Welsh journeying, and found at the post-office, Neathville, according to prior arrangement, a bundle of proofs of his first book. To read these was, at that time, a labour of love indeed, even though the labour continued long after the sun had disappeared, and the moon had risen again-the same moon that was looking down on the emigrant ship, and making long white tracks on the distant ocean which now rolled between Jacob and his old friends.

Neathville was a quiet, mossy old place, with the sea in front, and on every other side a country studded with grey ruins of old walls and castles, the histories of which are a rich mine of instruction, poetry, and romance. The Flemish found the town a fishing village, and, struck with its many natural advantages, settled there, and, assisted by Norman allies, fortified the place; but the Welsh many years afterwards surprised the settlers, put them to the sword, and razed the fortifications to the ground. From that period (somewhere about the eleventh century), until after the advent of Oliver Cromwell, the history of Neathville had been one of great interest a story of war and tribulation, of piracy and bloodshed, of sack and famine, of heroism and bravery; and in all quarters the antiquary could lay his fingers upon some fine memento of the greatness and the littleness of past ages. There was an old castle; a grey church, filled with quaint memorials; some ruined walls, the remains of a priory; two medicinal springs, and many other attractions; besides the fringe of rocks which skirted the bay and ran out, in picturesque pinnacles, into the sea.

At the period of my story, the fine sandy beach was not the promenade of fast gentlemen from town, looking through eye-glasses at fast ladies from the same place; nor had the donkey driver even made his appearance. At the most fashionable hour in the day Jacob saw only a few groups of people on the immense tract of beach, which stretched away until it seemed to join the clouds at a famous point, where many a ship had been lured to destruction in the dark days of the wreckers.

Musing with his own thoughts, which were chiefly occupied with the design of writing a full explanation of his position to Lucy, and endeavouring to fix an interview which should be final "for weal or woe," Jacob was returning home one evening not long after his arrival in Neathville, when, as if in response to his feelings, there fell upon his ear the faint melody of a strain so familiar to him that at first he thought it but the creation of his own fancy. A treacherous memory and a strong imagination will sometimes play strange tricks with the senses; but Jacob was soon convinced that the music which

he heard was a charming reality. It stole over the rocks, in undulating cadences, and transported him back to days of yore, as completely as though he had been under some such spell as Mesmer might have worked, taking the reason prisoner, and planting the mind with whatever picture the enchanter willed. Jacob was again in the garden at Middleton, with the morning sun shining upon him, amidst the sounds of falling waters, and the songs of birds.

There is a happy land,
Far, far away.

High over the rocks above him, from a noble half-castellated house, came the well-known music; and, as Jacob listened, all the sensations of hope and fear and doubt and dread which he had felt when he looked on the footprints in the snow at Cartown replaced the first thoughts of the old home and the garden-paradise. There was only one voice which could sing that song so sweetly, so plaintively. A harp accompaniment added to the effect of the dear old melody, and with the murmur of the sea as a deep bass, and Jacob's own strong imagination and memories of happy times, my readers will readily believe that the music was an attraction which Jacob did not desire to resist.

To go round by the regular path, to reach the house situated on the summit of the rocks, were a tedious process indeed for Jacob in his present mood. Straight to the house whence the music came was his only course. Away he went with the alacrity of a practised climber. There had been a time when his mind would not, under similar circumstances, have strayed for a moment from the object of his climbing; but now that he was an author, the demon of "copy," which sometimes startles writers at all hours, suggested to him what a capital situation it would be, supposing he were writing a story out of his own experiences, to make himself fall over the rocks and be discovered by his mistress just in time to save his precious life, and once more swear eternal love to each other.

Jacob did not fall, although his path was made additionally dangerous by the starting up, here and there, of flocks of sea-birds, which filled the air with their peculiar cries, compelling him to pause and listen for the music to the source of which he was hurrying. He had scarcely reached the summit when the melody changed to a new and an unknown one; but, a few moments afterwards, when he had stepped aside from the full view of the room with its tall windows opening out upon a lawn, Jacob detected in the new song some simple words which he had written for Lucy Cantrill when he was a schoolboy and had dreams by the Cartown river.

I have said that the windows were wide open. Screening himself behind a figure of Neptune, which stood in the centre of the lawn, Jacob looked into the room, as an erring mortal, tempted by Naiad strains, might have gazed into some sea-beat grot. How like and yet how unlike his Lucy was the lady who now sat conjuring from a Welsh harp music that Ariel might have made in Prospero's island!

Jacob's heart told him quickly enough who was the musician. Still the old times did not seem so distinct, now that he looked upon her once more, as they had appeared when he heard the factory hymn coming over the rocks ten minutes previously. Then he had thought of Lucy as he saw her under the apple tree in Cantrill's little garden; of Lucy in her straw hat, simple bodice, and provincial skirts, walking by his side with just sufficient coquettishness to fill him full of doubts and fears, and excite the wish that he were old enough to marry her, lest perchance some more gallant knight should carry her off. But now he saw another Lucy, and yet the same. The soft blue eyes as of yore, the sweet full lip, the hair a shade darker, the figure taller, and that of a woman. It was Lucy refined, not so much by fashion as by education, and the effect of living in an aristocratic atmosphere; it was the beautiful girl of the old times grown into the lovely woman, and bearing all the impress of the Great Artist's finishing touches.

