which neither your father nor I approve of; and, really, I
must not have you tampered with in this matter."

"Well, dear mamma, I've done; I'll do as you wish. Farewell water--
welcome beer and wine; James, a glass of ale."

It was two years after this that a merry company from the hall and
rectory set out to explore a remarkable ruin about five miles distant
from Waterland. Frank was leader of the party; he had never given his
parents any more anxiety on the score of total abstinence--on the
contrary, he had learned to take so freely of wine and beer, that his
mother felt at times a little alarmed lest he should seriously overpass
the bounds of moderation. When at the rectory, he never again alluded
to the subject, but rather seemed eager to turn the conversation when
any remark fell from Mr or Mrs Oliphant on the evils arising from
intemperance. And now to-day he was in the highest spirits, as he rode
on a sprightly little pony by the side of Mary Oliphant, who was mounted
on another pony, and was looking the picture of peaceful beauty. Other
young people followed, also on horseback. The day was most lovely, and
an inspiriting canter along lane and over moor soon brought them to the
ruin. It was a stately moss-embroidered fabric, more picturesque in its
decay than it ever could have been in its completeness. Its shattered
columns, solitary mullions, and pendent fragments of tracery hoary with
age, and in parts half concealed by the negligent profusion of ivy,
entranced the mind by their suggestive and melancholy beauty; while the
huge remnant of a massive tower seemed to plead with mute dignity
against the violence which had rent and marred it, and against the
encroaching vegetation, which was climbing higher and higher, and
enveloping its giant stones in a fantastic clothing of shrub and
bramble.

Frank and his party first shut up their horses in the old refectory,
closing the entrance with a hurdle, and then dispersed over the ruins.
Mary had brought her drawing-pad, that she might sketch a magnificent
pillar, and the remains of a transept arch which rose gracefully behind
it, crowned with drooping ivy, and disclosing in the back ground,
through a shattered window, the dreamy blue of the distant hills. She
sat on the mutilated chapiter of a column, and was soon so wholly
absorbed in her work, that she never turned her eyes to notice Frank
Oldfield, who, leaning against a low archway, was busily engaged i