horse from the field, are the only sounds that ever break the silence.

Happy race! the jaded scholar cries as he sits there in the sunny corner under the red brick wall; thrice happy people who live in so sheltered and peaceful a retreat, far away from the busy hum, the noise and din of cities. For you at least life is a simple and easy thing, and whatever are its trials the path on which your feet are set leads straight to the goal. What if your days are laborious and your fare scanty at times; what if winter nights are long and snow and frost come to nip the blossom in the bud? At least you are spared the problems that vex and haunt us, the thousand anxious questionings which we know not how to answer, and which none the less refuse to leave us. At least you have felt nothing of the weariness and despondency of life, the despairing failure of human efforts, the tangle which meets us wherever we turn our steps.

Ah yes! so we have all cried in turn as we lingered in some rural scene not half so fair as King's Marden, lingered and envied the happy ones whose days were spent in these calm woodland shades. And yet, reader, if we only knew it, perhaps the hearts which are now silent under those tombstones golden with lichen, once loved as passionately and beat more wildly than ever

yours and mine have done, and the few words which we read rudely cut in the stone are a record of stories as strange and tragedies as mournful as any which may have reached our ears.

But enough of the dead! peace be to them! Their story is ended, their task done, for good or ill their destiny is fixed, and whatever the unknown. region where their spirits move

"Each in its self-formed sphere of light or gloom,"

their place in this world knows them no more.

It is with the living that we have to do, the toilers and the sufferers-ay, the idlers too; those who are letting the days and years go by in blind selfish waste, as well as those who out of the rough materials of daily life are shaping to themselves forms that shall endure, and a work that can never perish.

There were plenty of both kinds in King's Marden.

CHAPTER ÌI.

"So we grew together,

Like to a double cherry, seeming parted

But yet a union in partition,

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem.''

A Midsummer Night's Dream.

HE Manor-house farm was the only building which stood near the church of King's Marden. Even the Vicarage had been placed at some little distance, while the rest of the village was further down the slope of the hill. By following a steep lane which led from the churchyard gate, you soon reached the National school-house, and a few paces further on what was commonly called the village street.

Here, within a stone's throw of each other, stood the Danvers Arms, the most respectable inn of King's Marden, the blacksmith's shop, the butcher and baker's, the grocer's, the carpenter's, and the post-office,

Without casting a reflection on the quality of the different goods supplied by these tradesmen, or forming invidious comparisons, we may safely say that what most attracted the admiration of the stranger on a first visit to Marden, was the beauty of its cottage gardens.

Each of these worthies vied with each other in the brilliancy and variety of their borders, and each had his own specialty in the floral line. The blacksmith, I suppose from the attraction of contrast, inclined to flowers of the gayest hue, and astonished his neighbours by the succession of scarlet geraniums, red pokers, and full-blown peonies which he displayed. His opposite neighbour, Savage the grocer, on the other hand showed his more refined taste in the choice of balsams and fuchsias; while Widow Hawkes, the postmistress, feeling herself unable to rival these ambitious personages, was content with humbler pinks and sweetwilliams.

But there was one garden of quite a different description in the street—a garden remarkable for its absence of colour, and for the curious contrast which it presented to those of the other inhabitants. That was Luke Chaplin's, the carpenter's. Here all gay-hued flowers were rigidly excluded, and nothing but the quietest, soberest tints allowed.

It was not that the garden was neglected; on the contrary, no one in the village bestowed more pains upon its cultivation than did Luke. The yew

hedge which fenced it round was always carefully cut and trimmed, the box trees were cut into all manner of fanciful shapes, the narrow grass plots and gravel paths were all in perfect order. Sweetsmelling flowers, too, found especial favour with him -mignonette, thyme, lavender, and old man grew thickly together; there were violets all through the winter months, velvety pansies and heliotrope later, while in one shady corner was a bed of lily-of-thevalley, Luke's chief pride. But he had a positive aversion to the bright colours which charmed most people, and banished flaunting peonies, daffodils, and geraniums with the same severity of taste. The strangest part was that he had no objection to seeing them in other people's gardens, and would admire Blacksmith Joshua's borders as much as any one. But if any one ventured to suggest the desirability of introducing these into his own garden, he would invariably shake his head and reply with his peculiar slow smile

"They're pretty, but they're best away."

It was a singular fancy, but then Luke Chaplin was a singular man, at least in the eyes of King's Marden.

And first of all, he was not a Marden man,