have a new song of my own to submit to your
judgment. Perhaps Lord Normandale is a
connoisseur ?"

"A lover only," said his lordship, "but
most anxious for information."

"It is the noblest of studies," she said, " for
it embraces and comprehends all others.
What are all studies and sciences but search
after the hidden harmonies of being? What
is astronomy but a listening for the divine
music which rings through space? To me, it
is like a new and delightful language to whose
treasures I am admitted — as sometimes is
the case with mesmeric patients. I hear
Homer in his original grandeur, thrill with
the raptures of Pindar, or mount on the
wings of inspiration with the Hebrew
prophets — all at the touch of the strings of my
poor harp! It opens out to me landscapes
among the Grecian hills; reveals to me
valleys — richer, greener, lovelier than ever
lay between the hills of Circassia — for it is
my book of landscapes, my traveller's library,
my camera obscura. We have no other. We
can afford no books, we have time for no
accomplishments.  Music supplies the want of all."

When the cloth was removed the harp was
introduced. No Italian prima donna ever
sang with such effect. It was power, it
was inspiration, it was prayer. Normandale
answered to every touch of the chords,
"How surprised I am!" he whispered. " How
delighted! Delighted by your matchless voice,
surprised by the strange contrast between
what you were on the back of Jobler, or
presiding at the kitchen fire, and what I see you
now — the queen of dignity and song, the
priestess of intellect and passion."

"There are strange inconsistencies in human
character," she said. "In yourself, for instance,
the artificial rank makes you altogether ignorant
of what you really are. The baron's
robe hides the breast of the wearer; there
may be a heart beneath it — there may be
nothing but selfishness and pride."

"I think — I know — I feel — there is a heart,"
said Normandale, his cheek flushing and his
eyes on fire; " last of all the world should
you be, Miss Winterton, to doubt that a heart
is here." He blushed for what he had said;
it was too open a declaration.

"Do you think of leaving us to-morrow, or
will you have your trunks unpacked and take
possession of our spare room?" inquired
Frederick, with a malicious smile.

"Oh, my friend, let me stay with you as
long as I can! It does me good; it elevates,
refines, instructs me."

So, he took possession of the room; and
great was the surprise of his retainers at
home, great the anxiety of his uncle, the
Marquis of Bartondyke, when, after a silence
of more than two years, a letter reached both
establishments, dated from Cairo, to say that
Lord Normandale had resided there for some
time, and was now at the point of death. A
confidential servant was despatched to Egypt;
he arrived barely in time to receive the last
breath of the English nobleman, who strongly
struggled to say something which death
interrupted before the sentence could be finished.
" My boy," he said, " Farmer Cookson's —
Frederick knows all — my wife — my wife — "

Now, who do you think was the boy? Who
do you think was the wife? Why, the boy was
the stubborn, immovable personage I
described to you at the beginning. It was
Bertram de Normandale. The marriage between
Effie Winterton and the enraptured noble had
been private — unknown even to the
accomplished Frederick. The poor girl had died
shortly after giving birth to her son, leaving
him in charge of her friends the Cooksons of
Yellowleas farm, with a sum settled on them
by Lord Normandale of five hundred a year
while he lived, without being reclaimed by
his parents, or having the secret of his birth
revealed. Here was my task: I had to ferret
out evidence; I had to trace the lives of all
the Cooksons from their earliest days; I had
to discover a mole on the left shoulder of the
unfortunate infant; I had to inquire into the
real position in life of the Reverend Rector of
Mirables; I found him out to be a younger
brother of the Marquis of Bartondyke, who
had retired into solitude and priest's orders,
when he was disappointed in love; I had to
go into Doctors' Commons, into the Registration
Courts of all the Bishops, into Chancery ; I
had to hold endless consultations with lawyers
and pickpockets, and policemen, and
genealogists; and at last I succeeded in all my
attempts. Bertram do Normandale is acknowledged
legitimate heir of his noble father, and
next in succession to the finest estates in
England.

And yet — would you believe it? — the
wretch is ungrateful, dull, phlegmatic,
unimpressible; and wholly unmanageable after all!
After all this! I can't get him to do a single
thing to reward me for all my pains. I don't
know what to do with him — whether to send
him to Oxford or Cambridge — whether to
make him fall in love with a countess in her
own right, or with a tinker's daughter. He
shall of course fight a duel, and travel into
Italy; but when to do it, when to start for
Ostend, whom to fight with, and why to
fight — all is utterly at a stand still, because
he is so ridiculously slow; so preposterously
and asininely obstinate. He won't
go anywhere or do anything. I can not get
the donkey to stir!

In fact, I am stuck in the beginning of
my second volume, and am bound to spread
this blockhead's adventures over three. In
the mean time the following advertisement
concerning this Beast, is perpetually staring
at me out of all manner of periodicals:

"Early in the year will be published, The
Hope of the Bartondykes, an Historical
Novel, in Three Volumes. Truth is
sometimes stranger than fiction."