communication by help of her kitchen-maid and the stable-lad at the Hall, whereby she received bulletins, every quarter of an hour or so, with respect to Sir Massingberd's mysterious disappearance.

"Well, no news is good news, you know," responded Mr. Long gaily. "We should always look upon the bright side of things, Mrs. Myrtle."

"Yes, sir; but when a thing ain't got a bright side," remarked the housekeeper, shaking her head. "Why, it's dreadful now he's Lost; and it would be dreadful even if, after all, he was al——"

"Hush, hush, Mrs. Myrtle; you don't know but you may be speaking of a poor soul that is gone to his account. Sir Massingberd is doubtless a bad man; but let us not call it dreadful if he should be permitted to return among us, and have some time yet, it may be, to repent in."

"Then you think he's dead and gone, do you, sir? Well, that's what I think, and that's what Patty thinks too, and she's a very reasonable girl. 'Them ravens,' says she to me, 'didn't come to that church-tower for nothing;' and though, of course, I told her to hold her tongue, and not talk folly like that, there was a good deal in what she said. Why, we have not had ravens here since Sir Wentworth came to his awful end in London; there was a mystery about that too, wasn't there, sir? Lawk-a-mercy! Mr. Meredith, you gave me quite a turn."

I had only said "Look there!" and pointed to the window, through which Gilmore and the head-keeper were seen approaching the Rectory, and engaged in close conversation.

"I'll go with Patty, and let them in," quoth Mrs. Myrtle, unconsciously betraying that she was unequal to opening the door alone, in such an emergency. It is probable that, when it was opened, the incomers and she had a great deal to talk about, for they were not ushered into the breakfast-room for many minutes, and after the very moderate meal which sufficed us both upon the occasion had long been finished. The butler and Oliver Bradford were by no means good friends, and it must have been something portentous indeed which brought them to the Rectory together. It was, in fact, their very rivalry which had produced the double visit. Each conceived himself to be the superior minister of the absent potentate, and called upon, by that position, to act in his master's behalf, and give notice to neighbouring powers, such as the parson, of the event that had paralyzed affairs at the Hall. It seemed only natural (as he himself subsequently expressed it) to Oliver Bradford, who had been 

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