as a boy; otherwise, we have the four loveliest names under the sunPatty, Betty, Sally, and Ann!'

'Oh, Edie, Edie! trying to take in an old man like that!'

'I will not be called Edie!' and she stamped her foot so vehemently, that perforce my attention was called to the plain white stockings and buckled shoes which completed her attire; 'I am Patty Housewater, and I came to tell you of a great discovery which you don't deserve to hear.'

'Nay, tell me!'

The girl looked so piquante and strange, and yet so sweetly familiar, in that old-fashioned garb.

'We-you don't deserve to hear it! but we have found a piece of the old gallery, just a little piece, but enough to show exactly of what wood it was made. That Goth, our great-grandfather, took it down a hundred years ago, and I dare say burnt the rest; it would have been just like the ignorant conceit of the age! and my father is going to begin having it restored at once. You know we have happily a copy of the inscription; the Goths were such geese as to have a photograph of the church taken before they laid hands on it; and though invisible to the naked eye, we can make out the whole inscription, and can even tell that it must have been gold on a black ground. There, aren't you delighted?'

'I ought to be ?'

'Of course, if only that I bid you; but what delights me is, that these photographs of 'Deformation' and 'Reformation' have just helped us to the true Restoration. Papa got the tower arch filled in long ago, (half the old people had died from the draught in the interim!) and we are having all the old monuments fitted in. You know that you subscribed £10 towards putting those back in their right places; but come and see for yourself how beautiful we are making the dear old church: it is a shame you have been here two whole hours, and not seen it yet.'

I followed her into Bishop Thornton church: behold, the walls, pillars, and capitals, were again clothed in white-wash, the western arch filled up, the old monuments in their old places. I did feel pleasure; it was far more the dear old familiar place to me than that of 1867, for pains had been taken not to let the new wash be staring, not to wipe all the dust of ages off the monuments: but I did not want to see all re-restored, and glanced round for Edie's organ. Gone!

'The organ is being repaired?' I asked.

'Repaired !—got rid of, thank goodness! The singing-men will be in the gallery as soon as it is up again. And we shall have a grand opening; Ebenezer Stubbs will take the violin, and Herbert Links the flute. We had great difficulty in getting rid of that organ: one churchwarden said he remembered his father saying that some fusty great-aunt of mine played on it "like an angel;” and Farmer Warren, that it had been good enough for our forefathers, and why not for us?'

So it was gone! I too had heard Edith Waterhouse playing very sweetly on that organ; I could not fancy even Ebenezer Stubbs and Herbert Links could surpass the beauty of those strains.

'And Hymns Ancient and Modern? you use those still?' 'Hymns Ancient and Modern!' repeated Patty thoughtfully; Hymns Ancient and Modern! I don't think I know what you mean !'

I

"What everyone is using now, and some are very beautiful. remember your great-aunt, Edie Waterhouse, playing and leading No. 12 one summer evening, her father singing bass, her brother alto, and very lovely and calm it was!"

'But-but how very unsuitable for a woman to be playing and leading voices in church-how very shocking! I should like to see my father's face if I tried Ebenezer's violin! Did my great-aunt ever really play that organ? She did? well, I never believed old Dobb's story before!'

'It used to be thought a very fitting occupation for a clergyman's daughter to teach and lead his choir,' I said humbly.

'Oh! in the ignorant times of a hundred years ago! but you know everyone ran wild then, and spoilt all that they could lay hands on, Church psalmody and decent order included, I suppose! My father always says that they quite forgot, in their headlong mania for their so-called restorations, that the real beauty of the old buildings lay in their then condition having been the natural growth of ages; that not one of their then belauded modern Gothicisms has, to a well-educated mind, the charm and interest of a simple village church, within which generation after generation has prayed and worshipped, and left their impress on its very floor and walls! that they should have remembered that the high pews and many monuments, if not beautiful in themselves, were, as the seams and furrows the changes and chances of a long life bring to a dear old face, part of the true glory of old age! I would as soon see grandmother with her beautiful grey hair dyed to chesnut, and her withered checks bedaubed with paint, as this chancel made as spick and span and young as our dreadful great-grandfather made it!'

