the lady may be in some measure appeased.
These are his closing words:

'Mid autumn-grief, when through the palace halls
Was heard the wild fowl's piteous cry,
Sad, troublous dreams our lonely pillow throng'd,
And brought her to our fancy nigh.
Now she is dead! Her Verdant Tomb remains:
But whither has the spirit flown?

The extent of the Chinese dramatic
repertoire may be judged of by this unhappy
Emperor alone being the hero of a hundred
plays. The Chinese drama abounds with
genuine pathos and humour. How it is
performed, we have already given some idea.*

*See Household Words, volume viii. page 281.

MY LADY LUDLOW.

CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH.

I HAD always understood that Miss Galindo
had once been in much better circumstances,
but I had never liked to ask any questions
respecting her. But about this time, many
things came out respecting her former life,
which I will try and arrange; not, however,
in the order in which I heard them, but
rather as they occurred.

Miss Galindo was the daughter of a clergyman
in Westmoreland. Her father was the
younger brother of a baronet, his ancestor
having been one of those of James the
First's creation. This baronet-uncle of Miss
Galindo was one of the queer out-of-the-
way people who were bred at that time, and
in that northern district of England. I never
heard much of him from any one, besides
this one great fact: that he had early
disappeared from his family, which indeed only
consisted of a brother and sister who died
unmarried, and lived no one knew where,—
somewhere on the Continent it was supposed,
for he had never returned from the grand
tour which he had been sent to make, according
to the general fashion of the day, as soon
as he had left Oxford. He corresponded
occasionally with his brother the clergyman;
but the letters passed through a banker's
hands; the banker being pledged to secrecy,
and, as he told Mr. Galindo, having the
penalty, if he broke his pledge, of losing the
whole profitable business, and of having the
management of the baronet's affairs taken
out of his hands, without any advantage
accruing to the inquirer, for Sir Lawrence
had told Messrs. Graham that, in case his
place of residence was revealed by them, not
only would he cease to bank with them, but
instantly take measures to baffle any future
inquiries as to his whereabouts, by removing
to some distant country.

Sir Lawrence paid a certain sum of money
to his brother's account every year; but the
time of this payment varied, and it was
sometimes eighteen, or nineteen months
between the deposits; then, again, it would not
be above a quarter of the time, showing that
he intended it to be annual, but as this
intention was never expressed in words it was
impossible to rely upon it, and a great deal
of this money was swallowed up by the
necessity Mr. Galindo felt himself under of
living in the large, old, rambling family
mansion, which had been one of Sir
Lawrence's rarely expressed desires. Mr. and
Mrs. Galindo often planned to live upon
their own small fortune and the income
derived from the living (a vicarage, of
which the great tithes went to Sir Lawrence
as lay impropriator), so as to put-by the
payments made by the baronet for the benefit of
Laurentia—our Miss Galindo. But I suppose
they found it difficult to live economically
in a large house, even though they had
it rent-free. They had to keep up with
hereditary neighbours and friends, and could
hardly help doing it in the hereditary
manner.

One of these neighbours, a Mr. Gibson, had
a son a few years older than Laurentia. The
families were sufficiently intimate for the
young people to see a good deal of each
other: and I was told that this young Mr.
Mark Gibson was an unusually prepossessing
man (he seemed to have impressed every one
who spoke of him to me as being a handsome,
manly, kind-hearted fellow), just what
a girl would be sure to find most agreeable.
The parents either forgot that their children
were growing up to man's and woman's
estate, or thought that the intimacy and
probable attachment would be no bad thing,
even if it did lead to a marriage. Still,
nothing was ever said by young Gibson till
later on, when it was too late, as it turned
out. He went to and from Oxford; he shot
and fished with Mr. Galindo, or came to the
Mere to skate in winter-time; was asked to
accompany Mr. Galindo to the Hall, as the
latter returned to the quiet dinner with his
wife and daughter; and so, and so, it went
on, nobody much knew how, until one day,
when Mr. Galindo received a formal letter
from his brother's bankers, announcing Sir
Lawrence's death, of malaria fever, at
Albano, and congratulating Sir Hubert on
his accession to the estates and the baronetcy.
The king is dead. Long live the king!
as I have since heard that the French
express it.

Sir Hubert and his wife were greatly
surprised. Sir Lawrence was but two years
older than his brother; and they had never
heard of any illness till they heard of his
death. They were very sorry; very much
shocked; but still a little elated at the
succession to the baronetcy and estates. The
London bankers had managed everything
well. There was a large sum of ready money
in their hands at Sir Hubert's service, until
he should touch his rents, the rent-roll being
eight thousand a-year. And only Laurentia
to inherit it all! Her mother, a poor clergyman's
daughter, began to plan all sorts of fine