole experience of her Services had been formed in my native land. There, as we may thankfully acknowledge, the fires of affliction and persecution have been blessed to the realization of almost Apostolic purity in her state and doctrines; but her poverty

has at the same time interfered with the outward honour which man owes to the house and service of his Maker. The stately temple which I now beheld, seemed one meet for the solemn purpose to which it was dedicated. Its venerable antiquity, so carefully guarded from ruin or decay, yet all belonging to a former age, and having so little in common with the present; its stillness, its seclusion, so far removed from the din and tumult of the work-a-day world, with the perpetual atmosphere of melody, the morning and evening incense of prayer and praise overshadowing and sanctifying all the ongoings of life in its vicinity; these things made me feel as if suddenly transported into another state of existence, and one belonging to a time when the world was younger and more in earnest than it is in the present age.

To the living adjuncts of this time-ha.lowed place, the dignified clergy, who, with

their families, composed its principal society, the same charm of novelty for awhile attached itself; and I found something consonant to the character of the scene in the polished ceremoniousness and grave formality of a society, which, like those of all cathedral towns, piqued itself, and with justice, on its superior style and unimpeachable respectability. But after a time, as I became more initiated into its secrets, I discovered in it as great a lack of the elements of poetry, as there was a superabundance of these in the place itself; detected a degree of worldliness and conventionalism of tone, even in regard to sacred things; a secularizing spirit; no necessary adjunct, certainly, to such a scene, and painfully at variance with its original purposes. To this was added the circumstance that the society itself, with few exceptions, was elderly in sentiment as well as in years; and principally composed of very excellent, but somewhat

uninteresting persons, whose matter-of-fact propriety, and fatiguing good sense, gradually sank upon my spirits, in the words of Madame de Staël, like a "manteau de

plomb."

From this state of feeling—a most repugnant one to a mind full of lively imagination-I was aroused by the acquisition of a most agreeable companion in the daughter of a country gentleman, whose seat was about ten miles from the town, and who came to pass a few weeks at the house of a family very intimate with the friends with whom I was a guest. Similarity of tastes and pursuits soon created an intimacy between us, and my new friend being an indefatigable pedestrian, I soon acquired an extended knowledge of the beautiful neighbourhood of the town under her guidance, and learned much that was interesting in local history, from her accurate knowledge of her native county. One day we departed