while he stooped down to kiss his mother's cheek, scarce more smooth than his own. Upon his lip, however, was a fairy moustache, which being, fortunately, coal-black like his somewhat close-cropped hair, made itself apparent to all beholders, and rescued his comeliness from downright effeminacy. But no woman ever owned a softer voice, or could freight it with deeper feeling than Walter Lisgard.

"God bless you, dearest mother, and give you all the good you deserve!" murmured he tenderly.

"And God bless you, my darling!" answered Lady Lisgard, holding him at the full distance of her white and rounded arms, clasped with two costly jewels, which had a worth, however, in her eyes far beyond their price, being Sir Robert's wedding-gift. "Ah me! how you remind me of your father's picture, Watty, taken on the day when he came of age. I trust you will grow up to be like him in other respects, dear boy."

"I hope so, mother; although," added he, with a sudden petulancy, "there will be a vast difference between us in some things, you know. He was an only son, whereas I am not even an eldest one; and when I come of age, there will be no picture taken, nor any fuss made, such as is to happen in June, I hear, upon Richard's majority."

"Walter, Walter!" exclaimed Lady Lisgard reprovingly, "this is not like yourself, for it's envious—and—and—covetous!"——

"At all events, it is very foolish, mother," interrupted the young man drily; "for what can't be cured must be endured."

"And very, very cruel to me," added Lady Lisgard.

"Then I am sincerely sorry I spoke," returned Walter hastily, the moodiness upon his features chased away at once by loving regret. "Only, when a fellow leaves his regiment to spend Christmas-eve at home—as I am sure I was delighted to do, so far as you and Letty were concerned—he does not want to find there another commanding officer, uncommissioned and self-appointed."

"Walter, Walter! this is very sad," broke in Lady Lisgard piteously: "you know what is Richard's manner, and how much less kind it is than his true meaning. Can you not make some allowance for your own brother?"

"That's exactly what I said to him, mother," answered Walter, laughing bitterly. "Here have I just got my troop, with no more to keep myself on than when I was a cornet, and had no back debts to speak of; and yet, so far from helping me a little, as Richard might easily do, by making some allowance for his own brother, he complains of that which you are so good as to let me have out of your own income. Why, that's not his business, if it were twice as much—although, I am sure, dear mother, you are liberality itself. Has he not got enough of his own—and of what should be mine and Letty's here, by rights—without grudging me your benevolences? Is he not Sir Richard Lisgard of Mirk Abbey?"——

"I will not listen to this, Walter," cried his mother sternly. "This is mere mean jealousy of your elder brother."

"Oh, dear no, mother; indeed, it is not that," answered the young man coldly. "I envy him nothing. I hold him superior to me in no respect whatever; and that is exactly why I will not submit to his dictation. Here he comes stalking along the gallery, as though conscious that every foot of oak belongs to him, and every picture on the wall."

It was undoubtedly a firm determined step enough—unusually so, for one so young as Sir Richard. The face of the new-comer, too, was stem almost to harshness; and as he entered the room, and beheld Walter standing by his mother's side, his features seemed to stiffen into stone. A fine face, too; more aristocratic if not so winning as his younger brother's, and not without considerable sagacity: if his manner was not graceful, it had a high chivalric air about it which befitted his haughty person very well. When he taught himself submission (a rare lesson with him), as now, while he raised his mother's fingers to his lips, and kissed them with dutiful devotion, it would have been hard to find a man with a more noble presence than Richard Lisgard.

"A merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you, mother." The words, though conventional, had an earnest kindness, which came from the heart. Lady Lisgard kissed him fondly.

"Thank you, dear Richard," said she; "but, alas! no Christmas can be a merry one, no year a happy one, when I see my children disagree."

"Ah, Master Walter has been here before me, I see," quoth Sir Richard bitterly, "stealing, like Jacob, his mother's blessing from her first-born, and giving his own account of matters. But please now to listen to my version."

"Not to-night, Richard," exclaimed Lady, Lisgard with deep emotion. "Let not tonight, sacred to the memory of your common father, be a witness to your mutual accusations. In this room, almost at this very hour, but a few years back, he died, bequeathing you with his last breath to my tenderest care. Here it was that you kissed his white lips, weary with prayers for your future welfare; here it was that you promised, in return, to be good and dutiful sons. I know—I think, at least—that you both love your mother. No, I will kiss neither of you while thus unreconciled. That was not all that he required of you: he would have bidden you, could he have looked forward to this evil time, to love one another also; and O Richard! O Walter! hark to those bells, that seem to strive to beat their message into the most stubborn ears. Do you not hear what they say?—Letty, dear, do you tell them, then, for there are no lips better suited to deliver it."

The young girl lifted up her head from her mother's lap, to gaze into her eyes; then, with exquisite pathos and softness, repeated, like a silver peal of bells: "Peace and good-will, peace and good-will, peace and good-will to all mankind."

Sir Richard looked at his brother fixedly, but no longer in wrath. "It is my part to make the first advance," said he, "although I was not the first to quarrel;" and he frankly stretched forth his hand.

The other paused a second; then reading on his mother's anxious lips: "For my sake, Walter," he grasped his brother's fingers. There was grace in the very delay, as in the motion tenderness and genial ease, but scarcely the warmth of reconciliation. It was more like the action of a woman who wishes to please; and if you had seen the small hand apart from its owner, as it lay with its one glittering ring half hid in the other's huge white palm, you would have said it was a woman's hand.

CHAPTER II. THE WAITS.

ONCE more my Lady is alone, except for her companion-thoughts, which are, however, no longer of a distressing nature. The reconcilement of her boys has gladdened her to the core: she thinks, she trusts at least, that the truce will be a lasting peace. As for Letty, she is all that a mother's heart could wish her to be. If much is lost to my Lady, surely much remains. With the Poor, one misery is removed only to bring another into greater prominence; but with the Rich, this is not so. Only let the disease he cured, or the quarrel he made up, which is at present vexing them, and all, for a time at least, is sunshine. Even not to be cold, not to be hungry, is something; and not to have to take thought of the morrow is a great deal From her warm and curtained chamber, Lady Lisgard looks forth into the night. The snow falls as fast as ever, now straight, now aslant, now whirled in circular eddies by the hitter north. Through its thick and shifting veil, she can scarcely see the old church-tower of Mirk, though it stands close by within the very garden-grounds of the Abbey; nor the windmill which crowns Mirkland Hill, and on moonlit nights stands up so clear against the sky, a beacon to all the country round. It was weather which those who are armed against it call "Seasonable;" and some of the tender sex,