Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV.

To Jonas Sparks, Esq. M.P., accordingly, they dedicated their allegiance. A few additional chaldrons of coals and pairs of blankets, the first frosty winter, bound them his slaves for ever. Food, physic, and wine, were liberally distributed to the sick and aged whenever they repaired for relief to the Doric portico; and, with the usual convenient memory of the vulgar, the Lexleyans soon began to remember of the Altham family only their recent backslidings and ancient feudal oppressions: while of the Sparkses they chose to know only what was evident to all eyes—viz., that their hands were open and faces comely.

Into their hearts—more especially into that of Jonas, the head of the house—they examined not at all; and were ill-qualified to surmise the intensity of bitterness with which, while contemplating the beauty and richness of his new domain, he beheld the turrets of the old hall rising like a statue of scorn above the intervening woods. There stood the everlasting monument of the ancient family—there the emblem of their pride, throwing its shadow, as it were, over his dawning prosperity! But for that force of contrast thus afforded, he would scarcely have perceived the newness of all the objects around him—the glare of the fresh freestone—the nakedness of the whited walls. A few stately old oaks and elms, apparently coeval with the ancient structure, which a sort of religious feeling had preserved from the axe, that they might afford congenial shade to the successor of its founder, seemed to impart meanness and vulgarity to the tapering verdure of his plantations, his modern trees—his pert poplars and mean larches—his sycamores and planes. Even the incongruity between his solid new paling and the decayed and sun-bleached wood of the venerable fence to which it adjoined, with its hoary beard of silvery lichen, was an eyesore to him. Every passer-by might note the limit and circumscription dividing the new place from the ancient seat of the lords of the manor.

Yet was the landscape of Lexley Park one of almost unequalled beauty. The Dee formed noble ornament to its sweeping valleys; while the noble acclivities were clothed with promising woods, opening by rich vistas to a wide extent of champaign country. A fine bridge of granite, erected by the late Sir Windsor Altham, formed a noble object from the windows of the new mansion; and but for the evidence of the venerable pile, that stood like an abdicated monarch surveying its lost dominions, there existed no external demonstration that Lexley Park had not from the beginning of time formed the estated seat of the Sparkses.

The neighbouring families, if "neighbouring" could be called certain of the nobility and gentry who resided at ten miles' distance, were courteously careful to inspire the new settler with a belief that they at least had forgotten any antecedent state of things at Lexley; for they had even reason to congratulate themselves on the change. Jonas had long been strenuously active in the House of Commons in promoting county improvements. Jonas was useful as a magistrate, and invaluable as a liberal contributor to the local charities. During the first five years of his occupancy, he did more for Lexley and its inhabitants than the half-dozen previous baronets of the House of Altham.

Of the man he had superseded, meanwhile, it was observed that Mr Sparks was judiciously careful to forbear all mention. It might have been supposed that he had purchased the estate of the Crown or the Court of Chancery, so utterly ignorant did he appear of the age, habits, and whereabout of his predecessor; and when informed by Sir John Wargrane, one of his wealthy neighbours, that young Altham was disgracing himself again—that at the public gaming-tables at Toplitz he had been a loser of thirty thousand pounds—the cunning parvenu listened with an air of as vague indifference as if he were not waiting with breathless anxiety the gradual dissipation of the funds, secured to the young spendthrift by the transfer of his estate, to grasp at the small remaining portion of his property. Unconsciously, when the tale of Sir Laurence's profligacy met his ear, he clenched his griping hand, as though it already recognized its hold upon the destined spoil, but not a word did he utter.

Meanwhile, the family of the new squire of Lexley were winning golden opinions on all sides. "The boys were brave—the girls were fair," the mother virtuous, pious, and unpretending. It would have been scandalous, indeed, to sneer to shame the modest cheerfulness of such people, because their ancestors had not fought at the Crusades. By degrees, they assumed an honourable and even eminent position in the county; and the first time Sir Laurence Altham condescended to visit the county-palatine, he heard nothing but commendations and admiration of the charming family at Lexley Park.

