Mother!' he cried, and she came into the room almost directly.

'Ah, Tom,' she said, 'I didn't know you were come back. Have you seen your letter?'

'Yes, and read it too,' said the young man.

it was from?'

'No; somebody with a very pretty crest.'

'Did you know who

'Herbert Ethelston. I knew him at college-don't you remember? Our rooms were next door to each other. What do you think he has

written to me about?'

To offer you a living?'

Tom looked at her, smiling.

'Why should it be me?' he said. 'Why not some fellow with a wife and a dozen children, or some old man who wants rest, or some popular preacher, or some great man's nephew? Why not any of those, instead of me?'

'Mr. Ethelston knows; I don't,' said his mother. Seriously, though, shall you accept it? Let me see the letter.'

She sat down in an arm-chair, and watched Tom's face, as he stood in the firelight and read it to her. But before reading it he looked at her again.

'Who told him I wanted to write a book?' he said. politics were not the same.'

'And our

'MY DEAR LANDOR,-I was glad to hear through George Browne that you had got over your illness, and had been able to take a London curacy. I should have thought, however, that country work would have suited you better than that sort of thing, but I can well believe that you would hesitate before burying yourself in a country village, such as they generally are. I am now going to propose to you something which seems to me as if it might suit you well. Our old rector, Mr. Vernon, has lately died. I have not sought far for a successor to him, as it occurred to me at once that if you would do me the favour of accepting the living of Alding, it would be an arrangement most agreeable to us, and I hope pleasant to yourself. The value of the living is 8007. a year. There is a convenient old house, a good garden, and twenty acres of glebe. The rectory is two miles from Eastmarsh, half a mile from the church, and a mile and a half from my house. We shall be very glad if you and Mrs. Landor, whom I had the pleasure of seeing once, will come down to us for a day or two, and look at the place. Come on Monday. I will meet you by any train you like. 'Yours very truly,

HERBERT ETHELSTON.'

'Who are 66 we ? Is he married,' said Mrs. Landor.

'No. He lives with his two sisters. The eldest brought him up, I believe. He always seemed to have a respect for her.

there on Monday?'

Will you go

'No, Tom, thank you. They don't want me. You can go alone. I shall make acquaintance with them by and by-that is, if you mean to accept?'

'Well, mother? Fresh air, and within a few miles of the sea.'

'Yes, and roses.' 'Books and quiet.'

Fowls and ducks.'

'A cow.'

'A greenhouse.'

'Smock-frocks.'

'Red cloaks and poke bonnets.'

'Now you are getting unreasonable,' said Tom, and fancying that the Eastern Counties and the Middle Ages mean the same thing, which they don't. But certainly there are advantages.'

'Compensations, I should call them.'

'What for?'

'For living in the same parish with the man who wrote that letter, and his sisters. They are stupid, narrow-minded people. Because I am a curate's mother, they take me for an old goody, on whom they need not waste their politeness.'

Tom laughed.

'Well, I don't know the ladies, but Ethelston was not stupid or narrow. He took a good degree, besides being a first-rate athlete and all that sort of thing, and one of the handsomest fellows you ever saw.'

'He does me the honour to pretend to remember me,' said Mrs. Landor, and I remember him. I saw him for half a minute once at Paddington. A monster, with fair hair.'

'One of the finest fellows in the university,' said Tom. 'But it depends on you. Shall I go, or not?'

'Go! Of course, by all means,' said his mother. Isn't it what we have both been longing for, and in my heart I'm as grateful to Mr. Ethelston as you are. He doesn't say how many people there are, in that business-like letter of his, but I suppose all country parishes are much the same, and you are sure to be able to manage them by yourself, from the very slowness of their ways. He says nothing about a

curate.'

'I couldn't have a curate,' said Tom, in some consternation. His mother smiled.

'If he is necessary, I must manage him for you,' she said. Then she took Herbert Ethelston's letter and read it over again to herself. It crossed Tom's mind, as he watched her, that it would be a misfortune if Miss Ethelston was a lady fond of patronising. However, she would soon find out that his mother was not a subject for it.

Mrs. Landor was a person who could not be easily overlooked, in whatever society she happened to be found. She had married very young, and was only eighteen years older than her son, who was now about twenty-seven. She was a tall woman, with thick bright brown hair on which a cap seemed out of place, a clear, rosy complexion, pretty features, and fine dark blue eyes, with black lashes, unusually long and thick. She generally looked grave, and had a slightly offhand manner, which surprised people. One of the most charming

things about her was her voice, always musical and sweet, even when she raised it, as she sometimes did, to express opinions with her usual frank decision. On these occasions a very slight Irish accent was perceptible. She also moved her hands about, when she was speaking, more than Englishwomen generally do; but she was not in any way an Englishwoman. Her father was Irish, and her mother French; she had only connected herself with England by marrying Captain Landor, who had died years ago, leaving her with one boy, Tom. Some of Captain Landor's friends felt rather anxious about the future of this boy, having only known his mother as a gay young beauty, whose strength of character had been chiefly shown in the eagerness and spirit with which she amused herself. The very frankness of her nature, which at that time was mixed with thoughtlessness, made her some enemies. They said she was fast, and that she flirted. But her friends who knew her best laughed at these accusations, which, indeed, took their rise from two things in Mrs. Landor's history -her being very fond of animals and a good and fearless horsewomanand her liking and being liked by clever, agreeable men. For some reason, at any rate, the steadiest of Captain Landor's brother officers, with their wives, disapproved of little Tom's mother, and bestowed a great deal of pity on him. Tom had always been a delicate child, and they pictured him neglected and left to the care of servants, while his mother went out to parties, and amused herself with her equally careless friends.

