and
trembling with passion, you seem to me the very hero of my dreams. How
hard you breathe, my love, and what a spring it must have been which
brought you to my arms! At the instant that you came, I heard the tramp
of your war-horse without."

There was nothing more to explain, and when one is newly betrothed, one
finds other uses for one's lips. But there was a scurry in the passage
and a pounding at the panels. At the crash of my arrival the old folk
had rushed to the cellar to see if the great cider cask had toppled off
the trestles, but now they were back and eager for admittance. I flung
open the door, and stood with Marie's hand in mine.

"Behold your son!" I said.

Ah, the joy which I had brought to that humble household! It warms my
heart still when I think of it. It did not seem too strange to them
that I should fly in through the window, for who should be a hot-headed
suitor if it is not a gallant Hussar? And if the door be locked, then
what way is there but the window? Once more we assembled all four in
the parlour, while the cobwebbed bottle was brought up and the ancient
glories of the House of Ravon were unrolled before me. Once more I see
the heavy-raftered room, the two old smiling faces, the golden circle
of the lamp-light, and she, my Marie, the bride of my youth, won so
strangely, and kept for so short a time.

It was late when we parted. The old man came with me into the hall.

"You can go by the front door or the back," said he. "The back way is
the shorter."

"I think that I will take the front way," I answered. "It may be a bit
longer, but it will give me the more time to think of Marie."

THE LORD OF FALCONBRIDGE

A LEGEND OF THE RING

Tom Cribb, Champion of England, having finished his active career by his
two famous battles with the terrible Molineux, had settled down into the
public house which was known as the Union Arms, at the corner of Panton
Street in the Haymarket. Behind the bar of this hostelry there was a
green baize door which opened into a large, red-papered parlour, adorned
by many sporting prints and by the numerous cups and belts which were
the treasured trophies of the famous prize-fighter's victorious career.
In this snuggery it was the custom of the Corinthians of the day to
assemble in order to discuss, over Tom Cribb's excellent wines, the
matches of the past, to await the news of the present, and to arrange
new ones for the future. Hither also came his b