fear but the results will be remunerative." And then, as they went home in the railway carriage the mother talked to her son about his farming as though she had forgotten her other trouble, and she explained to him how he was to dine with Sir Peregrine.

"I shall be delighted to dine with Sir Peregrine," said Lucius, "and very well pleased to have an opportunity of talking to him about his own way of managing his land; but, mother, I will not promise to be guided by so very old fashioned a professor."

Mr. Furnival, when he was left alone, sat thinking over the interview that had passed. At first, as was most natural, he bethought himself of his wife; and I regret to say that the love which he bore to her, and the gratitude which he owed to her, and the memory of all that they had suffered and enjoyed together, did not fill his heart with thoughts toward her as tender as they should have done. A black frown came across his brow as he meditated on her late intrusion, and he made some sort of resolve that that kind of thing should be prevented for the future. He did not make up his mind how he would prevent it—a point which husbands sometimes overlook in their marital resolutions. And then, instead of counting up her virtues, he counted up his own. Had he not given her every thing; a house such as she had not dreamed of in her younger days? servants, carriages, money, comforts, and luxuries of all sorts? He had begrudged her nothing, had let her have her full share of all his hard-earned gains; and yet she could be ungrateful for all this, and allow her head to be filled with whims and fancies as though she were a young girl-to his great annoyance and confusion. He would let her know that his chambers, his law chambers, should be private even from her. He would not allow himself to become a laughing-stock to his own clerks and his own brethren through the impertinent folly of a woman who owed to him every thing; and so on! I regret to say that he never once thought of those lonely evenings in Harley Street, of those long days which the poor woman was doomed to pass without the only companionship which was valuable to her. He never thought of that vow which they had both made at the altar, which she had kept so loyally, and which required of him a cherishing, comforting, enduring love. It never occurred to him that in denying her this he as much broke his promise to her as though he had taken to himself in very truth some strange goddess, leaving his wedded wife with a cold ceremony of alimony or such like. He had been open-handed to her as regards money, and therefore she ought not to be troublesome! He had done his duty by her, and therefore he would not permit her to be troublesome! Such, I regret to say, were his thoughts and resolutions as he sat thinking and resolving about Mrs. Furnival.

And then, by degrees, his mind turned away to that other lady, and they became much more

But by degrees he ceased to think of the woman and began to think of the client, as he was in duty bound to do. What was the real truth of all this? Was it possible that she should be alarmed in that way because a small country attorney had told his wife that he had found some old paper, and because the man had then gone off to Yorkshire? Nothing could be more natural than her anxiety, supposing her to be aware of some secret which would condemn her if discovered; but nothing more unnatural if there were no such secret. And she must know! In her bosom, if in no other, must exist the knowledge whether or no that will were just. If that will were just, was it possible that she should now tremble so violently, seeing that its justice had been substantially proved in various courts of law? But if it were not just-if it were a forgery, a forgery made by her, or with her cognizance-and that now this truth was to be made known! How terrible would that be! But terrible is not the word which best describes the idea as it entered Mr. Furnival's mind. How wonderful would it be; how wonderful would it all have been! By whose hand in such case had those signatures been traced? Could it be possible that she, soft, beautiful, graceful as she was now, all but a girl as she had then been, could have done it, unaided-by herself?—that she could have sat down in the still hour of the night, with that old man on one side and her baby in his cradle on the other, and forged that will, signatures and all, in such a manner as to have carried her point for twenty years-so skillfully as to have baffled lawyers and jurymen and resisted the eager greed of her cheated kinsman? If so, was it not all wonderful! Had she not been a woman worthy of wonder!

And then Mr. Furnival's mind, keen and almost unerring at seizing legal points, went eagerly to work, considering what new evidence might now be forthcoming. He remembered at once the circumstances of those two chief witnesses, the clerk who had been so muddle-headed, and the servant-girl who had been so clear. They had certainly witnessed some deed, and they had done so on that special day. If there had been a fraud, if there had been a forgery, it had been so clever as almost to merit protection! But if there had been such fraud, the nature of the means by which it might be detected became plain to the mind of the barrister-plainer to him without knowledge of any circumstances than it had done to Mr. Mason after many of such circumstances had been explained to him.

