frou of petticoats which succeeded, with a short interregnum, to the masculine domestic garrison of Robert the elder. Hunnex had done his work well. Mrs. Wilkinson, a venerable lady with a severe frown and a huge bunch of keys, looked every inch a housekeeper; Laura Lovelace, a dark-eyed young person of thirty, whose father had failed as a wine-merchant from too great a love of the liquors he sold, made a very piquant butler, though not exactly "Hßŋ kadλiopupos. To La Tarantula, otherwise Flora Negri, we have already had slight introduction. She had eyes blacker and eyelashes also than Laura Lovelace; but her abundant hair was of the sunniest gold. I don't know whether such combinations are usual in Italy. She was tall and agile, and could ride four horses as easily as drive them. As to Jane Michelmore, she was a fine Devonshire maiden, with a ruddy countenance, a stalwart build, and the simplest brown eyes in the world. So much for some of the elements of Henry Fitz Roy's eccentric household.

CHAPTER X.

AN ASTONISHED COUNTY.

ALOUETTE.-I've often wished I had Aladdin's lamp, Papa.
Helen of Troy should be my waiting damosel,

For guardian of my portal should stand Hercules,
Shorthaired, with muscles that would split great trees
apart,

Apollo should make music when I cared for it,

So sweet the world would pause to hear the melody,
If I would swim, a Nereid-nymph should carry me,

If ride, around wise Cheiron's neck my arms should

cling

While he flew easily through woods of Thessaly,
And if I cared to fly above the mountain-peaks
Jove's eagle should be summoned as my servitor.

The Comedy of Dreams.

HAZLITT told Coleridge that he could not enjoy the Arabian Nights. The great poet replied to the small essayist that this was because he could not dream. The inability to dream which Hazlitt had is, I think, a real misfortune: though of course it is better to be thus incapable than to suffer from evil visions of the night. Still there is something grand in a tremendous nightmare. I like it, at rare intervals. It is a thing to have known-like a storm at sea or an earthquake or a great fire. It is well to have as much experience of life in all its forms as can be condensed into our small allowance of years.

But if there are some people who dislike nightmares-product of the Night-Mara, or Spirit of Night is there anybody who does not enjoy day

K

dreams ? Are they not more charming than strawberry ices to female and surreptitious cigars to male youth? Does not the curate cheer the composition of his sermon with a dream of the day when he shall be penning an Episcopal Charge, and conferring comfortable benefices on the halfdozen brats for whom it is now difficult to find shoes? Did ever poetaster put pen to paper without a vision of waking up some morning to Byron's sudden fame ? Day-dreams are better. than novels; you can arrange your plot as you like, and be hero or villain, heroine or minx, as may suit your idiosyncrasy. Take to day-dreams, reader mine, and save your subscription to Mudie.

Few people are fortunate or unfortunate enough to put their day-dreams into action: Henry Fitz Roy was one of the few. I do not suppose he

would have carried out his wild scheme so thoroughly had it not been for his chance meeting with Robert at Delmonico's. He liked Robert, and recognized in him a thorough original, and therefore an honour to the family: for there was nothing a Fitz Roy so much resented as that another Fitz Roy should be like him. He wanted to show Robert, on his return to England, that he had signalized himself by a thorough outburst of the family eccentricity.

The amazement of Erlingham and of the county when the new Squire of Oak Royal came out in so strange a style was prodigious. He kept Hunnex with him, nominally as a guest, but really to see that things went right. The gentleman who had

adopted London as a vocation was nothing loth to do a little lucrative business in the country. When Henry Fitz Roy drove out for the first time, in a handsome barouche and pair, the Tarantula driving, and another of Marini's set by her side, both in a feminine echo of the green and gold Fitz Roy liveries, with gold acorns for buttons, all the villagers in all the villages turned out to see. The two Italians did their work gravely and quietly, understanding that they were hired to do such work, not indeed understanding that there was anything unusual in it. To them, as indeed to most foreigners, the manners and customs of the English were quite incomprehensible. We are always regarded as the maddest nation on the face. of the earth: luckily there is some method in our madness.

Her

To see that bright-haired dark-eyebrowed coachwoman driving Henry Fitz Roy and Hunnex along the Oakshire roads was a curious sight. nimble companion on the box got up and down with an agility unknown to the ordinary English footman: indeed she would have liked to turn a somersault through a hoop each time. But they behaved with the greatest gravity all the time, and even the bucolic mind grew content with the matter at last. This was the sort of colloquy upon the ale-house-bench, just after the brilliant equipage had whirled rapidly by.

Jack. Why the new Squire's mad, sure-ly. I never heard of wenches being coachmen and footmen before.

Tom.-It's a new fashion, lad, just come up in Lunnon. Wenches is cheaper, dost see? and then these fine gentlemen likes the look of 'em.

Jack.-Well that was a fine flyaway piece that drove the horses. Let's have another pint. Have ye heard he's got she-gardeners too? That don't seem to me good for trade.

Tom.-No more it is: I don't approve of it. But they're handsome lasses; for I saw three of 'em o' Friday. Yes, Friday it was, 'cause I thought mayhap I might get a job to begin Monday. But the one I saw turned me out of the place purty quick, for you can't well fight a woman; and lord, lord, how their tongues do

run on!

Jack. They do, sure-ly. Let's have another pint.

It is an abrupt transition from Jack and Tom with their fourpenny ale to the Earl of Rougemont, Lord-Lieutenant of the county; but that gallant young peer, being magnetised by pretty Alice, took a natural interest in the doings of the head of the house of Fitz Roy. Those doings were odd enough. Henry Fitz Roy and Hunnex were to be seen riding out, with a couple of female grooms in the green livery behind them. They rode to a meet of the Earl's hounds in that style, and Fitz Roy had a good time of it across country, and was met by a female groom with a second horse just when he wanted a fresh mount. Rougemont, who was pretty often at Erlingham, was one day laughing over the affair. Eustace Fitz Roy,