"Charming family!—a Jonas Sparks, and charming!" was his supercilious reply. "I rejoice to find that the fumier I have been forced to fling on my worn-out ancestral estate is fertilizing its barrenness. The village is probably the better for the change. But, as regards the society, I must be permitted to mistrust the attractions of the brood of a Congleton manufacturer."

The young baronet, who now, though still entitled to be called young, was disfigured by the premature defeatures of a vicious life, mistrusted it all the more, when, on visiting the old hall, he was forced to recognize the improvements effected in the neighbouring property (that he should be forced to call it "neighbouring!") by the judicious administration of the new owner. It was impossible to deny that Mr Sparks had doubled its value, while enhancing its beauties. The low grounds were drained, the high lands planted, the river widened, the forestry systematically organized. The estate appeared to have attained new strength and vigour when dissevered from the old manor-house; whose shadow might be supposed to have exercised a baleful influence on the lands wherever it presided.

But it was not his recognition of this that was likely to animate the esteem of Sir Laurence Altham for Mr Jonas Sparks. On the contrary, he felt every accession of value to the Lexley property as so much subtracted from his belongings; and his detestation of the upstarts, whose fine mansion was perceptible from his lordly towers—like a blot upon the fairness of the landscape—increased with the increase of their prosperity.

Without having expected to take delight in a sojourn at Lexley Hall—a spot where he had only resided for a few weeks now and then, from the period of his early boyhood—he was not prepared for the excess of irritation that arose in his heart on witnessing the total estrangement of the retainers of his family. For the mortification of seeing a fine new house, with gorgeous furniture, and a pompous establishment, he came armed to the teeth. But no presentiments had forewarned him, that at Lexley the living Althams were already as much forgotten as those who were sleeping in the family vault. The sudden glow that pervaded his whole frame when he chanced to encounter on the highroad the rich equipage of the Sparkses; or the imprecation that burst from his lips, when, on going to the window of a morning to examine the state of the weather for the day, the first objects that struck him was the fair mansion in the plain below, laughing as it were in the sunshine, the deer grouped under its fine old trees, and the river rippling past its lawns as if delighting in their verdure–Yes! there was decided animosity betwixt the hill and the valley.

Every successive season served to quicken the pulses of this growing hatred. Whether on the spot or at a distance, a thousand aggravations sprang up betwixt the parties: disputes between gamekeepers, quarrels between labourers, encroachments by tenants. Every thing and nothing was made the groundwork of ill-will. To Sir Laurence Altham's embittered feelings, the very rooks of Lexley Park seemed evermore to infringe upon the privileges of the rookery at Lexley Hall; and when, in the parish church, the new squire (or rather his workmen, for he was absent at the time attending his duties in Parliament) inadvertently broke off the foot of a marble cherub, weeping its alabaster tears, at the angle of a monument to the memory of a certain Sir Wilfred Altham, of the time of James II., in raising the woodwork of a pew occupied by Mr Sparks's family, the rage of Sir Laurence was so excessive as to be almost deserving of a strait-waistcoat.

The enmity of the baronet was all the more painful to himself that he felt it to be harmless against its object. In every way, Lexley Park had the best of it. Jonas Sparks was not only rich in a noble income, but in a charming wife and promising family. Every thing prospered with him; and, as to mere inferiority of precedence, it was well known that he had refused a baronetcy; and many people even surmised that, so soon as he was able to purchase another borough, and give a seat in Parliament to his second son, as well as resign his own to the eldest, he would be promoted to the Upper House.

The only means of vengeance, therefore, possessed by the vindictive man whose follies and vices had been the means of creating this perpetual scourge to his pride, was withholding from him the purchase of the remaining lands indispensable to the completion of his estate, more especially as regarded the water-courses, which, at Lexley Park, were commanded by the sluices of the higher grounds of the Hall; and mighty was the oath sworn by Sir Laurence, that come what might, however great his exigencies or threatening his poverty, nothing should induce him to dispose of another acre to Jonas Sparks. He was even at the trouble of executing a will, in order to introduce a clause imposing the same reservation upon the man to whom he devised his small remaining property—the heir-at-law, to whom, had he died intestate, it would have descended without conditions.

