proposed, by way of compromise, to enter the service of a farmer a few miles off, who had courage to encounter the hazards announced by his unpromising reputation, in consideration of obtaining, at low wages, one of the stoutest young fellows in the country.

CHAPTER II.

The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?

SHAKSPEARE.

By this change, both father and sons became the happier. Conscious of having a character to acquire with the new master, who had accepted him on trust, the surly John addressed himself with some assiduity to his calling; and the two that were left, always happy in each other, had no longer a motive for concealing their mutual content. A painful constraint was removed, when the loud step and loud voice of Jack Downing no longer shook the cottage. His absence was as a lull after a raging storm.

Even Parson Wigswell noticed how much more sedately than usual John Downing's duties were discharged, after the removal of his sole cause of irritation; and many a time

did the Rector's lady step into the little garden, to admire poor John's renowned auriculas and piccotees, (whenever the lower part of Church Lane was free enough from mud for a lady to pass dryshod) now that the sullen young man was gone, who, on such occasions, used to stand surveying her, leaning impudently against the doorpost, with a flower stuck in his mouth and his hat on one side, undoffed in deference to her presence.

There was peace, in short, in the cottage; and peace imparts the semblance of plenty, even where plenty is not. But in John Downing's house there was just so much more than enough as to enable him to lay by a trifle at the end of every week in the village Savings' Bank, and without churlishness or inhospitality. A friend was always welcome, nor was the beggar sent empty away. So quiet, indeed, was the cottage under the new order of things, as to have become a worthy corollary to hall and rectory. The squire and the parson were fitted to a nicety in their steady, taciturn, sober-suited clerk.

But, alas! as in the case of Sir Balaam,

The devil was vexed such saintship to behold;

and one evening, when, after the ending of his day's work, Luke had obtained his father's permission to visit Norcroft, to carry a present to his aunt of some choice flowers, as a pretext, perhaps, for conveying to Esther tidings of the brighter prospects of his destiny, and the hopes it afforded that, some day or other, he might be able to earn a living and claim her for a wife; John Downing, while sauntering hatless and coatless up and down the narrow, thrift-edged walk of his garden, on the look-out for snails and other depredators, and lost in admiration of the happy results of one of the finest summers ever known, noticed with surprise a welldressed gentleman pass the garden-hedge, descending leisurely the lane towards the stream; and after casting an admiring glance at the flower-pots, just then so bright with blossoms, quietly continue his perambulations.

"Some angler, attracted by the fame of our trout-fishing," thought the clerk, peering

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C

out at him as he pursued his way to the brook. "Afore he comes back with his rod and line, however, he must take care to get a regular ticket from Sir Clement's keepers, or no sport for him hereaway!"

After a few minutes' loitering along the Hams, however, the stranger retraced his steps. The spot was a damp one after sunset. But this time, on reaching the clerk's garden, he made a dead stop, as if the beauty of the flowers was not to be passed by; and stood gazing at the fine clove carnations, and inhaling their fragrance over the little gate, till even a less benevolent man than John Downing might have been tempted to say, "Walk in."

The stranger, however, was the first to speak.

"Mr. Downing, I believe?" said he, touching his hat, though the clerk, in his own garden, on a July evening, was uncovered.

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My informants, I find, did not deceive me," he resumed, when answered by a civil bow of assent. "I was told to look for a cottage