weary of seeing the one and hearing the other.
Hastings was assuredly in one of those fits of
ill-temper in which, it seems, she only indulges
nine times in the course of each revolving
year.

But she is a beauty for all that, and none the
less so for being in a pet now and then, as it is
the lofty privilege of beauties to be. She has
the mingled charms of sea-side and woody inland
—of beach and cliff, of rock and glen, of field
and grove, of hill and dale. Ancient castles and
churches, ruined abbeys, dismantled priories,
and venerable ancestral seats, sprinkle the
surrounding land, and make it teem with ever-living
interest. A submarine forest, overwhelmed for
centuries, lies off the beach, the trees just
visible at low water, and nuts and branches from
some of them lying on the sands when the tide
is out. Caves of sandstone, supported on pillars,
wind through the cliffs. A score of lovely spots
with pretty or quaint names— Lovers' Seat,
Dripping Well, Fairlight Glen, the Old Roar,
&c.—lie round about the town; and Lovers'
Seat has a story attached to it, which is a good
story, whether true or false, and it is generally
held to be true. The heroine was a Miss Boys,
of Rye, who was beloved by the gallant Captain
Lamb, of the revenue cutter Stag. The old
Boys (or, to speak more correctly, Boyses—
that is to say, the damsel's father and mother)
disapproved of the match, and removed their
daughter to a lonely farm-house, the Warren;
but she, of course, contrived to slip out at
times, and would come at night to a woody spot
on the summit of a high cliff, and, like another
Hero, hold forth a light to Leander, who was
cruising about off shore in his cutter. Very
naughty of Miss Boys, no doubt, and highly
reprehensible, sir, in Captain Lamb; yet, as
long as " sex dividual" shall last, the sympathies
of most men and women will be on the side of
such adventures; and it is of this stuff that
poems are made, and ballads that come to us
with a living touch out of the waste of ages.
We may be sure the captain kept his weather
eye open towards that cliff, more sharply than
ever he kept it open for the running of contrabands
into creek or cave. And we may be
equally sure that every man on board the cutter
was heart and soul with the captain as his vessel
crept along those darkling waters, with no other
sound than the strain of the sail upon the mast,
and wash of the long waves, waiting for the glimmer
of Hero's light upon the headlands. Nay, so
much were they concerned in their commander's
success, that when at length he and the young
lady managed to get one day to Hollington
Church to be married, they posted themselves
as guards up and down the sylvan paths and
dingles of a thick wood in the midst of which
the church is placed, that they might be ready
to repel any rescue, should it be attempted. It
was not attempted, and the lovers were duly
spliced, and the old folks had the good sense to
forgive and forget, and they all—it is not so
stated in the local histories, but I will have it so
—they all lived happy ever after. Is not this
enough to make Hastings the chosen spot of
young lovers in want of sea air, as long as the
generation lasts?

THE CARDINAL'S WALKING-STICK.

"WHY— West? old fellow? West!"

"Crooke, my boy!"

We stood silent for a few seconds, holding
each other's hands, in the first surprise of the
unexpected meeting. And as we thus stood, the
strange foreign street, the tall white Roman
houses, balconied and terraced, vanished like
dissolving views, and before our eyes rose Magdalen
College, Oxford, and the images of two beardless
undergraduates in cap and gown. At least, I can
answer for myself. Crooke and I had been fast
friends and college chums, long ago, and I forgot,
in the pleasure of seeing my companion of well-
remembered days, how different were the paths
which we now trod. Then gradually came back
to me what had passed, and how our correspondence
had languished first and finally dropped,
until we who had been so intimate had wholly lost
sight of each other. I cast a glance at Crooke's
garb, that of an ecclesiastic of the Church of
Rome, and could not help sighing.

"You are still an Anglican, I see? Have
you been busy all this time with that curacy in
the north— at Leeds or Halifax, wasn't it?—or
have you a fat benefice from some lucky turn of
the wheel of fortune?" asked my old acquaintance,
in a tone that I hardly liked. Probably
he had seen my involuntary start when I caught
sight of the habit he wore—a trim black soutane
and hat of moderate brim, not like the portentous
Dom Basilio headgear usually assumed by
priests of Italian birth. Hastily I recalled to
mind how Crooke had given up his fellowship,
and a fair prospect of preferment, from
conscientious motives; how he had incurred slights
and aversion on the part of his friends; had
been the cause of grief and anger in his own
family; and, finally, how I had vaguely heard
of his working with all the enthusiasm of a
neophyte somewhere in London, until a
newspaper paragraph announced that the Rev. Titus
Crooke, ex-prizeman at Oxford, and Fellow of
Magdalen, had gone abroad. From that time
forth I had wholly lost sight of him.

I suppose my old chum saw that I was ruffled
by his somewhat flippant remark, for he passed
his arm through mine, saying very gently that
he begged my pardon if he had annoyed me; but
that I must be lenient with a poor fellow whom
many of his countrymen and countrywomen,
kind-hearted enough at other times, chose to
condemn unheard. He did not think me narrow-
minded or uncharitable enough to treat him
thus. The path he had chosen, from no selfish
motives, was sometimes a very stony one, and
he did not mind confessing that it had often
happened that the coldness or repugnance of
old friends had cut him to the soul.

What on earth was I to do? My heart
softened towards my old companion in his