could I but vindicate my mother's honour, and prove to the world that I was the offspring of lawful wedlock.

I felt no doubt myself upon the subject. Truth may be obscured for a while, but cannot long remain hid. The innate consciousness of my mother's moral rectitude never for a moment left my mind—a proud conviction of her innocence, which, I was certain, time would make clear.

Full of these reflections, I approached the Hall. It was an old-fashioned building, which had been created during the wars of York and Lancaster, now venerable with the elemental war of ages, and might in its day have stood the shock of battle and siege. It was a fine old place, and associated as it was with the history of the past sent a thrill of almost superstitious awe through my heart.

For upwards of three hundred years it had been the birth-place of my family. Here they had lived and flourished as Lords of the soil; here, too, most of them had died, and been gathered into one common burial-place, in the vault of the picturesque gothic church, which stood embosomed in trees not far from the old feudal mansion.

And I, the rightful heir of the demesne, with a soul as large,—with heart and hand equal to do and dare, all that they in their day and generation had accomplished—approached the old home, poor and friendless, with a stigma upon the good name, which legally I might never be able to efface.

But, courage, Geoffrey Moncton! He who first added the appendage of Sir to that name, rode among the victors at the battle of Cressy, and the war-shout of one of his descendants rang out defiantly on the bloody field of Agincourt! Why need you despair? England wants soldiers yet, and if you fail in establishing your claims to that name and its proud memories, win one, as others have done before you, at the cannon's mouth.