he pictures, and never passing that which was turned to the
wall without a deep sigh.

The last Mrs. Trevethlan--a new Griselda--had been treated with civil
neglect by her husband, and died under the weight of her position,
after bearing him the son and daughter already introduced. She was the
child of a small tenant upon the estate; and Mr. Trevethlan, having
attained the only object of his marriage, checked some presumption of
her family with marked disdain. The maternal care and early education
of his children devolved upon Mrs. Griffith, and the portrait-gallery
was their usual school-room. Here they learned the history of their
family as the history of England: not a bad _memoria technica_, but
one attended with some risk. However, it may easily be guessed that
they had no hard task-mistress, and that battledore-and-shuttlecock
often interrupted the story of Queen Elizabeth's maid-of-honour, or of
the colonel who fell in endeavouring to rally Fairfax's horse at
Marston Moor.

And whatever family pride might be acquired in this gallery was
chastened in the other apartment exempted from the general desolation.
This was the library, the especial domain of Polydore Riches, the
chaplain of the castle. Riches held a fellowship at Cambridge, but had
incurred, no matter how, the dislike of his superiors; being somewhat
timid and retiring, he thereupon gave up residence, and accepted Mr.
Trevethlan's offer of his chaplaincy and the curacy of the hamlet. And
when that gentleman's affairs became inextricably involved, the
worthy clergyman declined a release from his duties, and continued to
reside at Trevethlan, maintaining himself on the proceeds of his
fellowship. The people at the village said he might sometimes be seen
in the dusk of evening, leaning on the tombstone in their churchyard
which marked the resting-place of Rose Griffith, a relation of the
steward. It was also said that he had positively refused to perform
the marriage ceremony between his patron and Margaret Basset; and it
was true. For once, Mr. Trevethlan respected a pride that was equal to
his own, and contented himself with a sarcasm on the eccentricity of
poverty.

Polydore had now resided nearly thirty years at the castle, and was
more than fifty in age. But time sat light upon him, and he looked
much younger. From Mrs. Griffith he received as pupils his patron's
children, and the library took the place of the picture gallery.
Polydore was enthusia