remarking also how much her countenance had gained in softness and expression since the first day she had seen it, when it had struck her as very hard and uneducated. Leslie turned, rather expecting to find Sir John watching too, but he did not seem to see what she had been seeing, so fixed was his attention on some point in the opposite direction, and in a few minutes when Dr. Brown went on his way, Sir John said he would accompany him to the village. D'Arcy was delighted to find the coast clear, for he had been longing all the morning for that pleasant thing, "a talk" with Leslie North, though it had lately become a rare pleasure, he scarcely knew why or how. He had a plan to tell her of. There was a Scotch estate which his father had never taken any interest in, and he himself had scarcely remembered was in existence, till Sir John in their morning walk had casually mentioned that it was in great disorder, and the people sunk in discomfort and degradation.

66

Why should not I go and live there, and

improve the land and the people; it would be living to some purpose, at all events."

"That is the very thing," said Leslie, looking up with the bright glance of sincerity which gave her eyes such a charm, "You will do good to the people and to yourself, and besides, you may be part of the good leaven which is sorely required to leaven the lump of careless proprietors. You are going into Parliament soon, though, are you not?"

"My father wishes me to stand for the county, by the bye, in which Langcroft is situated but it will not be till the next dis;

solution, for Mr. Campbell has suddenly recovered his health, and does not mean to resign his seat, and I am very glad."

"So am I; a year or two of life and work in private will be a good preparation."

"The only thing is, I am afraid my father will not approve; I must talk to him about it to-morrow."

"To-day-now," said Leslie, with one of her sudden flashes ; "one never can count on the morrow, and it is time you were busy."

"I will go this instant; say God speed' to me, Leslie ! Leslie !"

She did say it, but with deep gravity, and there was no answer in the fair face and thoughtful eyes to his accent of tenderness.

He looked disappointed, and hesitated for one instant, and then went to his father's library with his higher purposes beaming bright in his eyes, and a new and manlier firmness on his fine brow.

Every power of persuasion and argument did he use with his father, who was at first quite impracticable; he could not afford to spend money on wild-goose schemes and newfangled ideas. Why could not the people go on as they had done all their lives? the rents had always been paid, and there was a respectable factor, and he supposed there must be a parish church somewhere near; why should his son go and make a factor, or a schoolmaster, or an architect, or a missionary of himself? it was all nonsense. D'Arcy's patience was fast giving way, when most opportunely Sir John Dunbar entered the

library. Lord Mordaunt never dreamed of calling him a Radical now, though he sometimes mourned over his new notions and

strange theories. On the present occasion, his practical good sense gave the subject a different aspect; he talked of the improvement of land, the good rate of interest, the increased influence in the county. There was some sense in all that, Lord Mordaunt thought; so with a groan and pathetic declaration that D'Arcy always "managed to get his own way," the affair was settled, and D'Arcy felt a real object-a new, unselfish hope springing up in his life.

CHAPTER X.

COLTON.

"Pure religion, and undefiled, before God and the Father, is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.-JAMES i. 27. "Man's world is bleak and bitter; Wherever he has trod

He spoils the tender beauty
That blossoms on the sod,
And blasts the loving heaven

Of the great good world of God.
"There strength on coward weakness
In cruel might will roll;
Beauty and joy are cankers
That eat away the soul;
And love-O God, avenge it-
The plague-spot of the whole.
"Man's world is Pain and Terror,
He found it pure and fair,
And wove in nets of sorrow
The golden summer air,
Black, hideous, cold and dreary,
Man's curse, not God's, is there.
"And yet God's world is speaking:
Man will not hear it call;
But listens where the echoes
Of his own discords fall,
Then clamours back to Heaven
That God has done it all."

"Take physic, Pomp,

Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,

That thou mayest shake the superflux to them
And show the heavens more just."

SHAKSPERE.

"Oh, fight we not within a cursed world,

Whose very air teems thick with leagued fiends?"

KINGSLEY.

"LESLIE," said Sir John Dunbar, as they

were all lingering in the breakfast-room be