ng; "why not to your own, good
Peter?"

"My honored lord," said the steward, with great humility, "it don't become
a poor serving-man like me to make a will."

"But how will you prove it?" said the earl, kindly, willing to convince
him of his error; "you must be both dead to prove it."

"Our wills," said Peter, gulping his words, "will be proved on the same
day."

His master looked round at him with great affection, and both the earl and
Emily were too much struck to say anything. Peter had, however, the
subject too much at heart to abandon it, just as he had broken the ice. He
anxiously wished for the countess's consent to the scheme, for he would
not affront her, even after he was dead.

"My lady--Miss Emmy," said Johnson, eagerly, "my plan is, if my honored
master's agreeable--to make a codicil, and give my mite to a little--Lady
Emily Denbigh."

"Oh! Peter, you and uncle Benfield are both too good," cried Emily,
laughing and blushing, as she hastened to Clara and her mother.

"Thank you, thank you," cried the delighted earl, following his wife with
his eyes, and shaking the steward cordially by the hand; "and, if no
better expedient be adopted by us, you have full permission to do as you
please with your money.

"Peter," said his master to him in a low tone, "you should never speak of
such things prematurely; now I remember when the Earl of Pendennyss, my
nephew, was first presented to me, I was struck with the delicacy and
propriety of his demeanor, and the Lady Pendennyss, my niece, too; you
never see any thing forward, or--Ah! Emmy, dear," said the old man,
tenderly interrupting himself, "you are too good to remember your old
uncle," taking one of the fine peaches she handed him from a plate.

"My lord," said Mr. Haughton to the earl, "Mrs. Ives and myself have had a
contest about the comforts of matrimony; she insists she may be quite as
happy at Bolton Parsonage as in this noble castle, and with this rich
prospect in view."

"I hope," said Francis, "you are not teaching my wife to be discontented
with her humble lot--if so, both hers and your visit will be an unhappy
one."

"It would be no easy task, if our good friend intended any such thing by
his jests," said Clara, smiling. "I know my true interests, I trust, too
well, to wish to change my fortune."

"You are right," said Pendennyss; "it is wonderful how little our
happiness depends on a temporal condition. When here, or at Lumley Castle,
su