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Miles Kambert's Three Chances.

BY MARY E. PALGRAVE.

CHAPTER III.

RAYMOND.

ATIENCE had its reward, however, at last.

On the following Saturday afternoon Miles was sitting alone on a three-legged stool, on the road between the Farm and Bottom, drawing an old white horse which was drowsily nibbling at the bushes over the way, when the sound of a step made him look up, and he saw that the younger of Mrs. Selby's guests was coming down the hill towards him.

Miles had secretly been almost as much disappointed as the others at not seeing the interesting stranger sooner, but he was very shy, and, much as he had desired this moment, when it came he wished himself anywhere else.

He hastily shut his drawing-book, hoping that Master Layne had not chanced to notice it, and got up from his stool with a bow. The next moment he felt half inclined to be angry at the other boy's slight acknowledgment of his salutation, and the cool way he looked at him from head to foot. However, apparently the stranger approved of Miles's appearance, or perhaps he was only too thankful to find somebody to talk to, for he stopped and said in a condescending way-"A fine afternoon!"

"Aye," responded Miles, gruff with shyness; while he tried to keep his sketch-book out of sight. But Raymond Layne's next question was-

"Were you drawing that horse over there?" And Miles was obliged to own that he was.

"Let me see," said the young gentleman, holding out his hand for the book with a lordly air.

Miles held his sketch-book tight, and reddened with anger. He had never been used, in his lonely and independent life among the hills, to be ordered about by strangers, and this tone of command both astonished and displeased him.

On the other hand, Raymond Layne, the motherless spoilt child of a rich man, had been accustomed all his life to great deference and obedience from those beneath him in station. His father's servants were as much at his beck and call as they were at that of their rightful master, and if the boy had escaped becoming perfectly

insolent and tyrannical, it was mainly owing to the teaching and example of his good tutor, Mr. Monk, who was a gentleman in the best sense of the word. Raymond drew back his hand with a very haughty look, as much astonished and displeased that the other boy did not, as he was accustomed to expect, at once obey his desire, as our friend Miles was to hear such a peremptory request from a perfect stranger.

There was a little pause, while the two stood looking at each other with angry faces, and it seemed as if this scarcely begun acquaintanceship was to come to an end there and then, when happily young Layne's natural good sense and courtesy got the better of his rudeness, and he held out his hand again with a sudden pleasant smile and a very different gesture, saying

"Come, you might as well let me look! I am not going to laugh, I promise you."

Miles was won in a moment, and handed over his sketch-book readily, saying

"You are welcome to look at it, sir, and to laugh too, if you please."

Raymond Layne seated himself gravely on Miles's stool, and opened the little book with some curiosity, though he did not expect to get anything more than amusement out of this rustic artist's doings. What an absurd little book it was! only a very few inches square, and made of bits of paper of all sorts and thicknesses, stitched together by Margery with a stout piece of black cotton. He could hardly restrain a laugh as he opened it.

"'Tis the queerest drawing-book I ever saw!" he remarked. "You can't think much of your sketches, or you would do them in something better than this!"

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'Tis the best I could get," answered the artist, shortly.

But not many pages had been turned before Raymond's tone changed. His father was very fond of pictures, and a great patron of art. He knew every artist in London, and his beautiful house was full from top to bottom of sketches and pictures both ancient and modern. Raymond had been used to seeing pictures and to hearing them discussed, ever since he could remember, besides having been taught to draw ever since he could first hold a pencil, so that he was a better judge of drawing than many people of twice his age. The first look showed him that this boy's drawings, rough and untaught though they were, yet showed talent of no common order; and he grew warm and eager in his praise.

do," he cried, "though I have had lessons from Mr. Flaxman and Mr. Constable for ever SO long!"

A little sketch of Robin asleep on the floor, with his head pillowed on Toby's back, delighted him most of all.

"I've seen things on the walls of Somerset House not half so good as this!" he cried. "You have got the attitude so well. There's something wrong about that arm, though."

"Oh, will you show me what it is?" said Miles, eagerly. "No one has ever looked at my book before who knew anything about drawing, or could help me at all."

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"I wish you had been in my shoes, then," said young Layne, with a laugh; 'you would have been just the man for my father! He wants me to be an artist, and is doing his best to make me one-only he'll never succeed! Why, with proper teaching you'll be a famous painter in a few years' time I give you my word for it!"

"Do you really think so? Are you sure you are not laughing at me, sir?" gasped Miles, turning scarlet with surprise and delight. He was artist enough already to perceive his own failures and mistakes, but had not seen enough of other people's work to know his own excellences. There was in him enough of that humility which is a characteristic of the highest genius to keep him from ever becoming proud and self-satisfied.

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Yes, that I do; and I know my father would say the same if he could see these drawings of yours; and he is the best judge of art in all London. You must give yourself up to it, and your fortune's made when once you get a name."

"But I can't," answered Miles, who had turned the matter over in his head a thousand times, and looked at it in every possible light; "it would be years before I earned anything, you know, sir, and my father's a poor man, and I've my living to get. Who is to keep me while I am learning the trade, I should like to know?"

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That Saturday afternoon was the beginning of a great deal of happiness to Miles Lambert. Raymond began a course of drawing lessons with great zeal and eagerness, for it was an amusing change to teach instead of being taught, especially with a pupil so clever and painstaking as Miles. He turned out all the stores, too, of drawing materials, of which a very ample supply had been sent with him from London, and assured Miles, with good-humoured condescension, that he did not mean to use any of them, and that the other was welcome to them all.

