for the two young people lived in the eyes of many who wished them well, and who looked for a great wedding, with masques, and dancing, and holiday arches, and public largesses of drink and money, such as had not been in mid-England for a generation. Wonderful as it seemed, the turmoil soon passed; and the two, never stirring from the very heart of the disturbance and opposition, somehow lived on, and were not parted, and slowly established a peace with their angry kindred. Malice itself could not hold out long against the Lord Richard's winning ways; and ever, as he grew older, he became sadder and gentler, and more to be honored by all men. But the Lady Eleanor lost the merry laughter she once had, and shrank, in great mistrust, even from her own family, so that it was plain at times that her reason was shaken. None on earth, meanwhile, save the lovers themselves, held the clew to their blighted lives. He never left her; he never travelled, nor went to court, as became his station, but sat patiently awaiting, at home, the crowning distress which he now knew must come upon them. Gossip broke out again, ere long, as much as it dared, in the village taverns; and there was a lifting of willing eyebrows among the gentry dwelling near, when, in the autumn, the incarnate disaster, the child in the Vandyck picture, was born. They rang the joy-bells from the church-tower, and the tenantry came under the eaves and cheered until faithful old Stephen threatened them with his blunderbuss, and drove them away. The Earl was sitting at his cards, with his bad foot on a stool before him, when the Lord Richard came in, with a silken parcel in his arms, followed only by a couple of his sniffing hounds. 'Well, what hast thou there, Dick?' cried the big blustering man, not unkindly. 'Father,' said the young stricken Lord Richard, in his impassioned fidelity, holding the parcel forth, 'I have my son.' And thereupon such a mortal paleness came upon him, and his knees shook so under him, for the deceit, that he scarce could stand. Seeing him quake, the old Earl, a rough jolly creature in his better moods, laughed long and loud.