"You would have been excused, Watkin; but I mean nobody to kiss Edith Leybourne but Neville Elmwood. I'm glad I did not marry Mary Clare."

Sir Ralph recovered slowly. He got into his Bath chair, and Neville and Edith were his constant attendants. Neville heard no more taunts. It was well he did not, for his mind, at all times most sensitive, had, of late, grown so distressingly alive to the slightest excitement, that he was subject to alarming palpitations. His state of health became the cause of fresh anxiety to his uncle and Mr. Leybourne. The family physician and Mr. Jenyns recommended horse exercise, and change of air, as his only chance.

A year went on, unmarked by anything but an almost imperceptible decrease of strength in young Elmwood, and a very perceptible increase of fondness for the society of Edith.

At this period, the Parsonage received another inmate. in the person of Sir Evelyn Stainsby, a young baronet, who came to read with Mr. Leybourne, previously to his entering at Cambridge, where Mr. L. had attained the highest honours of his year. Stainsby was nineteen, and possessed of uncommon personal and mental endowments; a more perfect contrast to the effeminate Neville could not be imagined. Stainsby was Malcolm Græme: Neville Elmwood a milksop still. Yet, on the principle, perhaps, that opposites meet, an ardent friendship, encouraged both by Sir Ralph and Mr. Leybourne, soon began between the young men. The state of Neville's health, at length, determined the Baronet on a change of scene and air for his now beloved nephew:-change of country he

thought a new invented folly, deeming our own foggy clime far preferable even to "the sweet south," with its burning suns and cloudless skies.

He had an old manor-house in Leicestershire. It was agreed to migrate so far, and Stainsby was invited to join them at Greystone, during the Christmas, for he was now at Cambridge. Mr. Leybourne and Edith were also to go. Greystone Manor was an old Tudor-looking place, situated in a valley, and surrounded by " tall ancestral trees," that were still overtopped by stacks of lofty chimneys. It was a most cozy spot; and when Sir Ralph was well installed in it, and Neville appeared somewhat benefited by the change, the former wondered he could, for twenty years, have forsaken it; and he told the old couple, that had long had charge of it, he should certainly unroost them, and place them in a neighbouring cottage. It was in the ever-lauded, and ever-to-be-lauded, days when Hugo Meynell shed such a halo over Leicestershire. Stainsby and Mr. Leybourne (the chaplain as he was now called) frequently joined the hunt. The old Baronet, too, would occasionally mount his shooting pony, and, accompanied by Edith on her galloway, and by Neville in an easy carriage, enjoy the pleasure of witnessing any neighbouring meet.

By force of Edith's entreaties-now become rather more potent--and Stainsby's example, he was induced, at length, to try the pony. He felt fresh vigour from each ride; the pony was soon too slow: a quiet old hunter was, at length, ventured upon; and, first, the leaping bar, and then a little occasional private practice in fencing, gave fresh nerve, in a double sense, to this timid equestrian,