I suppose there is hardly a child now, at any rate in London, who has not seen, and very likely also used, a paint-box, however small. But to our friend Miles such a thing was absolutely new. His only acquaintance, hitherto, with paints had been the earthen pots of coarse red and brown and blue down at the carpenter's shop at Welshcombe, where he had more than once got into a scrape for trying to do a picture with them on the shop door when the carpenter's back was turned. This delightful box of Master Layne's, with its rows of colours of more shades than he had ever dreamt of in earth or sky, and its fascinating brushes with their taper sticks, was perfectly new to him, and the first sight of its wonders almost took his breath away.

The glowing description he gave of it at home made his brothers and sisters so eager to see it, and led them to imagine such a marvellous thing, that when they did actually behold it, the little ones nearly cried with disappointment, and even Margery's face looked comically blank. However, when "the gentleman" drew soldiers and carriages and horses for them, and made them all colours of the rainbow by means of those funny little hard cakes, their respect for his wonderful paint-box came back again.

Those among Raymond Layne's possessions, however, which gave Miles greatest delight, were a few prints and two or three illustrated books which he had brought with him, and some water-colour drawings which his father had given him to copy.

I suppose there are few things which all children, and many grown-up people too, like better than looking at pictures, and we who all our lives have had pictures on our walls, and illustrated books and magazines to feast our eyes upon, can hardly imagine what it would be like to have none whatever, or how very dull and blank our lives would be without them. Perhaps we hardly enough realise or feel grateful for our privileges of this

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sort.

Hitherto, Miles's only picture-books had been an old illustrated Bible, full of dingy woodcuts, such as modern children would utterly despise, and a little torn and tattered book containing the "History of Goody Two-Shoes," with funny old-fashioned coloured pictures, which had belonged to his mother as a child.

These two Miles had looked at a hundred times, and tried to copy till he was tired of them, so that no one could say he had not made the most of his possessions, such as they were. Raymond's portfolio of prints, and still more, the two beautiful sketches by Turner (our greatest English landscape painter, whose name every English child ought to know and love, and whose work those of you who live in London may see almost any day you please in our National Gallery), which his father had given him on his last birthday, were such an intense delight to the country boy, that it seemed as if he would never be able to take his eyes off them.

"Oh, sir," he gasped, "I never dreamt that any one could do a thing like that! Just look at the clouds, and the light on the sails of that ship, and these foaming waves. Oh, how beautiful!"

"I wish Mr. Turner could hear how you like his picture. It has given you double the pleasure that it ever did me!"

"But then, you see, I never saw the like of it before," said Miles.

"No; and I have seen fifty such. I have been to his house again and again, and seen all his pictures and sketches. How I did hate them sometimes!" said Raymond, with a mighty yawn.

It was

Our friend Miles was not the only person benefited by this new acquaintanceship. very useful and helpful to Raymond himself. He was an odd, lonely boy, with very few friends of his own age, for he had never been thought strong enough for school, and had been educated entirely alone. He had been very little in the country, and knew nothing of country occupations and pleasures. His long illness had left him very weak and shaken in health, and the doctors had forbidden him to begin any regular work again at present. So the time hung very heavy on his hands, and Miles's cheery company, whenever he could spare it him, was just what he wanted. The occupation of helping him with his drawing was at least "something to do," and though Raymond only began it at first in an idle, desultory way, just for the fun of it, he soon got to look forward to the evening hour when Miles, having done his day's work, was at liberty to have his drawing lesson, almost as much as his pupil did.

Peeps into Westminster Abbey.

BY EVELYN L. FARRAR.

PEEP III.

FTER the death of Edward the Confessor, Westminster Abbey soon came to be regarded as the Cathedral of the nation. The scene of many a solemn ceremony and splendid pageant, the last resting-place of the great and wise in all ages, the record of the progress of art and architecture, it stands as a perpetual memorial of English history, and especially of our kings and queens. Three royal marriages, those of Henry III., Richard II., and Henry VII., have taken place in the Abbey. Sixteen English sovereigns, besides very many princes and princesses, have been buried there, and within its walls the coronation service has always been held. Every one of the royal line of England has there been crowned, from William the Conqueror, trembling with fear as the fierce shouts of his Norman soldiers and the cries of the Saxon people told of the scene of massacre outside,* to Victoria, proclaimed queen amid the loyal greetings of her loving subjects.

Look at that old wooden chair within the railings, Worn opposite to Edward the Confessor's tomb. and battered though it looks, scrawled all over with the initials of irreverent visitors, it is yet the celebrated Coronation Chair on which, when draped with velvet and cloth of gold, all the English sovereigns, since Edward I., have sat to be crowned. Our own Victoria used it at her coronation, and those present describe the scene as one never to be forgotten, when they placed the great jewelled crown on her fair young head, all the peers putting on their coronets at the same moment, and the whole assembly burst into a shout of "God save the Queen!"

Underneath the seat is the famous Stone of The Scone, brought from Scotland by Edward I. origin of this stone is unknown, though a highly improbable legend declares it to be Jacob's pillow at Bethel, brought over in early ages to Ireland, where it became the oracle of the Irish kings on the Hill of Tara. It is certainly true that on this stone the Scotch kings were crowned on the Hill

This massacre arose from the Norman soldiers mistaking the acclamations of the Saxons for cries of rebellion, and in their blind rage falling on the people and setting fire to several houses.