"The Congleton shopkeepers," muttered he, (whenever, in his solitary evening rides, he caught sight of the rich plate-glass windows of the new mansion, burnished by the setting sun,) "shall never, never lord it under the roof of my forefathers! Wherever else he may set his plebeian foot, Lexley Hall shall be sacred. Rather see the old place burned to the ground—rather set fire to it with my own hands—than conceive that, when I am in my grave, it could possibly be subjected to the rule of such a barbarian!"

For it had reached the ears of Sir Laurence—of course, with all the exaggeration derived from passing through the medium of village gossip—that a thousand local legends concerning the venerable mansion, sanctified by their antiquity in the ears of the family, afforded a fertile source of jesting to Jonas Sparks. The Hall abounded in concealed staircases and iron hiding-places, connected with a variety of marvellous traditions of the civil wars; besides a walled-up suite of chambers, haunted, as becomes a walled-up suite of chambers; and justice-rooms and tapestried-rooms, to which the long abandonment of the house, and the heated imaginations of the few menials left in charge of its desolate vastness, attributed romances likely enough to have provoked the laughter of a matter-of-fact man like the owner of Lexley Park. But neither Sir Laurence nor his old servants were likely to forgive this insult offered to the family legends of a house which had little else left to boast of. Even the neighbouring families were displeased to hear them derided; and my grandfather never liked to hear a joke on the subject of the coach-and-four which was said to have driven into the court-yard of the Hall on the eve of the execution of the rebel lords in 1745, having four headless inmates, who were duly welcomed as guests by old Sir Robert Altham. Nay, as a child, I had so often thrilled on my nurse's knees during the relation of this spectral visitation, that I own I felt indignant if any one presumed to laugh at a tale which had made me quake for fear.

Among those who were known to resent the familiar tone in which Mr Sparks had been heard to criticise the pomps and vanities exhibited at Lexley Hall by the Althams of the olden time, was a certain General Stanley, who, inhabiting a fine seat of his own at about ten miles' distance, was fond of bringing over his visitors to visit the old Hall, as an interesting specimen of county antiquity. He knew the peculiarities of the place, and could repeat the traditions connected with the hiding-places better than the housekeeper herself; and I have heard her say it was a pleasure to hear him relating these historical anecdotes with all the fire of an old soldier, and see his venerable grey hair blown about as he stood with his party on the battlements, pointing out to the ladies the fine range of territory formerly belonging to the Althams. The old lady protested that the general was nearly as much grieved as herself to behold the old mansion so shorn of its beams; and certain it is, that once when, on visiting the hall after Sir Laurence had been some years an absentee, he found the grass growing among the disjointed stones of the cloisters and justice-hall, he made a handsome present to one of the housekeeper's nephews, on condition of his keeping the purlieus of the venerable mansion free from such disgraceful evidences of neglect.

All this eventually reached the ears of the baronet; but instead of making him angry, as might have been expected, from one so tetchy and susceptible, he never encountered General Stanley, either in town or country, without demonstrations of respect. Though too reserved and morose for conversation, Sir Laurence was observed to take off his hat to him with a respect he was never seen to show towards the king or queen.

About this time I began to take personal interest in the affairs of the neighbourhood, though my own were now of a nature to engross my attention. By my grandfather's death, I had recently come into the enjoyment of the small inheritance which has sufficed to the happiness of my life; and, renouncing the profession for which I was educated, settled myself permanently at Lexley.

Well do I remember the melancholy face with which the good old rector, the very first evening we spent together, related to me in confidence that he had three years' dues in arrear to him from Lexley Hall; but that so wretched was said to be the state of Sir Laurence's embarrassments, that, for more than a year, his dread of arrest had kept him a close prisoner in his house in London.