But it was impossible. So said Mr. Furnival

to himself, out loud-speaking out loud in order that he might convince himself. It was impossible, he said again; but he did not convince himself. Should he ask her? No; it was not on the cards that he should do that. And, perhaps, if a further trial were forthcoming, it might be better for her sake that he should be ignorant. And then, having declared again that it was impossible, he rang his bell. "Crabwitz," said he, without looking at the man, "just step over to Bedford Row, with my compliments, and learn what is Mr. Round's present address-old Mr. Round, you know."

Mr. Crabwitz stood for a moment or two with the door in his hand, and Mr. Furnival, going back to his own thoughts, was expecting the man's departure. "Well," he said, looking up and seeing that his myrmidon still stood there.

Mr. Crabwitz was not in a very good humor, and had almost made up his mind to let his master know that such was the case. Looking at his own general importance in the legal world, and the inestimable services which he had rendered to Mr. Furnival, he did not think that that gentleman was treating him well. He had been summoned back to his dingy chamber almost without an excuse, and now that he was in London was not permitted to join even for a day the other wise men of the law who were assembled at the great congress. For the last four days his heart had been yearning to go to Birmingham, but had yearned in vain; and now his master was sending him about town as though he were an errand-lad.

"Shall I step across to the lodge and send the porter's boy to Round and Crook's ?" asked Mr. Crabwitz.

"The porter's boy! no; go yourself; you are not busy. Why should I send the porter's boy on my business?" The fact probably was, that Mr. Furnival forgot his clerk's age and standing. Crabwitz had been ready to run any where when his employer had first known him, and Mr. Furnival did not perceive the change.

"Very well, Sir; certainly I will go if you wish it; on this occasion that is. But I hope, Sir, you will excuse my saying-" "Saying what ?"

"That I am not exactly a messenger, Sir. Of course I'll go now, as the other clerk is not in."

"Oh, you're too great a man to walk across to Bedford Row, are you? Give me my hat, and I'll go."

"Oh no, Mr. Furnival, I did not mean that. I'll step over to Bedford Row, of course-only I did think-"

"Think what ?"

"That perhaps I was entitled to a little more respect, Mr. Furnival. It's for your sake as much as my own that I speak, Sir; but if the gentlemen in the Lane see me sent about like a lad of twenty, Sir, they'll think-"

"What will they think?"

"I hardly know what they'll think, but I know it will be very disagreeable, Sir-very dis

agreeable to my feelings. I did think, Sir, that perhaps-"

"I'll tell you what it is, Crabwitz, if your situation here does not suit you, you may leave it to-morrow. I shall have no difficulty in finding another man to take your place."

"I am sorry to hear you speak in that way, Mr. Furnival, very sorry-after fifteen years, Sir-"

"You find yourself too grand to walk to Bedford Row!"

"Oh no. I'll go now, of course, Mr. Furnival." And then Mr. Crabwitz did go, meditating as he went many things to himself. He knew his own value, or thought that he knew it ; and might it not be possible to find some patron who would appreciate his services more justly than did Mr. Furnival?

CHAPTER XIV.

DINNER AT THE CLEEVE.

LADY MASON on her return from London found a note from Mrs. Orme asking both her and her son to dine at The Cleeve on the following day. As it had been already settled between her and Sir Peregrine that Lucius should dine there in order that he might be talked to respecting his mania for guano the invitation could not be refused; but as for Lady Mason herself, she would much have preferred to remain at home.

Indeed, her uneasiness on that guano matter had been so outweighed by worse uneasiness from another source, that she had become, if not indifferent, at any rate tranquil on the subject. It might be well that Sir Peregrine should preach his sermon, and well that Lucius should hear it; but for herself it would, she thought, have been more comfortable for her to eat her dinner alone. She felt, however, that she could not do so. Any amount of tedium would be better than the danger of offering a slight to Sir Peregrine, and therefore she wrote a pretty little note to say that both of them would be at The Cleeve at

seven.

"Lucius, my dear, I want you to do me a great favor," she said, as she sat by her son in the Hamworth fly.

"A great favor, mother! of course I will do any thing for you that I can."

"It is that you will bear with Sir Peregrine to-night."

"Bear with him! I do not know exactly what you mean. Of course I will remember that he is an old man, and not answer him as I would one of my own age."

"I am sure of that, Lucius, because you are a gentleman. As much forbearance as that a young man, if he be a gentleman, will always show to an old man. But what I ask is something more than that. Sir Peregrine has been farming all his life."

