walls being not beyond a few feet high, save,
indeed, where they rise suddenly to make
room for a tall window, filled-in with coloured
glass of pale faint tint—faded saffron and
green—over which, too, the ivy has straggled
pretty thickly, and has stopped such light as
there ever was. It ill became a Sundon to
stray down there, having got the keys from
the sexton, when the moon was streaming
through the window, scattering that green
and yellow phosphoric light mysteriously on
the pavement, making strange ghostly
patterns, out of which rise the stiff, sleeping
figures, looking as cold and white as though
cut out of snow.

There is an old organ,—one of the fine old
organs that came from Holland two centuries
before,—ripe and mellow in every tone; and
at this moment it is playing softly, rolling
swelling music up to the chancel, over the
sleeping Sundon figures,—the praying knights,
and the full-wigged barons; up to the porch
where I stand, with my dismal heart in my
hand, looking in timorously. So it plays on,
as with pipes of silver, and the moon streams
in through the diamond panes, bringing with
it to the floor the pale saffron tints; bringing
out very distinctly a figure that I seem
to know pretty well, and which leans upon
one of the white tombs. A figure in full
green velvet coat, and flowing periwig; with
bluish fingers nestling in among his lace
frilling, and with smooth, placid cheeks. He
leans against the tomb easily enough, and
moonlight from the old window comes
through the straggling ivy and diamond
panes, right upon that star of his. All this
while, the organ is playing away softly. He
rises up at length, and walks round among
the tombs, stopping before each in a musing
sort of fashion.

Before the praying knights, and the knights
on cushions, and the dames with frills;
before the men in flowing robes and wigs, the
bishops, dignitaries, chancellors, and soldiers,
whom the great house had provided to the
State; before the noble ladies of the house,
the peerless beauties, who had intermarried
with other great houses, whose commemorative
tablets were there, fixed in the old
grey walls—he stops, and reads the
inscription, those full smooth cheeks of his
relaxing complacently. It was gratifying,
no doubt, to read off that roll of high
deeds and higher titles, all so gorgeously
emblazoned. His race had not been
unworthy of the first Baron Sundon. And so
he goes from one to the other, always with
that placid smile, the old Dutch organ still
playing in the gallery. At last, he stops, not
two yards from me, and begins reading a
fresh tablet, newly let into the wall, with two
busts over it. Thereupon his eyes sparkle,
his smooth cheeks wrinkle up, and his teeth
nearly chatter; so that, from pure curiosity,
I steal out from under the porch, and come
softly behind him. Then I read over his
shoulder what was written on the new
tablet.

It said (and, by some of that saffron light
which came through the old diamond panes,
it might be fairly read), that here lay the
body of one Piers Sundon, Esquire, with all his
style, titles, and virtues, and of Annie, his wife,
who has no style, title, or virtues whatever; no
descent nor dignity; no honours; no family;
no pedigree. O, now I see at last with a
horrible agitation at heart, and terrible
conviction of its truth, what has so moved the
placid ancestor in the green-velvet coat!
Now, do I begin to see what that trembling
finger—at last withdrawn from the lace-
ruffle—is pointing at. Well might the smooth
ancestor turn round at that sharp cry of
grief, still pointing his trembling finger at
that fatal blot upon his line—and fix one
living glance of rage and hatred on me!

With that despairing cry, all things seemed
to melt away; grey church, saffron
moonlight, white sleeping figures on tombs,
old window and diamond panes, and the
soft music from the old Dutch organ. All
things departed, except the first Baron
Sundon, in his green velvet coat and star.

VIII.

MY Lord Willoughby, as has been said
before, lived mostly in foreign parts, coming
home now and then for short spans. They
have fine blood in Italy—princes by the
hundred: so he usually kept to that villa
of his on the Arno, where he was held in
much esteem by the princes. My Lord
Willoughby's whole gospel lay in that little
word, Blood. "You and I," he would say to
me, "are the only persons of condition in the
county; the others are mere gutter-bloods,
and that fellow Hackleton is their prime
Don!"  For he hated that fellow Hackleton
from his soul. He was now over on one
of his visits, but was to tarry some time, it
was said: having brought home a daughter
and many retainers.

My lord called over at Holm Hollies that next
morning, and was rejoiced to see me looking
so well, and then fell off into rambling talk
about princes and marcheses and high things,
and courts, and that villa of his on the Arno.
All which came acceptable enough after that
long drought of such matters over at the
spick-and-span Factory. It was comforting
to find myself in the atmosphere of a person
of quality, and of such quality as my lord.
Then rambling home to the county, "By the
way," he said, "you have been with Hackleton
—prince of gutter-bloods I call him—I
wished to speak to you about that. Sit
down, and don't be disturbed."

What was this beginning to portend?

"You know," continued my lord, "that I
never could endure the Parvenu. I always
said he was a gutter-blood, and would do a
dirty thing. Well! What do you suppose this
dignified workman, this baroneted cur, has