there had been some late intelligence of
Frederick, unknown to her mother, which was
making her father anxious and uneasy. Mrs.
Hale did not seem to perceive any alteration
in her husband's looks or ways. His spirits
were always tender and gentle, readily affected
by any small piece of intelligence concerning
the welfare of others. He would be depressed
for many days after witnessing a death-bed,
or hearing of any crime. But now Margaret
noticed an absence of mind, as if his thoughts
were pre-occupied by some subject, the oppression
of which could not be relieved by any
daily action, such as comforting the survivors,
or teaching at the school in hope of lessening
the evils in the generation to come. Mr.
Hale did not go out among his parishioners
as much as usual; he was more shut up in his
study; was anxious for the village postman,
whose summons to the household was a rap
on the back-kitchen window shutter—a signal
which at one time had often to be repeated
before any one was sufficiently alive to the
hour of the day to understand what it was,
and attend to him. Now Mr. Hale loitered
about the garden if the morning was fine
and if not, stood dreamily by the study
window until the postman had called, or gone
down the lane, giving a half-respectful, half-
confidential shake of the head to the parson,
who watched him away beyond the sweet-
briar hedge, and past the great arbutus before
he turned into the room to begin his day's
work, with all the signs of a heavy heart and an
occupied mind.

But Margaret was at an age when any
apprehension not absolutely based on a
knowledge of facts is easily banished for a time by
a bright sunny day, or some happy outward
circumstance. And when the brilliant
fourteen fine days of October came on, her cares
were all blown away as lightly as thistle-
down, and she thought of nothing but the
glories of the forest. The fern-harvest was
over; and now that the rain was gone, many
a deep glade was accessible, into which
Margaret had only peeped in July and August
weather. She had learnt drawing with
Edith; and she had sufficiently regretted,
during the gloom of the bad weather, her
idle revelling in the beauty of the woodlands
while it had yet been fine, to make her
determined to sketch what she could before
winter fairly set in. Accordingly, she was
busy preparing her board one morning, when
Sarah, the housemaid, threw wide open the
drawing-room door, and announced, "Mr.
Henry Lennox."

TWENTY MILES.

HE who travels frequently, sometimes on
foot, always humbly, seldom unobservantly,
has other and better opportunities, it appears
to me, of forming a just notion of the countries
he passes through than Mr. Assistant
Commissioner Mac Collum, of the Inner Temple,
Barrister at Law, who scours through the
land in a first class coupé of an express train;
holds his commission in the best sitting room
of the best hotel; and, after drawing his
three or five guineas a day, scours back again,
serves up an elaborate report to my Lords,
and is in due course of time rewarded for his
arduous services by being made Puisne Judge
of Barataria, or Lieutenant Governor of the
Larboard Islands.

It is astonishing how little a man may see
while travelling, if he will only take the
trouble to shut the eyes of his mind. The
Sir Charles Coldstreams who go up to the
top of Vesuvius and see nothing in it; who
in their ideas of Grand Cairo do not
condescend to comprise the pyramids, but confine
themselves to complaining of the bugs and
fleas at the hotel; who have no recollections
of Venice, save that there was no pale ale to
be got there; are not so uncommon a class as
you may imagine. It is not always necessary
for a man to be used-up, to visit a country,
and see nothing in it; nay, that noble lord is
not quite a rara avis, who, having just
returned from the East, and being asked at a
dinner-party "what he thought of Athens?"
turned to his valet, standing behind his chair,
and calmly demanded, "John, what did I think
of Athens?"

It was once the lot of your humble servant
to travel twenty miles by railway, and in the
depth of winter, in company with one single
traveller. The scenery through which they
were passing was among the most beautiful
in the world; and in its wintry garb was so
exquisitely beautiful, that it might have
moved even the taciturn Mr. Short, in
Captain Marryat's Snarley-yow, to grow
eloqueut upon it. But your servant's companion,
a hard-featured man in a railway rug, was a
dumb dog, and made no sign. In vain did your
servant try him upon almost every imaginable
subject of conversation the weather,
the country, politics, the speed of the train,
the ambiguities of Bradshaw, the electric
telegraph, the number of stations, and the
prevalence of influenza. He was mum. He
could scarcely be silently observing and
commenting upon the works of Nature in the
landscape without, or of art in your
servant's dress within, for he never looked out of
the window, and kept his eyes (staringly wide
awake they were) upon one particular check
of the railway rug. He could scarcely have
been a philosopher, looking, as he did, like a
tub, without a Diogenes in it; and unless he
was speculating upon the development of
textile fabrics, or counting the number of
pulsations of the engine to himself (I did once
travel from Liverpool to London, two
hundred and twenty miles, with a gentleman
whose sole occupation was in checking off the
number of telegraph posts, but who, getting
confused between them and a white paling,
lost count at Tring in Hertfordshire, and
relapsed into absolute silence) his mind must