oad; the warning cluck of a thrush to her young ones down there
among the bushes; the glad voices and laughter of some girls in an
adjacent garden--they, too, likely to be soon away from the maternal
nest; the crow of a cock pheasant from the margin of the wood; the
clear, ringing melody of an undiscoverable lark. Everywhere white light,
blue skies, and shadows of great clouds slow-sailing over the young
green corn and over the daisied meadows in which the cows lay
half-asleep. And when he looked beyond that low green hill, where there
were one or two hares hopping about on their ungainly high haunches, and
past that great stretch of receding country in which strips of
red-and-white villages peeped here and there from the woods, behold! a
horizon as of the sea, faint and blue and far, rising and ever rising in
various hues and tones, until it was lost in a quivering mist of heat;
and he could only guess that there, too, under the glowing sky, some
other fair expanse of our beautiful English landscape lay basking in the
sunlight and sweet air of the early summer.

Of course Lionel was the hero of the hour when they were all assembled
in the dining-room--at a very sumptuously furnished board, by the way,
for the hale old doctor was fond of good living and a firm believer in
the virtues of port wine. Moreover, the young man had an attentive
audience; for the worthy old lady at the head of the table never took
her admiring eye's off this wonderful boy of hers; and Miss Francie
Wright meekly listened too; while as for Maurice Mangan, who was he in
his humble station to interrupt this marvellous tale of great doings and
festivities? Not that Lionel magnified his own share in these things;
nay, he modestly kept himself out altogether; it was merely to interest
these simple country folk that he described the grand banquets, the
illuminated gardens, the long marquees, and told them how the princess
looked, and who it was who had the honor of taking her in to supper. But
when he came, among other things, to speak of the rehearsal of the
little pastoral comedy, in the clear light of the dawn, by Lady Adela
Cunyngham and her friends, he had to admit that he himself was present
on that occasion; and at once the fond mother took him to task.

[Illustration: "_They passed in through the gate, and found the door
left open for them._"]

"It's wicked, Lionel," she said, severely; "it's downright wicked to
keep such hours. Look at t