Patty was leaning over a high white pew, looking me full in the face with a glance so like poor Edie's, that I at once remembered the memorial window, and glanced round for it anxiously. Gone!

'There was a window there,' I said faintly.

"There is a window,' retorted Patty cheerfully, 'only we have restored it; we sisters clubbed together, and surprised father with filling in the window with plain lozenged glass again.'

' And the stained glass?'

'Put away in the vestry or somewhere! I don't think it was destroyed. You-you don't mean that you wish it back again?'

Indeed I do, Patty. It was placed there by your great-uncles and aunts only a hundred years ago, and to the memory of the eldest brother, whose death had half broken their father's heart; it does seem to me a little hard that it should be so soon displaced.'

'Does it?" said Patty more thoughtfully; 'but then, you know, it was their fault for choosing a memorial that blocked out what little other light they had left for us to read by; and no one but those learned in ancient characters ever could have read that inscription; we were obliged to get a friend from the British Museum to interpret it at last. It had not helped us one bit to prove our great-uncle's death, when all father's prospects depended upon real proof; and they had only put "R. B. W." on the stone, and who could tell that it had not been to a girl? I suppose they called it humility; I only know the illegibility of one monument and absurd brevity of the other nearly reduced us to beggary! and I dare say they had made the window an excuse for removing that tablet to Mrs. Middleton's only son.'

‘It did make way for it, I believe.'

'Then it is but fair that poor John Middleton should oust it in his turn. Aren't you glad to see that back again?'

‘Yes, I am, because-' My old vision of Edie Waterhouse on her mother's knee came back to me; but I saw that my auditor was more unsympathetic than Edie Waterhouse herself had been, and I paused.

'Was your great-aunt Edith buried here?' I asked suddenly.

'Now, Mr. Short, you can't expect me to know where all my greataunts were buried; there were at least half a dozen of them! and I only remember one, the youngest.'

What was her name?' I asked, with sudden curiosity.

'It began with an M-some queer, old-fashioned, false-revived name of the period! Wait, I ought to remember,'-and the smooth brow was puckered in thought-'or stay, hadn't she some charming name first? Mar

'Mr. Short! Mr. Short! We have been to church ever so long ago, and breakfast is ready, and

I opened my eyes: green-gowned Patty Housewater was gone, and instead of her pleasant young voice, Beaufort Waterhouse was thundering at the door, and shouting and re-shouting out his information in the shrill tones of early boyhood. It was daylight, broad daylight, and I was again in the picturesque modern-medieval spare bed-room of Bishop Thornton Rectory. It was for the time a sorry awakening; something in the past vision had been very sweet; and how much more would I fain have learnt from the demurely-dressed maiden of my dream-dream so vivid, that I can scarcely even now look upon it as merely such. Patty Housewater seems still a friend whom I shall some day meet again.

When I entered the dining-room, there was the old familiar clamour; and I was glad, very glad, to find that my dear, if noisy young friends, were not both buried and forgotten.

'A fine, Mr. Short!' shouted Beaufort; 'make him pay his fine, Edie, before you give him any breakfast.'

'Keep that tongue of yours to yourself a little bit,' said his father,

who doubtless saw that this familiar mode of address was somewhat bewildering to a middle-aged clergyman, only used to be treated with the greatest respect by the few children with whom he came in contact. 'But, Papa, I knocked before I went to church; and everyone who is late has to pay a penny-you do-'

But Edie caught Beaufort's eye, and frowned down his untimely persistency.

'We don't fine guests-or at least guests above a certain age,' she said gravely, if with a roguish look out of her eyes. 'I assure you, Mr. Short, Papa's one thought the last quarter of an hour has been how to keep the bacon hot for you, and mine the coffee. Come and tell me how I have succeeded,' and she made room for me beside her with the sweetest courtesy.

I tried to apologize, but Waterhouse in his hearty way drowned all my attempts at apology, putting a hunch of bread on my plate that I thought would surely have sufficed a family, till I found not only he, but his sons, and one or two of his daughters, ate quite as much at a meal.

