nd that name you will surely leave, Philip.'

'Be it sooner or later, God grant it,' was the fervent reply.

The Countess soon after went into the house to make some arrangements for
departure, and to write a letter to her sister-in-law, with a beautiful
christening present, which she was to send by her brother's hand.

Sir Philip lingered still in the familiar grounds of Wilton, which were
dear to him from many associations. The whole place was familiar to him,
and with a strange presage of farewell, a last farewell, he trod all the
old paths between the closely-clipped yew hedges, and scarcely left a nook
or corner unvisited.

The country lying round Wilton was also familiar to him. Many a time he
had ridden to Old Sarum, and, giving his horse to his groom, had wandered
about in that city of the dead past, which with his keen poetical
imagination he peopled with those who had once lived within its walls, of
which but a few crumbling stones, turf-covered, remain. A stately church
once stood there; voices of prayer and praise rose to God, hopes and fears,
joys and sorrows, gay young life, and sorrowful old age, had in times long
since past been 'told as a tale' in the city on the hill, as now in the
city in the valley, where the spire of the new Cathedral rises skyward.

New! Only by comparison, for old and new are but relative terms after all,
and it is hard, as we stand under the vaulted roof of Salisbury Cathedral,
to let our thoughts reach back to the far-off time when the stately church
stood out as a new possession to take the place of the ruined temple, which
had once lifted its head as the centre of Old Sarum.

Sir Philip Sidney had left several of his servants at Salisbury, and, when
he had bidden the Countess good-bye, till they met again in a few days at
Penshurst, he rode back to the city, and, leaving his horse at the White
Hart, he passed under St Anne's Gateway, and crossed the close to the south
door of the Cathedral.

The bell was chiming for the evensong, and Sir Philip passed in. He was
recognised by an old verger, who, with a low bow, preceded him to the
choir.

Lady Pembroke was right when she said that her brother looked younger than
he had looked some years before.

There never was a time, perhaps, in his life, when his face had been more
attractive and his bearing more distinguished than now.

The eyes of the somewhat scanty congregation were directed to him as he
stood chanting in his