"Money is not interesting to either of us, Ted, and I want to hear more about your plan. Tell me what we should do when we had gone away from here, and where to go, and why go at all?"

"As to what we should do! We should do very well. I don't know what you mean by that. And then it's easy enough settling where to go. There are heaps of places, very jolly places, that I could get to know about, once I was on the look-out for them. Places always crop up once you are on the lookout; any one will tell you that." "And now, why should we go at all?"

"Why?" Teddy opened his eyes, and stared at his sister. "Why? Have I not been telling you why all this time? I do believe you think I like to talk on, for talking's sake." (She did, but never let him know as much, listening patiently till the stream had run dry; but on this occasion Teddy was too sharp, and the subject was too engrossing.) "Why? To get quit of it, of course," he said. "Of it! Of what?" "That disgusting baby."

"Are you speaking of my grandson, sir? Are you talking of a hapless infant only a few hours old, you unnatural monster? Shame upon you! fie upon you, young man! Pray, Mr Edward Sourface, reserve such epithets in future for other ears; and be so good, sir, at the same time, to draw off some of the vinegar which is visible in your countenance, and let me have it presently as a fitting accompaniment to the oil which we shall see exhibited in that of my trusty and well-beloved son-in-law-since one will counteract the other, and thus shall I better be able to digest both. Why, Teddy, what an idiot you are!" said Lady Matilda, dropping all at once her mocking accents, and speaking gently and

playfully; "what an ado you make about the simplest and most natural thing in the world! I am married at eighteen, so of course Lotta improves on the idea, and marries before she is eighteen. I have a daughter, she has a son: in every way my child has followed the lead given her, and indeed eclipsed her mother from first to last."

“ Fiddlesticks ! Eclipsed her mother! Lotta!" cried Teddy, with undisguised contempt. "Lotta!" he said again, and laughed.

"Oh, Teddy, Teddy, you are not a good uncle. How can you laugh in that unkind way? Be quiet, sir, be quiet, I tell you; I won't have it. From a grand-uncle, too! Granduncle! Think of that, Teddy, love. Dear, dear,-'tis really vastly surprising, as the old ladies say." "Vastly-something else," muttered Teddy.

"Mr Grand-uncle," began the teasing voice.

"Oh, shut up, can't you? Granduncle!" said Teddy, with such distaste that it seemed he loathed the very term, independently of its adherence to himself "grand-uncle! Was there ever such bosh? It really

"What I was going to say was," pursued his sister, merrily, "that as the baby is a boy,-and youths under twenty do not usually affect matrimony in this country,-I may be permitted to entertain some hopes that I shall not be converted into a great-grandmother with the same delightful celerity with which I have already been turned into a grandmother."

Then there was a pause, during which the brother looked gloomily out of the window, while the sister found apparently a more agreeable prospect in her own thoughts, for she smiled once or twice before she spoke again. At last she rose from her seat. "I shall go over this afternoon, of course," she said.

put forth his wisdom, and it was met by gentle raillery or grave assent. His wildest assertions, his most pitiful arguments, were softened, smoothed, and helped tenderly out of the conversation, so that even those who liked the fair Matilda least-and they were women, we may be sure even those allowed that she was wonderfully, extraordinarily "nice" with Teddy.

Now Teddy could be irritating. There were times when he would be sharp, sharp as a needle, and sharp inevitably at the wrong moment and in the wrong way. The thing that it was particularly desirable that he should not see, and should know nothing about, he would perceive by intuition-and that, however absent-minded and dull and stupid he might have seemed but the moment before. There was no evading his penetration, and no putting him off the scent once he struck it he saw like a lynx, and heard like a Red Indian, when it suited him.

Then perhaps when such smartness was particularly mischievous in its results, and Teddy would meet with the mildest of rebuffs from those whom he had so wantonly maltreated, he would be very highly aggrieved indeed. Perhaps the rebuff might never even come to be spoken, but a something in the air would show that all was not well, and this was enough; he was out of favour, and he was bound to show resentment; nor, when he thus took the bit between his teeth, could all the united efforts of Overton and Matilda dislodge it. He was not to be either cajoled or coerced out of his mood. Silence, obstinate, unyielding, leaden-weighted silence, would be his refuge; and while the fit lasted, which it might do for days at a time, neither the earl nor his sister had much peace of mind. Vague

misgivings would creep into their bosoms and betray their presence by uneasy whispers and glances, if Teddy's whereabouts were unknown for any length of time if he lingered out of doors after the great bell had sounded from the tower at luncheon-time or dinnertime, one would be at the staircase window, and another looking casually out of the front door. They would watch him disappear across the park, and when once the tall handsome figure was out of sight, and Teddy could have no suspicion that he was being spied upon, one or other would be pretty sure to follow, and be merely strolling about in the same direction, if by chance they were obliged to let him see he was not alone. He would not address the intruder on his solitude. He would look angrily away, mutter to himself, and pass on. The servants would understand that Mr Edward was in a "temper," and avoid him; his very dog would make no efforts to engage his notice.

But this is Teddy at his worst. These ugly days are few and far between,-thank God they are, or what might they not lead to? They come but seldom, and go as they come, unquestioned, unblamed. Gradually the cloud begins to roll away, a softer look steals back to the face, the lips part in a smile, the whistle to Gruff brings Gruff rampant to his master's side, and it is plain that all is to be right again.

