during the time of my cousin's visit to us, we shall live secluded from our friends and neighbours; for I cannot expect from any lady the complaisance of meeting Mrs Heneage Devereux at my table." Yet he looked at me half-imploringly as he spoke, and it would be impossible for me to describe the expression of grateful affection which beamed in the countenances of both brother and sister, when I hastened to remove the humiliating doubt, by exclaiming, "Whatever be your intention with regard to the neighbourhood in general, my dear sir, do not flatter yourself you will so easily banish your old and attached friends. Neither my wife nor I could endure a week's exclusion from Devereux Hall, and I think it is more than that period of time since we have sat at your hospitable board. Mrs L---- would take it kindly if you were to invite us for to-morrow, and we would do our best to help you to entertain these inconvenient visitors." Mr Devereux grasped my hand, and looked his grateful acquiescence to my proposal, for it was more than a minute before he could speak it audibly, and I left my valued friends that morning with the comfort of believing that I had been so fortunate as to evince my affection for them in the way most grateful and soothing to their feelings. As I passed through the Hall in my way out, the door of the eating-room burst open, and out rushed a couple of overdressed hoydens, with flame-coloured faces and arms, followed by a hopeful youth, all shirt-collar and cravat, booted and spurred, and armed with a dog-whip, which he flourished in playful menace after the fair fugitives, eloquently apostrophising them with--"Hoie! hoie! little dogs!--That's it, Loa!--Well run, Phil!--Unkennel the old one!" At sight of me the frolicsome trio slunk back somewhat confused, and a shrill female voice called out from the eating-room, in a half-laughing, half-wrathful tone, "Come back, you combustious creturs! Come back, I tell ye, or I'll tell your Pa when he comes in. Let alone your sisters, do, Watty, dear! or you'll tear their tails again, as you did yesterday, wi' them there nasty spurs!" My inclination to laugh was overpowered by sensations of a very different nature as I hurried past the scene of uproarious vulgarity, and I rode away from the old Hall, with a full heart, well-nigh lamenting that the last lineal descendants of the Devereuxs had lived so long as to witness its desecration.