gentlemen who know how to turn a neat compliment. I forgot to tell you that the Governor--his name is Colonel Norton--is a remarkably handsome man, very tall, and with bright laughing eyes and auburn love-locks. Pray tell the vicar that I will question Mr. Geers as to the antiquities in the neighbourhood of Garnons, and when these troubles be ended seek to bring him some treasures for his collection.--I rest, your affectionate friend, “Frances Hopton.” “My youngest brother is now with Governor Massey, and since he is kept so actively at work against various regiments of the Royalists now scattered over the country to seek winter quarters, you may belike see him. Governor Massey doth seem much to affect the neighbourhood of Ledbury, and since his great victory near by at Redmarley last August, he will doubtless hold it in yet more loving remembrance. They tell me that Colonel Edward Harley did there get wounded, and that though he hath now recovered the bullet is yet in him.” Hilary folded the letter sadly. Everything seemed to be passing away from her, and she began faintly to understand how terrible a condition England was in. Moreover, the closing in of the short autumn days, and the near approach of the hard winter, depressed her. She wondered how she should ever endure the long nights with their dreadful sense of insecurity; she shuddered at the remembrance of the horrible tales she had heard from the village folk of the wickedness and violence of Prince Maurice’s troops, and she remembered with horror the fate of the Vicar of Tarrington. If one of Massey’s men had shown such brutality to him, what guarantee had she that the Viear of Bosbury would fare any better? Sitting by the hearth in the fast-gathering twilight, an unusual stir in the village street suddenly attracted her attention; there was a steady, ominous tramp of many feet, which could not be mistaken, then the hoarse shout of an officer, “Plait!” She sprang up and ran to the study, where the Vicar sat at a table strewn with fossils, deeply absorbed in the contemplation of an ammonite. “Sir!” she said, “do you not hear that there are soldiers in the village?” “Look what a fine specimen Mr. Bartley hath to-day brought me for the collection,” said Dr. Coke, looking up at her with a happy light in his eyes. “’Tis the finest I have ever seen.” “Yes, yes,” said Hilary, trying to be patient; “but, uncle, there are soldiers halting in the village.” She had at last brought him back from pre-historic times to the seventeenth century. He pushed back his chair and, putting on his college cap, rose to his feet. “Now I think of it,” he said, “I met a couple of scouts when I was out--Massey’s men, judging by their ribbons.” “Oh! don’t go then; you must not go, sir, if they are Massey’s men,” she said in terror.