"Yes; and see what are the results! He has three or four hundred acres of uncultivated

son.

"Ah, but that's the question. My trade is to be that of a farmer, and you are sending me to school. Then comes the question, Of what sort is the schoolmaster?"

side also young Orme possessed something which the other wanted. What that something might be Lucius Mason did not at all understand.

"But he will talk of it."

"And can not you listen to him without contradicting him-for my sake? It is of the greatest consequence to me-of the very greatest, Lucius, that I should have the benefit of Sir Peregrine's friendship."

"If he would quarrel with you because I chanced to disagree with him about the management of land, his friendship would not be worth having."

"I do not say that he will do so; but I am sure you can understand that an old man may be tender on such points. At any rate I ask it from you as a favor. You can not guess how important it is to me to be on good terms with such a neighbor."

"It is always so in England," said Lucius, after pausing for a while. "Sir Peregrine is a man of family, and a baronet; of course all the world, the world of Hamworth that is, should bow down at his feet. And I too must worship the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Fashion, has set up!"

"Lucius, you are unkind to me."

"No, mother, not unkind; but like all men, I would fain act in such matters as my own judgment may direct me."

"My friendship with Sir Peregrine Orme has nothing to do with his rank; but it is of importance to me that both you and I should stand well in his sight." There was nothing more said on the matter; and then they got down at the front door, and were ushered through the low wide hall into the drawing-room.

The three generations of the family were there -Sir Peregrine, his daughter-in-law, and the heir. Lucius Mason had been at The Cleeve two or three times since his return from Germany, and on going there had always declared to himself that it was the same to him as though he were going into the house of Mrs. Arkwright, the doctor's widow at Hamworth-or even into the kitchen of Farmer Greenwood. He rejoiced to call himself a democrat, and would boast that rank could have no effect on him. But his boast was an untrue boast, and he could not carry himself at The Cleeve as he would have done and did in Mrs. Arkwright's little drawing-room. There was a majesty in the manner of Sir Peregrine which did awe him; there were tokens of birth and a certain grace of manner about Mrs. Orme which kept down his assumption; and even with young Peregrine he found that though he might be equal he could by no means be more than equal. He had learned more than Peregrine Orme, had ten times more

Mrs. Orme got up from her corner on the sofa to greet her friend, and with a soft smile and forward to the fire. Mrs. Orme was not a woman given to much speech or endowed with outward warmth of manners, but she could make her few words go very far; and then the pressure of her hand, when it was given, told more than a whole embrace from some other women. There are ladies who always kiss their female friends, and always call them "dear." In such cases one can not but pity her who is so bekissed. Mrs. Orme did not kiss Lady Mason, nor did she call her dear; but she smiled sweetly as she uttered her greeting, and looked kindness out of her marvelously blue eyes; and Lucius Mason, looking on over his mother's shoulders, thought that he would like to have her for his friend in spite of her rank. If Mrs. Orme would give him a lecture on farming it might be possible to listen to it without contradiction; but there was no chance for him in that respect. Mrs. Orme never gave lectures to any one on any subject.

"So, Master Lucius, you have been to Liverpool, I hear," said Sir Peregrine.

"Yes, Sir; I returned yesterday." "And what is the world doing at Liverpool?" "The world is wide awake there, Sir."

"Oh, no doubt; when the world has to make money it is always wide awake. But men sometimes may be wide awake and yet make no money-may be wide awake, or at any rate think that they are so."

"Better that, Sir Peregrine, than willfully go to sleep when there is so much work to be done." "A man when he's asleep does no harm," said Sir Peregrine.

"What a comfortable doctrine to think of when the servant comes with the hot water at eight o'clock in the morning!" said his grandson.

"It is one that you study very constantly, I fear," said the old man, who at this time was on excellent terms with his heir. There had been no apparent hankering after rats since that last compact had been made, and Peregrine had been doing great things with the H. H.; winning golden opinions from all sorts of sportsmen, and earning a great reputation for a certain young mare which had been bred by Sir Peregrine himself. Foxes are vermin as well as rats, as Perry in his wickedness had remarked; but a young man who can break an old one's heart by a predilection for rat-catching may win it as absolutely and irretrievably by prowess after a fox. Peregrine had told to four different neighbors how a fox had been run into, in the open, near Alston, after twelve desperate miles, and how on that occasion Peregrine had been in at the death with the huntsman and only one other.