"We have not seen him here these six years!" observed Dr Whittingham; "and I doubt whether he will ever again set foot in the county. Since an execution was put into the Hall, he has never crossed the threshold, and I suspect never will. Far better were he to dispose of the property at once! Dismembered as it is, what pleasure can it afford him? And, since he is unlikely to marry and have heirs, there is less call upon him to retain this remaining relic of family pride; yet I am assured—nay, have good reason to know, that he has refused a very liberal offer on the part of Mr Sparks. Malicious people do say, by the way, that it was by the advice of Sparks's favourite attorneys the execution was enforced, and that no means have been left unattempted to disgust him with the place. Yet he is firm, you see, and persists in disappointing his creditors, and depriving himself of the comforts of life, merely in order that he may die, as his fathers did before him—the lord of Lexley Hall!"

"I don't wonder!" said I, with the dawning sentiments of a landed proprietor—"'Tis a splendid old house, even in its present state of degradation; and, by Jove! I honour his pertinacity."

Thus put upon the scent, I sometimes fancied I could detect wistful looks on the part of my prosperous neighbour of the Park, when, in the course of Dr Whittingham's somewhat lengthy sermons, he directed his eyes towards the carved old Gothic tribune, containing the family-pew of the Althams, in the parish church; and, whenever I happened to encounter him in the neighbourhood of the Hall, his face was so pointedly averted from the house, as if the mere object were an offence. I could not but wonder at his vexation; being satisfied in my own mind, that sooner or later the remaining heritage of the spendthrift must fall to his share.

Judge, therefore, of my surprise, when one fine morning, as I sauntered into the village, I found the whole population gathered in groups on the little market-place, and discovered from the incoherent exclamations of the crowd, that "the new proprietor of the Hall had just driven through in a chaise-and-four!"

Yes—"the new proprietor!" The place was sold! The good doctor's prediction was verified. Sir Laurence was never more to return to Lexley Hall!

The satisfaction of the villagers almost equalled their surprise on finding that General Stanley was their new landlord. It suited them much better that there should be two families settled on the property than one; and as it was pretty generally reported, that, in the event of Sparks becoming the purchaser, he intended to demolish the old house, and reconsolidate the estate around his own more commodious mansion, they were right glad to find it rescued from such a sentence—General Stanley, who was the father of a family, would probably settle the hall on one of his daughters, after placing it in the state of repair so much needed.

When the chaise-and-four returned, therefore, a few hours afterwards, through the village, the General was loudly cheered by his subjects. His partiality for the place was so well known at Lexley, that already these people seemed to behold in him the guardian of a monument so long the object of their pride.

For my own part, nothing surprised me so much in the business as that Sparks should have allowed the purchase to slip through his fingers. It was worth thrice as much to him as to any body else. It was the keystone of his property. It was the one thing needful to render Lexley Park the most perfect seat in the county. But I was not slow in learning (for every thing transpires in a small country neighbourhood) that whatever my surprise on finding that the old Hall had changed its master, that of Sparks was far more overwhelming; that he was literally frantic on finding himself frustrated in expectations which formed the leading interest of his declining years. For the progress of time which had made me a man and a landed proprietor, had converted the stout active squire into an infirm old man; and it was his absorbing wish to die sole owner of the whole property to which the baronets of the Altham family were born.

He even indulged in expressions of irritation, which nearly proved the means of commencing this new neighbourship by a duel; accusing General Stanley of having possessed himself by unfair means of Sir Laurence's confidence, and employed agents, underhand, to effect the purchase. In consequence of these groundless representations, it transpired in the country that the decayed baronet had actually volunteered the offer of the estate to the veteran proprietor of Stanley Manor; that he had solicited him to become the proprietor, and even accommodated him with peculiar facilities of payment, on condition of his inserting in the title-deeds an express undertaking, never to dispose of the old Hall, or any portion of the property, to Jonas Sparks of Lexley Park, or his heirs for ever. The solicitor by whom, under Sir Laurence's direction, the deeds had been prepared, saw fit to divulge this singular specification, rather than that a hostile encounter should run the risk of embruing in blood the hands of two grey haired men.

