for many years, and, since becoming such, had become alienated from the distinguished family of his late countess; whose ardent and sensitive disposition they believed to have been utterly crushed by the iron despotism of an unfeeling and domineering husband. Whatever foundation there might have been for this supposition, it contributed to imbitter the feelings of the Earl, and strengthen a tendency to misanthropy. Still his character had fine features. He was most munificent; the very soul of honour; a perfect gentleman; and of irreproachable morals. He professed a firm belief in Christianity, and was exemplary in the discharge of what he considered to be the duties which it imposed upon him. He would listen to the inculcation of the Christian virtues of humility, gentleness, and forgiveness of injury, with a kind of stern complacency; unaware, all the while, that they no more existed within himself, than fire could be elicited from the sculptured marble. Most of his day-time he spent in his library, or in solitary drives, or walks along the sea-shore or in the country. Unfortunately, he took no personal part, nor felt any personal interest in the management of his vast revenues and extensive private affairs; intrusting them, as has been already intimated, implicitly to others. When he rode through the village, which lay sheltered near the confines of the woodland in which his castle was situated, he appeared to have no interest in it or its inhabitants, though nearly all of them were his own tenantry. His agent, Mr Oxley, was their real master. “Mr Hylton was one of his lordship’s occasional chaplains, but by no means on intimate terms with him; for that the vicar’s firm independent character unfitting him. While he acknowledged the commanding talents of the Earl, his lordship was, on his part, fully aware of Mr Hylton’s strong intellect, superior scholarship, and the pure and lofty spirit in which he devoted himself to his spiritual duties. The good vicar of Milverstoke knew not what was meant by the fear of man—and that his stately parishioner had had many opportunities of observing; and, in short, Mr Hylton was a much less frequent visitor at the Castle than might might have been supposed, and was at least warranted, by his position and proximity.