Overton nods to Matilda, and she nods back. Overton addresses Teddy as though nothing had happened, and Matilda takes it for granted that he will join her in some little jaunt or other, previously arranged and ready to be brought forward, and they both talk away to him and take his arm, and pat him on the back, just as if he had not persistently avoided

their company as much as he could for the last thirty or forty hours, and had not, when compelled to endure it, maintained an unbroken, sullen, affected unconsciousness of their presence. That is past, and he may be approached again. He looks a little anxious, a little ashamed a vague feeling of having been naughty oppresses the lad as it would a child, and his spirits gratefully rise as he perceives he is not to be punished for his misbehaviour. If Overton were cold to him, or, worse still, were Matilda to quarrel with him, all Teddy's happiness in life would be gone, for these two beings people his world, and in their unfailing forbearance and affection he basks as in sunshine.

"Yet Mr Edward talks sensible enough," avers the old majordomo of Overton, who has known Mr Edward from his cradle. "I've seen folks as taken as they could be with Mr Edward, I can tell you; and my lord not being married, nor looking that way, there's many would jump at the young one on the chance. Lord bless you, he ain't far wrong, not by no means he is just a bit simple and foolish like; but who's to know that that sees him in company ?-such a fine well-set-up young gentleman to look at, atalking here, a-talking there, always quite easy and comfortable, and dressed-there ain't a better

dressed gentleman in London. For one coat of my lord's Mr Edward have half-a-dozen; and as to trousers, Joseph here tells me he wouldn't like to give a guess even at what his trouser bill is. My lord, he pays: bless you, he don't say nothing to nobody, but he just pays and keeps the receipts. He ain't as poor as Mr Edward thinks, d'ye understand? "Twould never do to let Mr Edward have every suvering he wanted, or we should soon be in the workhouse; but he gets his little bit of money that his father left him, just to make believe, d'ye see? He gets it paid regular down, and he fusses over it, and thinks it's all he have to live upon, and to be sure he can see well enough 'tis but a trifle,so that just keeps him down nicely. To hear him sometimes telling folks how poor he is! But he forgets, you know, he forgets, does Mr Edward. Lor'! you may talk to him by the hour together, and he don't know nothing at the end. Tell him a thing, and he takes it in all right enough; but it just goes through and through his head without stopping-in at the one ear and out at the other, before any good or bad comes of it. If it weren't for Lady Ma" and the old man shook

tildahis head.

It was in this light that the Hon. Edward Lessingham was looked upon by the inmates of Overton Hall.

And now we must more formally introduce our readers to Overton Hall itself, and to the three representatives of the Overton family now alone remaining, since they

-ANON.

were, one and all, so far from being unremarkable, that in any rank, among any associates, they must still have attracted notice. As it was, as the first people of

the place, they were an unfailing source of gossip, conjecture, and comment in a particularly barren and unfruitful neighbourhood. Providence had been kind to the parish in bestowing on it such a patron as Lord Overton, and such a pair as Teddy and Matilda for his brother and sister. No three people could have done more for the dull out-of-the-way old-world part they lived in, and that involuntarily; for, truth to tell, it was not all the money they gave away, the schemes they organised, the example they set, which was half so much valued among the villagers as their freaks and fancies, their whims and vagaries, their doings and sayings, their goings and comings, these were the real benefit, the real, actual, positive benefit, which was conferred, and for which gratitude was due.

Overton Hall, far from the busy world-at least as far as it is possible to be in England in these highly strung and terribly communicative days-four miles from a small and sleepy wayside station, in plainer terms, was sunk in a hollow (though Lady Matilda would never allow as much)-was, at any rate, far down the slope of a long low Sussex hillside; and although pleasant enough as a summer residence, was looked upon by all but its inhabitants as absolutely unendurable after the fall of the leaf. When October had once fairly set in, the park would be a series of swamps, over which faint blue mists hung incessantly; the red walls of the old Elizabethan mansion would be visible for miles on every side when the thin scrubby woodlands around had been stripped of their foliage; and it had been said over and over again that no people but the Overtons themselves, no residents less pertinaciously attached to their native

place, would ever have lived on through winter after winter in such a dreary spot.

That they did so, however, from choice, was a priceless boon to those who, from necessity, followed their example. So little of the Overtons went such a long way; they were so rich in resources in themselves, so replete with material for the wits of others to work upon; one was so unlike the other, and all were so unlike the rest of their neighbours, that the one universal feeling was, they could never have been replaced, had any evil chance taken them away. What they did, and what they left undone, was of almost equal interest; why Lord Overton took a morning instead of an afternoon walk, made talk for half-a-dozen tongues. What carriages went from the Hall to meet such and such a train? When they returned? Who were in them? Was Teddy seeing the guests off when he was met driving down on the following day; or were they stopping over Sunday? All of this was food for ardent speculation; and the erection of new park palings, or a fresh lodge at the edge of the low wood, was not of more vital importance than the health of Matilda's sick parrot, or the consideration as to the length of time her whimsical ladyship had worn her one bonnet in church.

Although all three were thus constantly before their public, it, however, by no means followed that they were on the same footing in the public mind; and strange to say, the elder brother, the least striking, the least notable as he was of any, had to him the pas given; but then the case stood thus: Lord Overton was one whom no one-except, perhaps, the very very few who had known him closely from boyhood-believed in. He was, at the time our story