perfectly happy and proud, and unconscious of fault or failing; prefacing his glass of wine after dinner with "Here's to you, Sir Oswald!" and then looking at me with eyes full of tears, and murmuring, "To think of my child being My Lady!"

I left the table as soon as I could, mortified that what my husband had intended as a pleasure to me, should have made him so miserably uncomfortable, and ashamed of myself for being ashamed of my dear father. If I had had the self-command I ought to have had, I could have turned off with smile or jest what became a serious trial. In the evening, when we were alone, he overwhelmed me with questions that at first I had often asked myself, but which now seemed childish to me. He hoped I said my prayers regularly he had heard that fine ladies often forgot to pray—was the chain round my neck real gold-and were the bright rings on my fingers diamonds? To think of his child wearing diamond rings! He did not, he said, "want to seem proud," and wished to shake hands with Grenard; but Grenard would not, and with a bow reminded him he was "My Lady's father." I told him that Grenard was rightpoor father! I showed him Sir Oswald's gifts, and he was delighted; he said the Mansfelds had left the country immediately after our marriage, and there were many wild reports, but that the burning of Master Giles' mill had made the people think of something else! He led me to inquire about our former neighbours. At that moment my maid entered. My father rose, made her a bow, and offered her a chair. How cruelly angry I was at his courtesy. When she was gone he expressed his astonishment, that, brought up as I was, I should require a maid,-I used to do every thing for myself so nicely. Was she not in my way, and was I not ashamed to trouble her? How did I know what to do with a maid? and quite a young lady she looked!

I reminded him, perhaps sharply, that I was Lady Oswald now, and that of course my habits were changed. My father had a way of muttering his thoughts. He whispered, "So-so-yes-it is-I only hope she will be happy-yes-she must be changed, of course-the bramble bears roses when grafted—ay, in a year; but it takes longer for the rose to go back to the bramble; I am feeling very queer, as if I had lost my child,-and that that is a changeling." My poor father!

The next morning I took courage, and spoke to my husband. "I think, Sir Oswald, that, perhaps, I had better dine alone with my father to-day, at two o'clock; I can dine again with you at six?"

"Thank you, Mildred; I daresay that will be better, he will be more happy."

"And so shall I,”—and thus I paused. I longed to thank him for the annuity he had settled on my father, it was more in accordance with his liberality than my father's wants; but as usual, I trembled when I should have talked. He had also given him a beautiful little cottage, close to the old Hall, not thinking of sufficient importance that which he had

so long inhabited. I lingered round his library-table, waiting to be questioned; he was leaning back in his easy chair, still looking pale and worn-" Anything else, Mildred ?"

I flung myself on my knees beside him. "I want to thank you, Sir Oswald, for your goodness to my father,—I wish I might tell you all that passes in my heart." I sobbed heavily.

"There Mildred, poor little heart! I know what passes in it as well as if you told me, better perhaps, at least I might have thought so once: thought that I was a correct heart-reader! They say men are fools on many subjects, but that every woman is a fool on one. deserve you should be a fool for my sake on that one,

Mildred, I do not

and yet I like it. I do not know now how I should do without my little Mildred's love: but do not thank me, child-you have no cause for gratitude."

I said I had. He shook his head mournfully, and pushed back my hair, gazing in my face-" We shall do better when we go abroad. I heard you singing a Church psalm last Sunday evening, and have discovered that you have a rich, full voice: you shall have the best masters, and cultivate it." What a rush of delight that gave me! "You have a clear and welltoned instrument," he continued, after one of those listless pauses when he seemed forgetful of his words. "Yes, truly, and an ear as correct as a nightingale's,-it must be well cultivated."

Mary, I tell you of these gleams of sunshine. Any kind word from him was like a current of electricity, filling me with renovated life. I do believe in after-times he was proud of my singing-it was greatly admired; and when once I had acquired confidence, I threw my whole soul into my song; then he, too, admired, and as I have said, was proud of it. But it never touched him, never warmed him towards me: my idol was still marble; of course, I never let him hear me practise; the only fine ear that can endure that is a mother's. But I do not desire to anticipate. I saw, despite my father's wish to enjoy every thing, that after the first day's excitement he was ill at ease; I tried to be to him exactly what I had been, but it was impossible,-no one is unchanged by circumstances. Lady Oswald was no longer Mildred Kennett, and James Kennett the schoolmaster felt he was not the fitting father of Lady Oswald. I tried to believe I was sorry when the third day came, and I should not see my father again for more than a year. I wept, but it was at the discovery that my whole life and spirit, heart-thought, all-all that belonged to earth and heaven, was absorbed by my one idol. I knew it was idolatry, but that idolatry was my life! I heaped kindnesses and attentions, and presents on my father, and sent presents to my old neighbours,-for my husband was very generous. To atone for this torpidity of the first affection that stirs in the innocent bosom of a child, I tried to convince myself, that when he returned "home," he would be so happy in his new dwelling. About an hour before his departure, he asked me to give him some minutes quite alone? He passed into my dressing-room, and took my hand within his. "I

hope," he said, "it may not seem ungrateful; but, Mildred, do you not feel how hard it will be for me, a lone old man, as I am, to leave my cottage for a house that has no memories? I have come to that time of life when the mind's food is memory. You, my child, are lifted so far above me, that for the future, you, my own darling, can only be to me a memory. Oh, dear Mildred, ask Sir Oswald if I may not remain in my old home, where I brought your mother a fair young bride-ay, fairer than you are now; where you were born; where she died; and where my good mother died ?"

"Sad memories, dear father."

"No, child, not sad, but peace-giving; those who moulder in the churchyard have left their spirits round me; there is only one memory that comes in sable, and that too, please God, will yet come all in light. Let me remain at the old home. I will put up a new porch, and get a gardener once a week to set the garden straight-never work in it myself, except to train a rose or so, only perhaps a little in the twilight, when no one can see me,—and I will keep a servant-but let me die where I have lived."

My heart was hard. I thought "What will my husband think?" I did not like the poor wayside cottage to be pointed at as the residence of Sir Oswald Harvey's father-in-law !

"There is not such another mulberry-tree in the whole country," persisted the old man; "and your robins come there just as they used when you worked under its shadow, and I feed them,-what would they do if I were gone, and a stranger in the cottage who kept a cat?"

I went to Sir Oswald, and told him.

"But

"It is so natural," he exclaimed. "I love him the more for the love he bears his cottage. He shall have both, and live where he likes." You see how superior Sir Oswald was to me,-how high above all littleness. My father was delighted; yet I saw there was something more. you went away so quickly, Mildred: I have been so used to teaching!" My pride rose, for I felt my cheek flush, and my father saw it. "Not so, Mildred; I am, as you know, placed above all want, save a want that wealth cannot supply,-the want of employment. There are two of my little lads so clever, and their parents--you know them-poor. I should like them to go on with their schooling, not for money of course, only just for kindness. Think of me, who, in dark hours, when my eyesight threatened to fail, used to see [in a low whisper] the workhouse rise before me,-what better than I have come too!-now being able to do so much for charity! It would not annoy you, dear, my finishing the education of the two little lads! I shall make the school-room a Library, with a painted window in it, and carpet the floor, and paper the walls; and if you like it better, I shall call the boys my little friends— only two, just to keep me from fretting-yes, my two little friends who read to me to keep me from fretting!"