Excepting as regarded the disappointment of our wealthy neighbour, all was now established on the happiest footing at Lexley. The reparation instantly commenced by the General, gave employment throughout the winter to our workmen; and the evils arising from an absentee landlord began gradually to disappear. It was a great joy to me to perceive that the new proprietor of the Hall had the good taste to preserve the antique character of the place in the minutest portion of his alterations; and though the old gardens were no longer a wilderness, not a shrub was displaced—not a mutilated statue removed. The furniture had been sold off at the time of the execution; and that which came down in cart-loads from town to replace it, was rigidly in accordance with the semi-Gothic architecture of the lofty chambers. Poor Sparks must have been doubly mortified; for not only did he find his old eyesore converted into an irremediable evil by the restoration of the Hall, but the supremacy hitherto maintained in the neighbourhood by the modern elegance of his house and establishment, was thrown into the shade by the rich and tasteful arrangements of the Hall.

From the contracted look of his forehead, and sudden alteration of his appearance, I have reason to think he was beginning to undergo all the moral martyrdom sustained for thirty years past by the unfortunate Sir Laurence Altham; and were I not by nature the most contented of men, it would have sufficiently reconciled me to the mediocrity of my fortunes, to see that these two great people of my neighbourhood—the nobly-descended baronet and rich parvenu—were miserable men; that, so long as I could remember, one or other of them had been given over to surliness and discontent.

Before the close of the year the grand old Hall had become one of the noblest seats in the county. There was talk about it in all the country round, and even the newspapers took notice of its renovation, and of General Stanley's removal thither from Stanley Manor. Many people, of the species who love to detect spots in the sun, were careful to point out the insufficiency of the estate, as at present constituted, to maintain so fine a house. But, after all, what mattered this to General Stanley, who had a fine rent-roll elsewhere?

The first thing he did, on taking possession, was to give a grand ball to the neighbourhood; nor was it till the whole house was lighted up for this festive occasion, that people were fully aware of the grandeur of its proportions. He was good enough to send me an invitation on so especial an occasion. But already I had imbibed the distaste which has pursued me through life for what is called society; and I accordingly contented myself with surveying from a distance the fine effect produced by the light streaming from the multitude of windows, and exhibiting to the whole country round the gorgeous nature of the decorations within. To own the truth, I could scarcely forbear regretting, as I surveyed them, the gloomy dilapidation of the venerable mansion. This modernized antiquity was a very different thing from the massy grandeur of its neglected years; and I am afraid I loved the old house better with the weeds springing from its crevices, than with all this carving and gilding, this ebony, and iron, and light.

The people of Lexley imagined that nothing would induce the Sparks's family to be seen under General Stanley's roof. But we were mistaken. So much the contrary, that the squire of Lexley Park made a particular point of being the first and latest of the guests—not only because his reconciliation with his new neighbour was so recent, but from not choosing to authenticate, by his absence, the rumours of his grievous disappointment.

For all the good he was likely to derive from his visit, the poor man had better have stayed away; for that unlucky night laid foundations of evil for him and his, far greater than any he had incurred from the animosity of Sir Laurence. Nay, when in the sequel these results became matter of public commentation, superstitious people were not wanting to hint that the evil spirit, traditionally said to haunt one of the wings of the old manor, and to have manifested itself on more than one occasion to members of the Altham family, (and more especially to the late worthless proprietor of the Hall,) had acquired a fatal power over the two supplanters of the ruined family the moment they crossed the threshold.