Of course she will marry again directly,' they said. 'Poor Landor! and he was so fond of her.'

This last fact, which everybody confessed, might at least have made them suspect that they were wrong about Bessie Landor's character. Her husband had been a quiet, shy sort of man, and to both him and little Tom she was the very sunshine of life. It was not in any spirit of deep repentance that after her husband's death she gave up all her former amusements, never wishing to return to them. It was only because she did not care for them any more; her energies were suddenly turned into another channel. With very faint regrets, except those that connected them with her former life, she sold her horses and dogs, and bent all the love and strength of her nature to make happiness for the one creature left to her, little, nervous, delicate Tom.

He was a difficult child to bring up successfully, being odd and excitable, and in many parts of his character, such as his sudden, wild enthusiasms, more like a girl than a boy. He was very clever, and learning was no trouble to him, though he seldom worked hard, except at those things, such as languages, for which he had a special fancy. He never went to school, but was taught by his mother till he went to a tutor, and from him to college. There he was very happy, worked harder than most men for three years, took a first-class, and was

ordained. He had always meant to be a clergyman, partly because he liked the study of human beings, but now that he had reached his end, his overtaxed strength suddenly gave way, and the doctors said that Tom Landor would have died, a few months after his ordination, if it had not been for his mother's wonderful nursing. As soon as he was well enough to travel, she took him to the south of France, and they lived at Cannes for about three years, making long excursions now and then into Italy, and waiting patiently for the time-perhaps Tom longed for it more than his mother did when he would be strong enough to go back to the land of work, and take his place in the ranks with other men. At last that time came, and his experience in a London curacy now brought to a sudden and not unpleasant end by Herbert Ethelston's letter.

CHAPTER II.

THE HOUSE OF ETHELSTON.

'Where is the maiden of mortal strain
That may match with the Baron of Triermain?
She must be lovely, and constant, and kind,
Holy and pure, and humble of mind,
Blithe of cheer, and gentle of mood,

Courteous, and generous, and noble of blood . . .
Such must her form be, her mood, and her strain,
That shall match with Sir Roland of Triermain !'

WHEN Monday afternoon arrived, Mr. Ethelston was not quite so ready to go and meet his friend Tom Landor at the station. Some neighbours had walked in to luncheon at Alding Place, and since then the young men had been teaching the ladies to play billiards. Herbert had devoted himself exclusively to the girl he admired most, who did not even know how to hold her cue. It began to rain at two o'clock, and persevered in a steady downpour.

'Why can't you send the brougham for Mr. Landor? What is the use of going yourself when you have plenty to do at home?' said the younger Miss Ethelston aside to her brother.

'The brougham is going, because the fellow might catch cold, but I'm going in it,' replied Herbert. "I told him I would meet him myself. It happens to be a bore, but that is no reason

'Conscientious!' said his sister, half to herself and half to their friend James Harvey, who was standing close to her.

'Herbert's weak point,' said he, smiling.

The elder Miss Ethelston came up and joined the group at this moment, a tall, fair, grey-eyed woman of seven or eight and thirty, distinguished in looks and manners, though without her brother's personal beauty.

'You are going, Herbert?' she said. 'I have been telling Miss Lydiard that if they will stay till you come back we shall be so glad

to send them home.'

'Of course.

I thought of it too,' said Herbert, and he walked off to press the invitation.

'It may amuse them to see the little parson; new faces are rare in these parts,' said the younger sister.

'It is a pity

Miss Ethelston looked at her earnestly for a moment. to make a laughing-stock of him before he comes,' she said.

'Don't be angry with us; it is Herbert's fault,' said James Harvey. 'He drew such a vivid picture of Landor reading for his degree, with strong coffee at his elbow and wet cloths round his head, scarlet cheeks, dark circles round his eyes, &c. Then the grand scene of victory— exhausted hero carried off the field by his mother, to recruit for long years on the shore of a balmy sea. We were affected to tears. But when we heard he was coming here as rector, the reaction of our overstrained nerves was such that we laughed.'

Miss Ethelston listened graciously, with a slight, indulgent smile. She was never angry with James Harvey, a privileged person there. Then she looked out of the window and sighed.

'Poor man!' she said. 'No one will ever make up to us for the loss of Mr. Vernon.'

Why do you have such a whippersnapper, with no experience?' said James Harvey.

'It was Herbert's wish,' said Miss Ethelston. Gertrude and I, no doubt, would have preferred an older man.'

'I should think so!' said Gertrude. Fancy being teased by a curate! He will turn the parish upside down.'

'Still, a man of that sort would not be Herbert's friend,' said her sister.

Herbert was standing at the other end of the billiard-table, persuading the three visitors to wait for his return. Two of them stood a little apart—a small, dark, sunburnt young man, and a small girl like a pretty china doll-more interested in each other than in him. And yet Herbert Ethelston was not at all a person to be despised. Tom Landor had not said a word too much of his good looks. He was a fine, noble-looking fellow, fair, with straight, handsome features, and the figure of an athlete. People who cared for expression might have said that his face was too quiet and set, too much the conventional handsome Englishman who finds most things a bore, reads nothing but the Times and the Field, and is given to a sort of solid magnificent dandyism belonging to him alone-a man whose grandest qualities lie dormant, until, if he is fortunately in the army, he finds himself in front of the enemy's guns. But Herbert Ethelston was not in the army, and had never been known to complain of his lot. And it was a very pleasant onea country gentleman with a fine house and estate, a large fortune, and