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talk. Mr. Gallilee resigned himself to his fate; appealing, on his way out, to somebody to agree with him as usual. Well!' he said with a little sigh, a cigar keeps one company.' Miss Minerva passed near him, on her way to the school-room with her pupils. You would find it so yourself, Miss Minerva-that is to say, if you smoked, which of course you don't. Be a good girl, Zo; attend to your lessons.' Zo's perversity in the matter of lessons put its own crooked construction on this excellent advice. She answered in a whisper, 'Give us a holiday.'

The passing aspirations of idle minds, being subject to the law of chances, sometimes exhibit, by their fulfilment, the vanity of human wishes in a sensible light. Thanks to the conversation between Carmina and Ovid, Zo got her holiday after all.

Mrs. Gallilee, still as amiable as ever, had joined her son and her niece at the aviary. Ovid said to his mother, 'Carmina is fond of birds. I have been telling her she may see all the races of birds assembled in the Zoological Gardens. It's a perfect day. Why shouldn't we go?'

The stupidest woman living would have understood what this proposal really meant. Mrs. Gallilee sanctioned it as composedly as if Ovid and Carmina had been brother and sister. I wish I could go with you,' she said, but my household affairs fill my morning. And there is a lecture this afternoon, which I cannot possibly lose. I don't know, Carmina, whether you are interested in these things? We are to have the apparatus, which illustrates the conversion of radiant energy into sonorous vibrations. Have you ever heard, my dear, of the Diathermancy of Ebonite? Not in your way, perhaps?'

Carmina locked as unintelligent as Zo herself. Mrs. Gallilee's science seemed to frighten her. The Diathermancy of Ebonite, by some incomprehensible process, drove her bewildered mind back on her old companion. I want to give Teresa a little pleasure before we part,' she said timidly; 'may she go with us?'

'Of course!' cried Mrs. Gallilee. And now I think of it, why shouldn't the children have a little pleasure too? I will give them a holiday. Don't be alarmed, Ovid; Miss Minerva will look after them. In the meantime, Carmina, tell your good old friend to get ready.'

Carmina hastened away, and so helped Mrs. Gallilee to the immediate object which she had in view-a private interview with her son.

Ovid anticipated a searching enquiry into the motives which had led him to give up the sea voyage. His mother was far too clever a woman to waste her time in that way. Her first words

told him that his motive was as plainly revealed to her as the sunlight shining in at the window.

That's a charming girl,' she said, when Carmina closed the door behind her. 'Modest and natural-quite the sort of girl, Ovid, to attract a clever man like you.'

Ovid was completely taken by surprise, and owned it by his silence. Mrs. Gallilee went on in a tone of innocent maternal pleasantry.

'You know you began young,' she said; 'your first love was that poor little wizen girl of Lady Northlake's who died. Child's play, you will tell me, and nothing more. But, my dear, I am afraid I shall require some persuasion, before I quite sympathise with this new-what shall I call it?-infatuation is too hard a word, and fancy' means nothing. We will leave it a blank. Marriages of cousins are debatable marriages, to say the least of them; and Protestant fathers and Papist mothers do occasionally involve difficulties with children. Not that I say, No. Far from it. But if this is to go on, I do hesitate.'

Something in his mother's tone grated on Ovid's sensibilities. 'I don't at all follow you,' he said, rather sharply; 'you are looking a little too far into the future.'

Then we will return to the present,' Mrs. Gallilee repliedstill with the readiest submission to the humour of her son.

On recent occasions, she had expressed the opinion that Ovid. would do wisely-at his age, and with his professional prospects— to wait a few years before he thought of marrying. Having now said enough to make his mind easy on the subject of her niece (without appearing to be meanly influenced, in modifying her opinion, by the question of money), her next object was to induce him to leave England immediately, for the recovery of his health. With Ovid absent, and with Carmina under her sole superintendence, Mrs. Gallilee could see her way plainly to her own private ends.

Really,' she resumed, you ought to think seriously of change of air and scene. You know you would not allow a patient, in your present state of health, to trifle with himself as you are trifling now. If you don't like the sea, try the Continent. Get away somewhere, my dear, for your own sake.'

It was only possible to answer this, in one way. Ovid owned that his mother was right, and asked for time to think. To his infinite relief, he was interrupted by a knock at the door. Miss Minerva entered the room-not in a very amiable temper, judging by appearances,

'I am afraid I disturb you,' she began, looking at Mrs. Gallilee.

Ovid seized the opportunity of retreat. He had some letters to write--he hurried away to the library.

'Is there any mistake?' the governess asked, when she and Mrs. Gallilee were alone.

'In what respect, Miss Minerva ? '

'I met your niece, ma'am, on the stairs. She says you wish the children to have a holiday.'

'Yes, to go with my son and Miss Carmina to the Zoological Gardens.'

'Miss Carmina said I was to go too.'

• Miss Carmina was perfectly right.'

The governess fixed her searching eyes on Mrs. Gallilee. You wish me to go with them?' she said.

'I do.'

'I know why.'

In the course of their experience, Mrs. Gallilee and Miss Minerva had once quarrelled fiercely--and Mrs. Gallilee had got the worst of it. She learnt her lesson. For the future, she knew how to deal with her governess. When one said, 'I know why,' the other said, 'Do you?'