Sir

"And the mare, you know, is only four years old and hardly half trained," said Sir Peregrine, with great exultation. "The young scamp, to have ridden her in that way!" It may be doubted whether he would have been a prouder man or said more about it if his grandson had taken honors.

And then the gong sounded, and Sir Peregrine led Lady Mason into the dining-room. Lucius, who as we know thought no more of the Ormes than of the Joneses and Smiths, paused in his awe before he gave his arm to Mrs. Orme; and when he did so he led her away in perfect silence, though he would have given any thing to be able to talk to her as he went. But he bethought himself that unfortunately he could find nothing to say. And when he sat down it was not much better. He had not dined at The Cleeve before, and I am not sure whether the butler in plain clothes and the two men in livery did not help to create his confusion-in spite of his well-digested democratic ideas.

The conversation during dinner was not very bright. Sir Peregrine said a few words now and again to Lady Mason, and she replied with a few others. On subjects which did not absolutely appertain to the dinner, she perhaps was the greatest talker; but even she did not say much. Mrs. Orme, as a rule, never spoke unless she were spoken to in any company consisting of more than herself and one other; and young Peregrine seemed to imagine that carving at the top of the table, asking people if they would take stewed beef, and eating his own dinner, were occupations quite sufficient for his energies. "Have a bit more beef, Mason, do. If you will, I will." So far he went in conversation, but no farther while his work was still before him.

When the servants were gone it was a little better, but not much. "Mason, do you mean to hunt this season?" Peregrine asked.

"No," said the other. "Well, I would if I were you. You will never know the fellows about here unless you do."

should think so. If I had two hundred acres of land in my own hand I should not want any thing else in the world, and would never ask any one for a shilling."

"If that be so, I might make the best bargain at once that ever a man made," said the baronet. "If I might take you at your word, Master Perry-"

"Pray don't talk of it, Sir," said Mrs. Orme. "You may be quite sure of this, my dearthat I shall not do more than talk of it." Then Sir Peregrine asked Lady Mason if she would take any more wine; after which the ladies withdrew, and the lecture commenced.

But we will in the first place accompany the ladies into the drawing-room for a few minutes. It was hinted, in one of the first chapters of this story, that Lady Mason might have become more intimate than she had done with Mrs. Orme, had she so pleased it; and by this it will of course be presumed that she had not so pleased. All this is perfectly true. Mrs. Orme had now been living at The Cleeve the greater portion of her life, and had never while there made one really well-loved friend. She had a sister of her own, and dear old friends of her childhood, who lived far away from her in the northern counties. Occasionally she did see them, and was then very happy; but this was not frequent with her. Her sister, who was married to a peer, might stay at The Cleeve for a fortnight, perhaps once in the year; but Mrs. Orme herself seldom left her own home. She thought, and certainly not without cause, that Sir Peregrine was not happy in her absence, and therefore she never left him. Then, living there so much alone, was it not natural that her heart should desire a friend?

But Lady Mason had been living much more alone. She had no sister to come to her, even though it were but once a year. She had no intimate female friend, none to whom she could really speak with the full freedom of friendship, and it would have been delightful to have bound to her by ties of love so sweet a creature as Mrs. Orme, a widow like herself-and like herself a widow with one only son. But she, warily picking her steps through life, had learned the necessity of being cautious in all things. The countenance of Sir Peregrine had been invalua ble to her, and might it not be possible that she should lose that countenance? A word or two spoken now and then again, a look not intended

"Oh, does it not?" said the baronet; "I used to think differently."

"Well, not so much, I mean, as if you had every thing to buy. Besides, I look upon Mason as a sort of Croesus. What on earth has he got to do with his money? And then as to timeupon my word I don't understand what a man means when he says he has not got time for hunting."

"Lucius intends to be a farmer," said his mother.

"So do I," said Peregrine. "By Jove, I

change in the pressure of the old man's hand, had taught Lady Mason to think that he might disapprove such intimacy. Probably at the moment she was right, for she was quick at reading such small signs. It behooved her to be very careful, and to indulge in no pleasure which might be costly; and therefore she had denied herself in this matter-as in so many others.

But now it had occurred to her that it might be well to change her conduct. Either she felt that Sir Peregrine's friendship for her was too confirmed to be shaken, or perhaps she fancied that she might strengthen it by means of his