being shut up here and nothing but our ships to save us."

"Nonsense," said his companion, "why we shall be in Sebastopol in another fortnight, and then we command the Crimea."

"In another fortnight," said Leonard, " and its north side exposed to the pouring in of reinforcements and provisions, and Simpheropol in the hands of Menschikoff. No, no, I know but little of warfare, but common-sense makes that at least doubtful."

Whether Leonard's views were consistent with military rule or common sense, or whether the two were ever separable, time had to show our two friends. But time has shown Europe that military opinions and the common-sense expectations of men who know nothing of war may sometimes differ, and stand far apart from each other, as the several portions of a prismatic ray. But Leonard's attention was called off by a request that he would repair to the tent of the wounded officer, and he resorted to Allen's side in whom he felt the additional interest of being one of his own village and home.

Allen's wounds were bad, but they were glorious. His conduct had been noticed and commended by those in authority. We have already anticipated the state of his mind, and the condition of his wounds.

861

CHAPTER XXII.

MRS. MUlso.

THEY say that Cardinal Mezzofanti knew thirtyseven languages, and that this was not the most remarkable part of his power, he was able also to assume the peculiar accent, gesture, and expression of the respective persons whose languages he spoke. Half a language is its mode. I doubt if he could master the words and mode of one language, that of love. To its disciples it surrounds itself with an external mannerism which is all its own, and assumes Protean shapes various as those who sit for their instruction in a school; one does not of necessity understand the other, and the same lesson conned by two will seem different when each stands up to say it. A word, a syllable, a tone, a may thrill to ecstacy, or depress to the grave the votary of that mystic science.

look

There was about a mile and a half from Brandon a village we have mentioned already, Bushey, and a lane we spoke of, S. Mary's Hill. It was very beautiful. It had the high, overhanging hedgerow which free trade has swept away, because farmers now must cultivate that mysterious little strip which was all the world to us once, the long fringe by the edging of the ditch. In this lane the ditch had never been cleared, and the hedge never been cut, at least in Jessy's memory. She loved to gaze under the tangled briers, and wild roses, and towering woodbine, and tangling bindweed, and

hawthorn sprays; and gaze into chamber after chamber further and further still, the retreats where moths waited for the evening, and gnats shunned the thirsty sun. There were little dark pools of water peeping through the thorns and tall sickly bachelor's buttons which longed, but longed in vain, to feel the sun they saw.

There in that lane were wide irregular greenswards, coyly intruding on the yellow road, and then racing back as far as if they would imitate the irregular waves which wander so wantonly along the yellow sand. There too were ponds where dragon flies poised on rushes, and drowsy cows by sunset stood to cool themselves. There too were elms and ashes along the hedgerows guarding all like sentinels who watched the lane, checking the wind and chequering the sunshine. Jessy never remembered one being cut down. There too was a hill from which in far distance could be seen through the framework of the lane Oxhey wood and three counties-and at the bottom of the hill the lane seemed to plunge into a cool depth of mazy shadows and unexplored recesses. Jessy always loved the view down the lane, when at the bottom a sheep and its two lambs would move softly over the light and shade, and Cicely always liked the view in the distance, "so wide, so fresh, so beautiful: three counties, four church towers, and the square tower of what was once an abbey. My dear Jessy, it is delightful.”

At the bottom of that lane was a cottage of which we shall have to speak more hereafter. It stood in a garden surrounded by trees like a nest. Green trellised gates

opened into the lane through whose diagonal framework Sunday-school children peeped in the sunny June afternoon at the wondrous maze of china roses and the purple columbines which stood up so daintily from the flower-bed.

:

The cottage, for it was more like one than a house, was very large built full of gables, thatched in the roof, and irregular in all directions; while old carved woodwork struggled to be still seen through the triumphant honey-suckle which had after years succeeded in tossing its victorious colours over the highest peak of the gable. But more of the place anon.

Old Mr. and Mrs. Mulso lived here. Mrs. Mulso was Mr. Seymour's sister. She had no child, and loved Jessy like her own.

"Here comes my pratty one," the kind old lady used to say as she would hold open the green trellised gate and look up the lane down which Jessy was running, a little girl with her nurse behind her: her long hair twined with wild honey-suckle, and forget-me-nots in her hand.

Jessy's highest delight used to be to take that walk, and in Mrs. Mulso's little room upstairs in gazing at shelves full of strange old china, screens of beautiful bird's feathers, brilliant enamels intense as one of Ross's miniatures, watches backed with blue as deep and intense as the sky in the July noon, Jessy would spend the livelong hour; and sitting on the soft Persian carpet surrounded by her glowing spoils, would look like some Peri out of Lalla Rookh with her long streaming hair gazing at the lovely furniture of Paradise.

To Mrs. Mulso's Jessy went to-day. It was February, early February: and the first earliest tints of spring were getting into tune for summer-time. The laurels looked russet green against the lines of golden crocuses which fringed the borders, and the pale white snowdrop hung its head as if ashamed of the gaudy grandeur of its conceited brother. Robins hopped and puffed their crimson breasts as they approached the breakfast-room window to receive the accustomed boon of crumbs after breakfast from Mrs. Mulso's hand. Jessy had come down from the Rectory early. From her youngest days she had been in the habit of talking with her aunt freely, since her mother had long since been dead, and Mrs. Mulso's warm affection and fervid mode of viewing things, naturally fascinated a young and sensitive mind like Jessy's. The urn had not yet done puffing occasionally on the table, and empty egg-shells with the huge home-made loaf on a wooden platter, and the cold ham on the mahogany dumbwaiter, brought back to Jessy's mind the recollection of so many days of early childhood.

Jessy's entrance was the signal of universal joy. Mrs. Mulso kissed her with warm affection, and Mr. Mulso's "Well, my dear," was, as ever, unaffected and kind, as he rose to leave the room to the ladies. There was another lady there who always lived with the Mulsos, and who was nearly as much mixed up with the old thatched cottage as the Mulsos themselves. Mrs. Thorburn was a woman of about five and forty at this time, she had lived for twenty years with the Mulsos: she had been left early in life a widow in very poor circumstances,