'Let's have it out plainly, ma'am,' Miss Minerva proceeded. I am not to let Mr. Ovid' (she laid a bitterly strong emphasis on the name, and flushed angrily)-I am not to let Mr. Ovid and Miss Carmina be alone together.'

'You are a good guesser,' Mrs. Gallilee remarked quietly. 'No,' said Miss Minerva more quietly still; I have only seen what you have seen.'

'Did I tell you what I have seen?'

'Quite needless, ma'am. Your son is in love with his cousin. When am I to be ready?'

The bland mistress mentioned the hour. The rude governess left the room.

Mrs. Gallilee looked at the closing door with a curious smile. She had already suspected Miss Minerva of being crossed in love. The suspicion was now confirmed, and the man was discovered. 'Soured by a hopeless passion,' she said to herself. And the object is my son.'

(To be continued.)

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About Yorkshire.

IX.-WENSLeydale.

PART I.

LEYBURN, MIDDLEHAM, AND RICHMOND.

WENSLEYDALE, or the valley of the Yore, differs from some of the other great Yorkshire valleys, in that its course is not narrowed and ended by any transverse mountain range-it remains broad throughout its long course of about thirty-six miles, beginning at Kilgram Bridge near Jervaux Abbey, and ending at Sedbergh; or, if one reckons its extent by the course of the Yore, near the Lady's Pillar on the Westmoreland border. In reality it divides the wild mountainous region of Swaledale on the north, from Wharfedale on the south; it possesses some of the beauty of all the great Yorkshire valleys, and it has perhaps more variety of aspect than any other dale.

The beautiful Yore, with its constant windings, is always showing fresh pictures-ruined castles and abbeys, quaint grey villages, torrents rushing down from the lofty hills, and, checked by the abrupt limestone ridges, breaking into waterfalls as they reach the exquisite tree-shaded clefts and glens among the fern-covered rocks. Sometimes a huge bare mountain, like Penhill, looms down in black grandeur, or, as at Middleham, the sides of the dale are lower and richly cultivated; the hills are partly limestone and partly millstone grit, and the patches of bare rock scantily sprinkled with heather tell out grandly against the green meadows lower down.

Another great charm of this district is its healthiness. The town of Leyburn, which we made our first halting-place, stands seven hundred feet above the sea; it fronts the south, and is screened from the north by a lofty moor which rises behind it. It is a clean, rather quaint town, beautifully placed, in full view of Penhill Beacon, Wittonfell, and Middleham Castle. It has a spacious marketplace, a modern town-hall and church, and an ancient bull-ring.

We went first to see the Shawl-the chief feature of Leyburnrunning along a rocky wall not far from the town; it is the ridge of the hills that make the north side of the dale, and takes its name from Schall, a scar, or from Shaw-hill, as its side is thickly wooded.

The view from this walk is wonderful in its beauty; on our left, across the river, the ground is lower, and from its green slopes rise

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the grey towers of Middleham. The bank below us is thickly clothed with wood, just now putting forth tender green leaves, so that we see the bright river through the tracery of branches. Opposite us is the long Witton range, and then the huge square black top of Penhill; above its shoulder is Little Whernside, still streaked with snow, and as we go on a yet larger hill comes into sight one of the Pennine range.

When we reach more open ground, the sides of the cliffs are broken, and before us is an avenue of fir-trees. This is the Queen's Gap,' for tradition holds that Queen Mary escaped from Bolton Castle farther up the dale-and reached this point before her gaolers overtook her. Mary was so closely guarded within Bolton Castle that this legend of her escape seems incredible; it is far more possible that the spot may have been a favourite point to which she rode, when, as Froude says, 'she hunted daily about Bolton in the wildest weather, galloping so fast that her guard could scarce keep at her side.' Sir Francis Knowles grew so fearful that she might be rescued on one of these excursions by some of her devoted adherents, that-although Elizabeth chafed at the expense, she replenished Lord Scrope's stables; a dozen men well armed and mounted were to accompany her wherever she went.'

How dismal it must have been to poor Mary to have this guard set on her wild rides through this lovely region!

At the Gap' the valley narrows, the hills rise more steeply, and the mountain we had seen beyond Penhill shows itself to be one of a range which seems to cross the dale with lofty far-off

summits.

Behind Penhill rose a mass of yellow vapour, almost terrible in its strange colour, and we had only just time to reach a welcome summer-house in the midst of the fir avenue, when the rain poured down in a torrent. Below us was the picturesque village of Wensley, and hidden among the trees was Bolton Hall.

When the rain ceased we went on along the Shawl. Before us the limestone scar on the right comes boldly down into the valley, and on its side, so that it faces us, are the massive square towers of Bolton Castle, the home of the Scropes, frowning across the dale at Middleham, the dwelling of its ancient rivals the Nevilles.

Middleham Castle is really within a short walk; the distance from Leyburn being only two miles and a half. The road goes downhill till it reaches a suspension bridge over the lovely Yore, and then it mounts again to the quaint, grey town of Middleham. There are two market-places here, on the slope of the steep hill. The upper one is called 'The Swine Market.' In the centre of