great friend of
Mrs. Martindale.'

Death to any incipient scheme of Miss Marstone; but she smiled on,
and remarked, 'A very amiable girl, and a beautiful place, is it not,
Rickworth?'

'Very pretty, a fine property,' said Arthur, talking as if in his
sleep, for he had caught Mark Gardner's voice saying something about an
oratory.

'My sister is often staying there,' proceeded the lady. 'You know Miss
Brandon's scheme of restoring the Priory?'

'I did not know that was anything more than talk.'

'I used to think so,' said Miss Marstone; 'but both she and my
sister Sarah treat it quite seriously, and Mr. Gardner is their prime
counsellor.'

Arthur started, and with difficulty refrained from laughing.

'Ah! I believe he has been a little wild, but that is all over now. He
has taken quite a different turn now, and given up everything of that
sort--throws himself into all their views.'

'Indeed!' said Arthur, who knew to his cost that if the reform had taken
place at all, it must have been of extremely recent date.

'O, yes, I assure you. He is staying with the curate, Mr. Silworth.'

'Ha! that is an old name at school.'

'Yes; he was an old schoolfellow--a very good man, to whose persuasions
everything is owing.'

She pointed him out, and the first glance was a revelation to Arthur,
who recognized him as the boy who, at school, had been the most easily
taken in. He soon understood the state of affairs. Mark, clever,
gentlemanly in appearance, and apt at catching the tone of the society
around him, was making a bold stroke--had persuaded his kind-hearted,
simple friend to believe him a sincere penitent, and to introduce him
as such to the ladies at Gothlands, from whom he caught the talk most
pleasing to them. At present it was all ecclesiastical aesthetics, and
discontent with the existing system, especially as regarded penitence;
by and by, when his hold should be secure, he would persuade the heiress
that she had been the prime instrument in his conversion, and that she
had gained his heart.

A bit of rhapsody from Miss Sarah Theresa, and poor Emma's embellished
and animated countenance, were sufficient indications that they were
smoothly gliding into the snare; and accustomed as Arthur was to see
Mark Gardner in a very different aspect, he was astonished at his
perfect performance of his part--the humility and deference befitting
the sense of his errors, and conversation so entirely at home in all
thei