say her presence still haunts old Bradgate
Hall.

I might go on to Kerby from this place,
but that I hoard my pleasures; much as a
hungry and hardworking bee, who having
found some bell-flower exceeding sweet,
lurks within it for half a summer's day,
murmuring delight, and swung to sleep
by the drowsy wind. I grudge the swift
winged hours that bring the night upon
these holidays of mine, and make the very
most of every joy; no sense of happiness
escapes me, not a single drop of dew which
evening shakes from her dark wing to recompense
me, nor the cool fresh feel of a footstep
dragged through the dewy grass. And when
at last I catch sight of the tall Coketown
chimneys, and hear the roar which I must
help to swell, the next day and the next for
three long weeks, I whisper to myself, "there
is Kerby Castle still—to come."

This is by no means so grand a place as
Bradgate, but I seem to love it quite as well.
The great gateway and two of its other towers
are all that remain of it, and it has no park.
Some cattle-sprinkled fields, much fine old
hedgerow timber, the spires of village
churches, a winding brook, and far, far off, a
range of wooded hills,—that is all the view
from Kerby-tower upon the brightest day;
but it is enough; dewy pastures, dewy fields,
a haunt of ancient peace,—the poet who drew
that picture might have drawn it from this
very spot. A fair woman of the olden time
lived here also, and she was a Jane likewise,
but not a Lady Jane. They pretend that in
yonder tower was her room; here she was
feasted, and loved too after her wanton
manner. Nay, but amongst that wicked
court, she was the least to blame perhaps of
all. It was the king himself who ruined her.
She was never cruel, never base; she alone
of all the venal crowd about him took no
bribe, used all her power for good, pleaded
for the poor, prayed pardon for the erring.
I know no name for all the sin which clings
to it, which shines more brightly out from
that dark time than hers; not her royal
seducer's, nor her second lover's, the Lord
Hastings, who dwelt in this very castle;
nor, still less, that of her foul foe who reigned
afterwards, the murderer Richard. Perhaps
King Edward may himself have come to
Kerby to see his favourite, and perhaps that
Humpback also, not as yet venturing to
flicker with his serpent tongue; certainly,
Hastings and she were here. Did she weary
amongst these pleasant scenes, I wonder, or
were they balm to her, reminding that poor
misused heart of earliest days, when she had
innocent dreams before they wedded her, so
unwilling, to the rich trader? Or did they
drive her, rather, to think of the deep moat
that skirts these walls, deeming it sweet to
die? Did any hideous dream befall her here
of a great throng, of a whole staring city,
poured out to see her tread the streets
barefoot, shameful, to do public penance? A
dream of misery, starvation, and forty years
of wandering out of doors, forgotten, hideous,
old? And did she wake up, with these
Kerby pasture-land and fair home scenes in
sight, assuring her that this was but a dream?
I trust, that somewhere, long ago, the Jane
I speak of, and the pure spirit who had as
fair a fleshly home as she, the Lady Jane,
have met in blessedness. So different, I still
think of them together, and pity equally the
great reverse and long, long pain of her of
Kerby Castle, and the cruel but speedy end
of her of Bradgate Hall.

TWENTY SHILLINGS IN THE
                  POUND.

THE firm of Petty, Larceny and Co., the
great haberdashers, is a monument of remarkable
trading skill. It has been established
more than a century. Old Petty retired
with a colossal fortune, and young Petty, the
old Petty of the present firm, was member
of Parliament for a cotton district. Some of
the Larcenies have been at the bar, and one
is a very high dignitary in the Church, while
he who stands in the place of the old original
Larceny, and manages the business, has the
reputation of being one of the smartest
traders in the City of London. The first
stone of their prosperity was laid by the
purchase of job-lots, or goods sold at a sacrifice.
They found a mine of wealth under
their feet, and they did not neglect to work
it. They got a double reputation: one for
always being ready with cash for goods to
any extent, the other for always selling goods
thirty per cent under the market-price.
They always paid twenty shillings in the
pound, but it was for forty shillings' worth
of goods, and that, my simple friend, is a
very diiferent thing from buying forty
shillings' worth of goods, and paying twenty
shillings for them. In the first instance,
you are a keen trader, buying at a discount
of fifty per cent; in the second, you are a
worthless, broken scamp, paying ten
shillings in the pound. You, who possess a
mathematical head, cannot probably find
much difference in the two things, but act
upon your conviction, and see the result.
You, as the payer of the despised ten
shillings in the pound, the payer of one
pound for two, shall enter one of our palatial
receptacles of merchandise in company
with Mr. Larceny, the payer of twenty
shillings in the pound, the buyer of two
pounds for one. Not an assistant in the
place, not a head of a department, but what
will be at once at the humble service of
Mr. Larceny, ready to throw at his feet
the rich cashmeres of India, the soft sables
of the North, the costly fabrics of the
South, perfumes of Araby the blest, jasper,
onyx, and all precious stones. Let him
take them at his own price, and upon his