He had brought her to an opening in the high trees which formed a rampart to the lawn in front of the Priory, and, with his lean arm stretched out, he was pointing down a broad grass drive, now flecked with long shafts of golden October sunlight. On one side of this grassy way rose a holly hedge, and on the other, under the trees, was a drift of beech leaves. Turning round, Barbara suddenly gave a cry of delight; set in an arch, cut out of the dense wall of holly, was a small iron gate, and through the aperture so made could be seen a rose garden, the ancient rosery of Chancton Priory, now a tangle of exquisite colouring, a spot evidently jealously guarded and hidden away even from those few to whom the familiar beauties of the place were free. Doctor McKirdy followed her gaze with softened melancholy eyes. He had not meant to bring Mrs. Rebell to this spot, but silently he opened the little iron gate, and stood holding it back for her to pass through into the narrow rose-bordered way. Surrounded by beech trees and high hedges, the rosery had evidently been designed long before the days of scientific gardening, but in the shadowed enclosure many of the summer roses were still blooming. And yet a feeling of oppression came over Barbara as she walked slowly down the mossy path: this lovely garden, whose very formality of arrangement was an added grace, looked not so much neglected as abandoned, uncared for. As the two walked slowly on side by side, they came at last to a fantastic fountain, set in the centre of the rosery, stone cupids shaking slender jets of water from rose-laden cornucopias, and so to the very end of the garden--that furthest from the Priory. It was bounded by a high red brick wall, probably all that remained of some building older than the rosery, for it had been cleverly utilised to serve as a background and shelter to the earliest spring roses, and was now bare of blossom, almost of leaves. In the centre of this wall, built into the old brick surface, was an elaborate black and white marble tablet or monument, on which was engraved the following inscription:-- "Hic, ubi ludebas vagula olim et blandula virgo, Julia, defendunt membra foventque rosæ. Laetius ah quid te tenuit, quid purius, orbis?-- Nunc solum mater quod fueris meminit" "What is it? What is written there?" Barbara asked with some eagerness. "How strange a thing to find in a rose garden!" She had turned to her companion, but for a while he made no answer. Then at last, speaking with an even stronger burr than usual, Doctor McKirdy translated, in a quiet emotionless voice, the inscription which had been composed by Lord Bosworth, at the bidding of Madame Sampiero, to the memory of their beloved child. "Here, where thou wert wont once to play, a little sweet wandering maid, Julia, the roses protect and cherish thy limbs. Ah, what happier or purer thing than thee did the world contain?"