the wind was--how full of something strange and sweet. She began to learn that nothing is dead, that there cannot be a physical abstraction, that nothing exists for the sake of the laws of its phenomena. She did not put it so to herself, I need hardly say; but she was, in a word, learning to feel that the world was alive. Of the three she was the merriest that night as they went together along the quiet road. A little way out of the village, Richard set her on the mare, and walked by her side, leading Miss Brown. Such was the tolerably sufficient foundation for the report that he was seen rollicking with a common-looking lad and a servant girl on the high road, in the immediate vicinity of Wylder Hall. “He is his father's son!” reflected lady Ann. “He's a chip of the old block!” said sir Wilton to himself. But he did not approve of the openness of the thing. To let such doings be seen was low! Presently fell an ugly light on the affair. “By Jove!” he said to himself, “it's the damned Manson girl! I'll lay my life on it! The fellow is too much of a puritan to flaunt his own foibles in the public eye; but, damn him, he don't love his father enough not to flaunt his! Dead and buried, the rascal hauls them out of their graves for men to see! It's all the damned socialism of his mother's relations! Otherwise the fellow would be all a father could wish! I might have known it! The Armour blood was sure to break out! What business has he with what his father did before he was born! He was nowhere then, the insolent dog! He shall do as I tell him or go about his business--go and herd with the Mansons and all the rest of them if he likes, and be hanged to them!” He sat in smouldering rage for a while, and then again his thoughts took shape in words, though not in speech. “How those fools of Wylders will squirm when I cut the rascal off with a shilling, and settle the property on the man the little lady refused! But Dick will never be such a fool! He cannot reconcile his puritanism with such brazen-faced conduct! I shall never make a gentleman of him! He will revert to the original type! It had disappeared in his mother! What's bred in the damned bone will never out of the damned flesh!” Richard was at the moment walking with Mr. Wingfold in the rectory garden. They were speaking of what the Lord meant when he said a man must leave all for him. As soon us he entered his father's room, he saw that something had gone wrong with him. “What is it, father?” he said. “Richard, sit down,” said sir Wilton. “I must have a word with you:--What young man and woman were you walking with two nights ago, not far from Wylder Hall?” “My brother and sister, sir--the Mansons.”