loose about the town'. 'Gad, I have never had a moment's ill
health, except from a fall now and then. I feel as if I should live for
ever, and that's the reason why I could never make a will."

"Have you never, then, made your will?"

"Never as yet. Faith, till now, I had little enough to leave. But now
that all this great Beaufort property is at my own disposal, I must
think of Kate's jointure. By Jove! now I speak of it, I will ride
to----to-morrow, and consult the lawyer there both about the will and
the marriage. You will stay for the wedding?"

"Why, I must go into ------shire to-morrow evening, to place Arthur with
his tutor. But I'll return for the wedding, if you particularly wish it:
only Mrs. Beaufort is a woman of very strict--"

"I--do particularly wish it," interrupted Philip, gravely; "for I
desire, for Catherine's sake, that you, my sole surviving relation, may
not seem to withhold your countenance from an act of justice to her.
And as for your wife, I fancy L1500. a year would reconcile her to my
marrying out of the Penitentiary."

Mr. Robert bowed his head, coughed huskily, and said, "I appreciate your
generous affection, Philip."

The next morning, while the elder parties were still over the
breakfast-table, the younger people were in the grounds it was a lovely
day, one of the last of the luxuriant August--and Arthur, as he looked
round, thought he had never seen a more beautiful place. It was, indeed,
just the spot to captivate a youthful and susceptible fancy. The village
of Fernside, though in one of the counties adjoining Middlesex, and as
near to London as the owner's passionate pursuits of the field would
permit, was yet as rural and sequestered as if a hundred miles distant
from the smoke of the huge city. Though the dwelling was called a
cottage, Philip had enlarged the original modest building into a villa
of some pretensions. On either side a graceful and well-proportioned
portico stretched verandahs, covered with roses and clematis; to the
right extended a range of costly conservatories, terminating in vistas
of trellis-work which formed those elegant alleys called rosaries, and
served to screen the more useful gardens from view. The lawn, smooth and
even, was studded with American plants and shrubs in flower, and bounded
on one side by a small lake, on the opposite bank of which limes and
cedars threw their shadows over the clear waves. On the other side a
light fence separated the g