By-and-by the hand which had wandered over the strings fell gently by the performer's side, and the lady looked upwards; it seemed to Jacob as though her eyes were fixed upon him. A moment previously he had hurriedly decided to present himself at the house in the usual manner, and inquire for Miss Thornton, fearing that the more romantic fashion of walking in at the window after a scramble over the rocks would alarm her. But that might not be, for Lucy came forth, passed across the lawn, close by where he stood, and leaning over the terrace which surmounted the rocks, looked pensively out to sea. Jacob felt that he could not escape without attracting her attention. He walked quietly towards her, and with his heart beating a tattoo, he whispered "Lucy."

The lady turned round with a startled, doubtful look. Jacob put forth his arms, and in another moment Mr. Cavendish Thornton's matrimonial schemes were scattered to the winds for ever.

*

Jacob went to his hotel that night the happy fellow of whom he had once or twice only ventured to dream. He had told Lucy his story,

and she had said something about her own.

VOL. X. N.S., 1873.

He needed no confession

H

of her love; of its truth and constancy he had sufficient evidence in the singing of those simple words, which had been a boyish tribute to her in the golden days of Cartown. He was certainly puzzled to know why she had not received his letters; though he was hardly surprised that her inquiries concerning himself had been unsuccessful. He cared little or nothing about these minor circumstances now. He could not, however, help noticing that they seemed greatly to disturb Lucy, who made him promise to make some inquiries concerning the letters which he had addressed to her at Cartown. He fulfilled this promise at once, and by the same post wrote to Ginghems to say that he should not be prepared to send "copy for the Welsh work so quickly as he had at first anticipated. Neathville, he said, had charmed him almost beyond description. He should never be sufficiently grateful to them for sending him into Wales. It had opened up a world of romance to him. They would be surprised when he told them of his great discovery in the Principality. Jacob chuckled at the hidden waggery of his letter. He wrote a most mad epistle to Windgate Williams, who really feared Jacob's success had suddenly turned his head.

CHAPTER XLIII.

A STORM ON THE WELSH COAST.

THE reader was prepared by a conversation between Lucy and Dorothy for Miss Thornton's departure from London. The belle of the season had either grown tired of the restraints of Mayfair, or she had seriously felt her educational deficiencies, or she was bored by the Hon. Max Walton, or she had had a severe relapse into Jacob Martynism. I am hardly in a position to explain the young lady's reasons for her almost sudden determination to leave town. She wanted to go before her first season was really over; and above all things she would insist upon her uncle keeping her retreat a secret. Mr. Thornton induced her to stay in town until Lord John and his brother Max Walton began to make their arrangements for grouse shooting; but Lucy was firmness itself in her determination that her address should not be known for a long time, and that no visitors should be invited to Lydstep House. Her uncle had been a good deal troubled by Lucy's plans, which excluded a return to town for two or three years. He would not hear of this. Then she would go abroad, ever so far away, where it was impossible to get back for years. Had anything occurred in town to offend or annoy her? No. Was there anything he could do

to make London more agreeable to her? No; she had no objection to London. When she felt competent by education and ordinary accomplishments to take her position in town, she would return. She was competent; she was the queen of the season; her accomplishments had a freshness that was charming; she might marry into the noblest family in the land at once, if she would; she was worthy of her name, worthy of all their gallery of ancestral portraits, worthy of the highest state. Mr. Thornton grew eloquent in his praises, and entreated the young beauty to reconsider her plans; but Lucy kissed him and was adamant.

Lydstep House was the family residence of some friends of Mr. Thornton who had gone abroad for three or four years, and Lucy accepted the offer of it at once, without seeing it; and the place turned out all that could be desired. Mr. Thornton had visited his wayward niece as frequently as his old habits would permit. He had been content to hunt his grouse and shoot them in Wales instead of Scotland for her sake during two seasons. Only two days prior to Jacob's unexpected appearance on the scene, he had once more arrived on a long visit to his lovely niece, who was accompanied in her retreat by Mr. Thornton's housekeeper, and two awfully clever and learned companion teachers of art, science, and languages-ladies who had sounded the depths of all educational systems, who had dived into the hidden mysteries of science, and who had soared on the wings of inspiration into the highest realms of art. Lucy professed to be a wonderfully earnest and industrious pupil of these vestals of learning, but she seemed to devote most of her time to music and drawing, and her sketch books were full of pictures that she called "reminiscences." They were rough studies of cottages, country stiles and walks, bits of brook scenery, glimpses of woodland nooks; and one of the vestals had expressed to the other some serious alarm at the young lady's monotonous kind of pleasures. But Lucy in her own quiet way had impressed upon their minds that she was the mistress of Lydstep House, and that she had a will of her own apart from Mr. Thornton's; they therefore kept their private views of Miss Thornton's habits to themselves, and had nothing but praises of her mind, her intellect, and her amiability for the ear of her uncle.

A few days after Jacob Martyn's sudden appearance at Lydstep House, Mr. Cavendish Thornton, as was his wont, having partaken of coffee and dry toast in his own apartment, went into Lucy's morning room to have a chat with his niece,

"I want to talk seriously to you, sir, this morning," said Lucy the moment her uncle entered the room.