General Stanley, after marrying late in life, had been some years a widower—a widower with two daughters, his co-heiresses. The elder of these young ladies was a hopeless invalid, slightly deformed, and so little attractive in person, or desirous to attract, that there was every prospect of the noble fortunes of the General centring in her sister. Yet this sister, this girl, had little need of such an accession to her charms; for she was one of those fortunate beings endowed not only with beauty and excellence, but with a power of pleasing not always united with even a combination of merit and loveliness.

Every body agreed that Mary Stanley was charming. Old and young, rich and poor, all loved her, all delighted in her. It is true, the good rector's maiden sisters privately hinted to me their horror of the recklessness with which—sometimes with her sister, oftener without, but wholly unattended—she drove her little pony-chaise through the village, laughing like a madcap at pranks of a huge Newfoundland dog named Sergeant, the favourite of General Stanley, which, while escorting the young ladies, used to gambol into the cottages, overset furniture and children, and scamper out again amid a general uproar. For though Miss Mary was but sixteen, the starched spinsters decided that she was much too old for such folly; and that, if the General intended to present her at court, it was high time for her to lay aside the hoyden manners of childhood.

But, as every one argued against them, why should this joyous, bright, and beautiful creature lay aside what became her so strangely? Mary Stanley was not made for the formalities of what is called high-breeding. Her light, easy, sinuous figure, did not lend itself to the rigid deportment of a prude; and her gay laughing eyes, and dimpled mouth, were ill calculated to grace a dignified position. The long ringlets of her profuse auburn hair were always out of order—either streaming in the wind, or straying over her white shoulders—her long lashes and beautifully defined eyebrows of the same rich tint, alone preserving any thing like uniformity—a uniformity which, combined with her almost Grecian regularity of features, gave her, on the rare occasions when her countenance and figure were at rest, the air of some nymph or dryad of ancient sculpture. But to compare Mary Stanley to any thing of marble is strangely out of place; for her real beauty consisted in the ever-varying play of her features, and a certain impetuosity of movement, that would have been a little characteristic of the romp, but that it was restrained by the spell of feminine sensibility. Heart was evidently the impulse of every look and every gesture.

For a man of my years, methinks I am writing like a lover. And so I was! From the first moment I saw that girl, at an humble and unaspiring distance, I could dream of nothing else. Every thing and every body seemed fascinated by Mary Stanley. When she walked out into the fields with the General, her two hands clasping, like those of a child, her father's arm, his favourite colts used to come neighing playfully towards them; and not the fiercest dog of his extensive kennel but, even when unmanageable by the keeper, would creep fawning to her feet.

It was strange enough, but still more fortunate, that all the adoration lavished upon this lovely creature by gentle and simple, Christian and brute, provoked no apparent jealousy on the part of her elder sister. Selina Stanley was afflicted with a cold, reserved, unhappy countenance, only too completely in unison with her disastrous position. But her heart was perhaps as genuine as her face was forbidding; for she loved the merry, laughing, handsome Mary, more as a mother her child, than as a sister nearly of her own years—that is, exultingly, but anxiously. Every one else foresaw nothing but prosperity, and joy, and love, in store for Mary. Selina prayed that it might prove so;—but she prayed with tears in her eyes, and trembling in her soul! For where are the destinies of persons thus exquisitely organized—thus full of love and loveliness—thus readily swayed to joy or sorrow, by the trivial incidents of life—characterised by what the world calls happiness—such happiness, I mean, as is enjoyed by the serene and the prudent, the unexcitable, the unaspiring! Miss Stanley foresaw only too truly, that the best days likely to be enjoyed by her sister, were those she was spending under her father's roof—a general idol—an object of deference and delight to all around.

At the General's housewarming, though not previously introduced into society, Mary was the queen of the ball; and all present agreed, that one of the most pleasing circumstances of the evening was to watch the animated cordiality with which she flew from one to the other of those old neighbours of Stanley Manor, (whom she alone had managed to persuade that a dozen miles was no distance to prevent their accepting her father's invitation;) and not the most brilliant of her young friends received a more eager welcome, or more sustained attention throughout the evening, than the few homely elderly people, (such as my friends the Whittinghams,) who happened to share the hospitality of General Stanley. I daresay that even I, had I found courage to accept his invitation, should have received from the young beauty some gentle word, in addition to the kindly smiles with which she was sure to return my respectful obeisance whenever we met accidentally in the village.

