as his motto, he was not made of such
persevering stuff as young authors should be,
who would grow to be old ones. He had
written anew after each failure, but he had
written worse. Easily inspirited, but quite
as easily depressed, the encouragement he
met with was small, and the snubs very
many. As he waited a moment at a crossing,
to let a string of cabs go by, the gas-light lit
up his haggard face:

''Brooke, Brooke Persey," said a friendly,
well-remembered voice; "Why it is you,
surely, though you are so white and thin? Come
along with me, boy." And the good Parson
Parmer of Hilton, who had first taken him
out of the workhouse, led him with a gentle
violence into his hotel. At first, in answer to
manifold questions, Brooke enlarged upon the
effect his genius had produced, rather than
complained of its not having been recognised,
but the unaffected kindness of his benefactor
soon broke down the barriers of pride, and
swept away all deceit before it.

"I do not succeed," he said, "in the least,
and I do not now think I shall succeed, for I
have neither heart nor head to write
anything more," and before they parted, he confessed,
"I am in debt, too; and there is no
one I can call my friend in all this town."

Quietly, and as if by accident, for the good
clergyman knew the young man's character,
Sir William and his circumstances became
the topic of their talk; he told how the
kind-hearted baronet yet bewailed the estrangement
of his adopted son, that though there
was now a far distant cousin (a young lady)
at the Hall, that he missed his namesake
still; how the bedroom Brooke used to
occupy was never slept in, and the books
he had studied in were never taken down;
moreover, how old age was creeping on
apace, and that it was our duty to forget
and to forgive. Believing himself swayed
by these last reasons in particular, Brooke
leapt at this chance of reconciliation, and Mr.
Parmer promised to do all he could to bring
it about.

Within a week from that night— spent by
the young author in a flutter of hope — a new
sort of letter came to his door, with arms
upon the seal and words, if not of affection,
yet of dignified forgiveness within; within,
too, was enclosed a cheque for more than
two years' income. Alas, by the same post,
also, one of those loving notes of Constance,
urging him, not without tender complaint of
his long silence, to patience and fresh endeavours.
Brooke did not answer this last
quite directly, but came down by the coach
as soon as he had paid his bills, to Hilton.

It was early in the merry month of May
when he reached the old lodge gates, and
strode up the avenue. When the well-known
prospect once more broke on him, a
prophecy, such as that which greeted the Scotch
Thane, seemed through the clear air to
whisper, These shall be thine! At the door
stood his ancient patron, grey enough now
and bent, with a stick in his right hand,
suspiciously like a crutch, and a young
woman with hard eyes, and the haughty
Persey forehead.

"My cousin Gertrude, Brooke; you must
love one another," said the baronet,
sententiously, after having embraced the prodigal.
The young lady shook hands promptly,
though without feeling, as though at the
word of command.

It was a full week before the young man
brought himself to understand that sentence
as a matrimonial decree; but by that time
matters had gone too far to admit of any
doubt of it. The lady and he were sent out
on long walks together; were seated next one
another at table; were continually spoken of
by Sir William as his two children, whom he
hoped to see, shortly, one. Gertrude Persey
would have had no objection, notwithstanding
her pride, to have married any human being
for an adequate remuneration; but to accept
the adopted workhouse boy, seemed a bitter
degradation. She hated him, as having
supplantedher own family in the baronet's
favour. Nevertheless, she was the first of the
two to preface a remark, in one of their solitary
rambles, with "When we are married,
Brooke," &c. &c. She never by any accident
called him Persey; that being the one omission
she permitted herself to make in her
systematic observance of every whim and
prejudice of her relative.

             CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

IN the meantime, Leonard Gray, the head
master of Chiltum High School, and Constance,
his sister, dwelt in a quaint old brick
mansion that had once formed part of a royal
palace. The humorous questions he had been
wont to ask of her in past times, concerning
the bard, or the author, or the organ of
public opinion, were now heard no more.
In the evening, when the toils of the day
were over, and they sat by the firelight there
was little conversation. Night after night,
indeed, she had said nothing, but remained
with a book before her whose leaves were
never turned, or shading her face with her
hand, as though she could not bear to be
looked upon. On a sudden, and without
Brooke's name having been mentioned,
Leonard observed, drily: "He is gone back
again to Hilton, Constance."

"I knew it. I knew it must be so, poor
fellow," she answered; "I should have sent
this before." She produced from her bosom a
letter in her own hand-writing, and handed
it to her brother to read. When he had
done so, he rose quietly, kissed her on the
forehead, and said:

"Right, right, dearest!" and took the
letter with him into his own chamber. It
contained a renunciation of her claim upon
Persey's hand. "If, as I must believe," she
wrote, " this chain is beginning to gall ....