though human beings were the same; but we must not stop to dwell upon minute particulars, or to detail forms and ceremonies, for it is not so much our object to depict the fashions and habits of that age, as to sketch a sad and extraordinary part of its history.

Between six and seven o'clock on an evening in the month of May, while the sky overhead was just beginning to be tinged with the hues of the declining sun, and the old trees of the rookery, covered with their young green leaves, looked almost autumnal in the various tints with which spring had decked them, a gentleman of fifty-eight or fifty-nine years of age walked slowly up and down upon the terrace which ran along before the building. He was upright in figure, well made though spare in form, rather below than above the middle height, calm and sedate in his step, thoughtful and perhaps sad in the expression of his countenance. His hair was quite white, soft, silky, and hanging, as was then customary, in curls upon his neck. His eyebrows, which like his hair and beard were colourless, were somewhat bushy and arched. His mustachios were neatly trimmed, and his beard pointed, not very long, but yet not cut round, as was the fashion with the younger men of the day. He was dressed in black velvet, with shoes bearing large black rosettes, a small hat with a single feather, and had no ornament whatsoever about his person, unless the buttons of jet which studded his doublet, and the clasp of the same material which fastened his short cloak, deserved that name.

He was, indeed, altogether a very grave and serious looking personage, with much mildness and benevolence as well as sagacity in his countenance; and yet there was a certain slight turn of the lip, an occasional twinkle of the eye, and a drawing up of the nostril, which seemed to indicate the slightest possible touch of a sarcastic spirit, which had, perhaps, at an earlier period been more unruly, though it was now chastened by the cares, the sorrows, the anxieties, and the experience of life.

He walked up and down, then, upon the terrace for some minutes, each time he turned, whether at the one end or the other, gazing down the course of the stream between the slopes of the hills towards the spot where the road from London crossed the valley, and then again bending his eyes upon the ground in meditation. Occasionally, however, he would look up to the sky, or down into the bowling-green; and, after one of the latter contemplations, he descended a flight of four stone steps which led down to the greensward, with the same calm and sedate step which had distinguished his promenade above; and taking up the large, round, wooden ball which lay on the grass, he held it in his hand for a moment, and then bowled it deliberately at a set of skittles which had remained standing at the other end of the green. The ball hit the pin at which it was aimed, which in its fall overthrew a number of others, while the gentleman whose hand had despatched the messenger of mischief on its errand, looked on with a grave smile. There was evidently something more in the expression of his countenance than mere amusement at seeing the heavy pieces of wood tumble over one another, and he murmured to himself as he turned away,----

"Thus it is with human projects--ay, the best intended and most firmly founded; some accidental stroke overthrows one of our moral ninepins, and down go the whole nine!"

So saying, he returned to the terrace, and raising his voice he cried, "Lakyn, Lakyn!" upon which a stout old serving-man, with a badge upon his arm, came out unbonneted to receive his master's commands.

"Take away those ninepins, Lakyn," said the gentleman, "they have no business on the bowling-green; and put the bowls, too, under shelter. It will rain before morning."

"God bless your worship," replied the servant, looking up to the sky, "you are as weatherwise as a conjuror."

"Or a shepherd," replied the gentleman, resuming his walk; and the old man proceeded to gather up the implements of the good old game of our ancestors, muttering to himself, "Who would have thought it would rain before morning with such a sky as that. He knows more than other men, that's certain."

While he was busy with the bowls, his master's eye, glancing down again as before to the spot where the road and the stream met, rested on the figure of a single horseman coming from the direction of London.

"There, Lakyn, Lakyn!" he exclaimed; "run in, and never mind the bowls. Tell Sharpe to go round and take Mr. Seymour's horse at the garden gate. I will meet him there."

The old man hastened to obey, and, with his usual composed step, Sir Harry West--for such was the gentleman's name--proceeded from the terrace, through the garden which we have mentioned, to the angle next to the rookery, where he waited, leaning upon a little gate, till the horseman he had seen on the road arrived at the spot. At the same moment another old servant dressed in grey ran down panting, and doffing his bonnet to the stranger with lowly reverence, held the bridle while he dismounted.

The horseman then at a quick pace advanced to the gate, which was by this time open to receive him, and with a look of glad and well satisfied reverence kissed the hand of the master of the house. Sir Harry West, however, threw his arm around him affectionately, and gazed in his face, saying, "Welcome, my dear William, welcome! So you are back from Flanders at length. 'Tis eighteen months since I have seen you."

"'Tis a long time indeed, sir," replied the visitor; "but time has made no change in you, I am glad to see."

"It has in you, William," answered Sir Harry West; "a great change, but a good one--though why in our boyhood we should desire man's estate I know not. 'Tis but a step to the grave. However, you are a man now both in years and appearance, though you left me but a youth;" and once more he gazed over the young gentleman's face and form, as we look at a country we have known in our early years on returning after a long absence, tracing the changes that have been made therein, and sometimes perhaps regretting even the improvements.

The countenance and the form that he looked upon were not indeed ill calculated to bear inspection, being those of an English gentleman of about one or two and twenty years of age, and of the best class and character. Now there can be little doubt to any one who has travelled far and wide over distant lands, that the English people are, on the whole--with the exception, perhaps, of some small tribes in the Tyrol, and of one or two districts in Spain, where the Moorish blood has been mixed with the Gothic--the handsomest race that this quarter of the world called Europe can produce; and the young stranger was certainly not inferior to any of his countrymen in personal appearance. He was tall and evidently powerful in form, though some of the slightness of youth was still there, and all its graces. His hair was dark brown and curling in large waves, and his features were as fine as those of any of the faces that poet, painter, or sculptor have ever dreamed or portrayed.

There was, moreover, a peculiar expression in his countenance which struck the eye more than even the beauty of the lines. It was an expression of depth, of intensity, which sometimes may be seen in very ugly faces, but which is sure to give them a charm which nothing can take away. His manner, too, harmonized with the expression, and gave it force. Before he spoke, especially when, as in the present case, he was intimate with the person with whom he conversed, he paused for a single moment, looking at him thoughtfully, as if seeking the spirit within and addressing himself to it; so that it seemed that there was a communication established between himself and those he loved distinct from