Mary was dressed in white, with a few natural flowers in her hair, which, owing to the impetuosity of her movements, soon fell out, leaving only a stray leaf or two, that would have looked ridiculous any where but among her rich, but dishevelled locks; and the pleasant anxieties of the evening imparted such a glow to her usually somewhat pale complexion, that her beauty is said to have been, that night, almost supernatural. She was more like the creature of a dream than one of those wooden puppets, who move mechanically through the world under the name of well brought-up young ladies.

It will easily be conceived how much this ball, so rare an event in our quiet neighbourhood, was discussed, not only the following day, but for days and weeks to come. Even at the rectory I heard of nothing else; while by my good old housekeeper, who had a son in service at General Stanley's, and a daughter waiting-maid to Miss Sparks, I was let in to secrets concerning it of which even the rectory knew nothing.

In the first place, though Mr Sparks had peremptorily signified from the first to his family, his desire that all should accompany him to Lexley Hall on this trying occasion, (and it was only natural he should wish to solace his wounded pride, by appearing before his noble neighbour surrounded by his handsome progeny,) two of his children had risen up in rebellion against the decree—and for the first time—for Sparks was happy in a dutiful and well-ordered family. But the youngest daughter, Kezia, a girl of high spirits and intelligence, who fancied she had been pointedly slighted by the Misses Stanley, when, in one of Mary's harum-scarum expeditions on her Shetland pony, she had passed without recognition the better-mounted young lady of Lexley Park; and the eldest son, who so positively refused to accompany his father to the house of a man by whom Mr Sparks had inconsiderately represented himself as aggrieved, that, for once, the kind parent was forced to play the tyrant, and insist on his obedience.

It was, accordingly, with a very ill grace that these two, the prettiest of the daughters, and by far the handsomest of his three handsome sons, made their appearance at the fête. But no sooner were they welcomed by General Stanley and his daughters, than the brother and sister, who had mutually encouraged each other's disputes, hastened to recant their opinions.

"How could you, dearest father, describe this courteous, high-bred old gentleman, as insolent and overbearing?"—whispered Kezia.

"How could you possibly suppose that yonder lovely, gracious creature, intended to treat you with impertinence?"—was the rejoinder of her brother; and already the Stanleys had two enemies the less among their neighbours at Lexley Park.

On the other hand, the General had been forced to have recourse to severe schooling to bring his daughters to a sense of what was due to his guests, as regarded the family of a man who was known to have spoken disparagingly of them all. Moreover, if the truth must be owned, Mary was not altogether free from the prejudices of her caste; and, proud of her father's noble extraction, was apt to pout her pretty lip on mention of "the people at Lexley Park;" for the General, who had no secrets from his girls, had foolishly permitted them to see certain letters addressed to him by the eccentric Sir Laurence Altham, justifying himself concerning the peculiar clause introduced into his deeds of conveyance of his Hall estate, on the grounds of the degraded origin of "the upstart" he was so malignantly intent on discomposing.

"They will spoil our ball, dear papa—I know these vulgar people will completely spoil our ball!" said she. "I think I hear them announced:—'Mr Jonas Sparks, Miss Basiliza and Miss Kezia Sparks!'—What names?"

"The parents of Mr Sparks were dissenters," observed the General, trying to look severe. "Dissenters are apt to hold to scriptural names. But name is not nature, Mary; and, to judge by appearances, this man's—this gentleman's—this Mr Sparks's daughters, have every qualification to be an ornament to society."

"With all my heart, papa, but I wish it were not ours!" cried the wayward girl. "On the present occasion, especially, I could spare such an accession to our circle; for I know that Mr Sparks has presumed to speak of–"