ve
satisfied Mr. Hammond, or a cross in pure white marble, with a
sculptured lamb at the base. Surely the lamb, emblem at once pastoral
and sacred, ought to enter into any monument to Wordsworth; but that
gray headstone, with its catalogue of dates, those stern iron
railings--were these fit memorials of one whose soul so loved nature's
loveliness?

After Mr. Hammond had seen the little old, old church, and the medallion
portrait inside, had seen all that Maulevrier could show him, in fact,
the two young men went back to the place of graves, and sat on the low
parapet above the beck, smoking their cigarettes, and talking with that
perfect unreserve which can only obtain between men who are old and
tried friends. They talked, as it was only natural they should talk, of
that household at Fellside, where all things were new to John Hammond.

'You like my sister Lesbia?' said Maulevrier.

'Like her! well, yes. The difficulty with most men must be not to
worship her.'

'Ah, she's not my style. And she's beastly proud.'

'A little _hauteur_ gives piquancy to her beauty; I admire a grand
woman.'

'So do I in a picture. Titian's Queen of Cyprus, or any party of that
kind; but for flesh and blood I like humility--a woman who knows she is
human, and not infallible, and only just a little better than you or me.
When I choose a wife, she will be no such example of cultivated
perfection as my sister Lesbia. I want no goddess, but a nice little
womanly woman, to jog along the rough and tumble road of life with me.'

'Lady Maulevrier's influence, no doubt, has in a great measure
determined the bent of your sister's character: and from what you have
told me about her ladyship, I should think a fixed idea of her own
superiority would be inevitable in any girl trained by her.'

'Yes, she is a proud woman--a proud, hard woman--and she has steeped
Lesbia's mind in all her own pet ideas and prejudices. Yet, God knows,
we have little reason to hold our heads high,' said Maulevrier, with a
gloomy look.

John Hammond did not reply to this remark: perhaps there was some
difficulty for a man situated as he was in finding a fit reply. He
smoked in silence, looking down at the pure swift waters of the Rotha
tumbling over the crags and boulders below.

'Doesn't somebody say there is always a skeleton in the cupboard, and
the nobler and more ancient the race the bigger the skeleton?' said
Maulevrier, with a philosophical air.

'Yes, yo