Presently Gertrude sauntered away with a book, which reminded me to beg that my lateness should not be allowed to keep any other of the party prisoner.

'Gerty is old enough to choose between her book and her manners, and unfortunately prefers her book to her manners,' said Waterhouse shortly; 'I hope her younger brothers and sisters will know better when like liberty falls to their share.'

'That's because Gerty wasn't at church last night or this morning,' whispered Beaufort very audibly. Later, I examined the boy's head carefully, and found that it had no bump of veneration.

My meal was soon over, and Waterhouse sauntered out with me into the garden; when called in to see some parishioner, leaving me thoughtfully dreaming over again the vision of the night. Edie had left the breakfast-table, keys in hand, full of business; now she stepped blithely out on the lawn, a basket on her arm, a pair of garden-scissors slung round her waist, wearing so short a gown, that I mistook her at first for Agnes. Seeing me, she came towards me at once.

'Mr. Short, Mamma says that I ought to have asked you whether you liked a mattress or feather-bed, and I am ashamed to say that I don't even know which Anne put; but I think (if one may judge from the result) I may hope that the right was put by intuition ?'

'I have no doubt that it was.'

'You are dreaming still, I declare.'

'Dreaming over a dream, such a strange vivid dream. I should like to tell it to you, Edie.'

I could read her thought in the sudden change of her face-'Does he always tell his dreams? am I to hear them whilst he's here? woe's me!' But what she said was, 'Some other time, please, when I'm not so busy;

we have friends coming to luncheon and croquet, and I have the flowers and a hundred things to see to. Gerty's never any good when she's a book or an illumination on hand, and now she's both.'

So Edie flitted away, and, I am afraid, for the time lost some of her sweetness in my eyes: and I sauntered to and fro, wondering how, one hundred years hence, the story of all the happy busy lives around me would have been told-how death would have stilled the warm heart and keen brain of my old friend, John Waterhouse-where Edie would be lying-could either be indeed so soon forgotten or decried?

The friends came to luncheon-two Miss Heriots with their widowed mother, and two young men, reading with some neighbouring clergyman; and I could but sit in silence, amazed and far from pleased with much of the talk around me. Even Edie forgot me, as, with a brighter glow than usual on her cheek, she acted hostess, so far as Charles Palmer's attentions, and their frequent duel of wits, left her at liberty to remember the part devolved upon her by her mother's absence.

Then came croquet: I watched the game dissatisfied but intently. Waterhouse threw his might into it, and, I need not say, did not forget perfect uprightness even in a game, any more than true Christian courtesy, even when croqueting an enemy's ball to the further end of the lawn. But I am almost ashamed to write it-I saw Miss Heriot sweep her yellow ball into better position with her dress more than once, and Gertrude stand negligently over her orange one, and thus secure its being left untouched, in a general croquet of her side, in its position.

'You seem to find croquet a very serious matter,' said Waterhouse, coming up to me; 'I thought at first that you were only giving your mind to the new riddle till you had mastered it; but now that you have mastered it, your face has grown at least an inch longer.'

'Blue! blue!' shouted Beaufort; 'Papa, you're always running away.' (Aloud.) 'Papas were once accustomed to do what they liked without being called to account by their infant sons; were not they, Short?' (Aside.) 'Perhaps you saw what I did; if so, you shall see too that cheating has an avenging Nemesis even on the croquet-ground; you will find there are two balls which I shall never think any distance too great to go out of my way to croquet.'

And I believe, before the game was over, both his daughter and her friend were perfectly well aware of the cause of their common persecution, and must, at least, have been ashamed that their cheating had been seen.

'Yes,' said Waterhouse, when the guests, after an early cup of tea'drum,' I think Edie called it-were gone home to their late dinners, 'croquet brings out true character as much as any game I know-has its uses in showing one of what metal one's own children are made, whether it is thanks to anything better than the safeguards of their position that they are not as truly rogues and vagabonds as any Arabs in the streets.'