ale of Esk and Duddon, with its dreary
waste of sullen moss and unfruitful solitudes.

"Those old Cistercian monks that built Furness Abbey knew how to choose
a bit of good land, Charlotte. Eh? What?"

"I suppose so. What did they do with it?"

"Let it out."

"I wonder who would want to come here seven hundred years ago."

"You don't know what you are saying, Charlotte. There were great men
here then, and great deeds doing. King Stephen kept things very lively;
and the Scots were always running over the Border for cattle and sheep,
and any thing else they could lay their hands on. And the monks had
great flocks, so they rented their lands to companies of four fighting
men; and one of the four was to be ready day and night to protect the
sheep, and the Scots kept them busy. Eh? What?"

"The Musgraves and Armstrongs and Netherbys, I know," and the cloud
passed from her face; and to the clatter of her horse's hoofs, she
lilted merrily a stanza of an old border song:--

"The mountain sheep were sweeter,
But the valley sheep were fatter;
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.
We made an expedition;
We met a force, and quelled it;
We took a strong position,
And killed the men who held it."

And the squire, who knew the effort it cost her, fell readily into her
mood of forced gayety until the simulated feeling became a real one; and
they entered Dalton neck and neck together, after a mile's hard race.

In the mean time the letter which was to summon Fate sped to its
destination. When it arrived in Oxford, Julius had left Oxford for
London, and it followed him there. He was sitting in his hotel the
ensuing night, when it was delivered into his hands; and as it happened,
he was in a mood most favorable to its success. He had been down the
river on a picnic, had found his company very tedious; and early in the
day the climate had shown him what it was capable of, even at
mid-summer. As he sat cowering before the smoky fire, the rain plashed
in the muddy streets, and dripped mournfully down the dim window-panes.
He was wondering what he must do with himself during the long vacation.
He was tired of the Continent, he was lonely in England; and the United
States had not then become the great playground for earth's weary or
curious children.

Many times the idea of seeking out his own relations occurred to him. He
had promised his father to do so. But, as a