from
the chase, discovered his wife with an officer, one of his guests, in
too familiar a friendship. High words followed, and the indignant
husband, provoked by the cool manner in which the officer treated the
matter, struck him, whereupon the guilty lover drew his sword and
drove it through the squire's heart, the faithless wife and her
paramour afterwards making their escape.

Some years afterwards, runs the tale, the Squire's daughter, who had
been left behind in the hasty departure, having grown to womanhood,
was affianced to a youthful farmer of the neighbourhood. But on their
bridal eve, as they were sitting together talking over the new life
they were about to enter, "a carriage, black and sombre as a hearse,
with closely drawn curtains, and attended by servants clad in sable
liveries, drew up to the door." The young girl was seized by masked
men, carried off in the carriage to her unnatural mother, while her
betrothed was stabbed as he vainly endeavoured to rescue her. A grave
is pointed out in the cemetery at Namur, as that in which was laid the
body of the unhappy girl, poisoned, it is alleged, by her unscrupulous
and wicked mother. It is not surprising, we are told, that the
locality was supposed to be haunted by the wretched woman--both as
wife and mother equally criminal.

Family romance, once more, has many a dark page recording how
despairing love has ended in self-destruction. At the beginning of the
present century, a sad catastrophe befell the Shuckburghs of
Shuckburgh Hall. It appears the Bedfordshire Militia were stationed
near Upper Shuckburgh, and the officers were in the habit of visiting
the Hall, whose hospitable owner, Sir Stewkley Shuckburgh, received
them with every mark of cordiality. His daughter, then about twenty
years of age, was a young lady of no ordinary attractions, and her
fascinations soon produced their natural effect on one of the
officers, Lieutenant Sharp, who became deeply attached to her. But as
soon as Sir Stewkley became aware of this love affair, he gave it his
decided disapproval. Lieutenant Sharp was forbidden the house, and
Miss Shuckburgh resolved to smother her love in deference to her
father's wishes. It was accordingly decided between the young people
that their intimacy should cease, and that the letters which had
passed between them should be returned. An arrangement was, therefore,
made that the lady should leave the packet for Lieutenant Sharp in the
summer