advantages of visiting the valley early in the season are self-evident; for so soon as the summer sun has melted the snows, many of the falls (which in early spring are so beautiful) disappear altogether, and even the Great Yō-semité dwindles away to a mere gauzy film, greatly to the disappointment of many autumnal visitors.

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THE OAKHURST CHRONICLES:

A. TALE OF THE TIMES OF WESLEY

BY ANNIE E. KEELING.

CHAPTER III.-MOLLY'S JOURNAL.

Second Wednesday in October.

HAVE written no word here for many days, for both time and will have failed me. I may not neglect my weekly letter to father, who would feel ill-used without it, though he loves not to epistolize himself; and it were pity not to gratify him, especially since uncle can so easily get franks for me. Dear father! I wish I knew how he fares without his Molly! But the things that are now vexing me I should hardly like to write to him about. They began the other day when Aunt Wilson first took me with her on some of her charitable errands. Patty did not choose to make one with us; she was out of humour that a plan she and Mrs. Collings had framed for a water party was not allowed by uncle. It grows sharp weather for such doings, 'tis true; but I too was fretted by the disappointment and glad to divert my mind by bearing aunt company; and, indeed, the wretchedness we saw drove all scheming for pleasure well out of my mind: never had I dreamed there was such misery in the world.

When we returned, weary and draggled, our baskets lightened and my heart at least made heavy, we found Madam Pat awaiting us at the tea-table, looking mighty lively and brisk. You are welcome home, poor wanderers,' she said, rising to meet us; 'let me take your cloaks and hoods. I thought I might presume, madam,' she said to aunt, 'to meddle with your choicest tea-chest, since you were so late in returning, and were sure to be dead tired. Did you ever taste anything more exquisite, cousin?' she said when I had taken a cup; 'and yet my mother gives only sixteen shillings a pound for it: a small Indian chest filled with this would be a rare prize for your good Wilkins; what think you of sending her one to comfort her for your absence? And how did you find those poor Browns?' she ran on, giving no time for an answer. Aunt looked at her half roguishly as she handed her her tea, and said, 'Thou hast something in thy head now, child-thou art never so gay and so kind for nothing.'

'O madam, how cruel in you to take away my character!' said Patty, laughing; sure I hoped to pass with my cousin for a pure, good-natured soul without any doubleness. But I will submit to all your slanders, if Molly can guess who hath been here to wait on you while you have been out.' 'How should I guess?' said I. 'I know none of your London friends but the Collings.'

"Tis no London friend of mine, 'tis a country friend of yours,' said Patty; 'what do you say to Mr. Antony Fields?' Well, I said nothing, the surprise so took away my breath; and aunt said, 'No great friend of Molly's, to judge by her looks; what is he, child, and what does he want?'

"Tis my Uncle Heywood's lawyer, madam,' said Patty; 'a friend whom he values much; and he came with a message from his sister, Mrs. Bateman, who would gladly have Molly and me to drink tea with her to-morrow, and will wait on you in the morning to get your leave. She is a widow lady, and lives but two doors from my Anna, who knows her well.'

'Must we go, do you think, madam?' said I.

'I am sorry if you don't like it, child,' said aunt, who seemed a little vexed; 'but I suppose it will hardly do for you to slight a friend of your father's.' And I suppose she was right, unluckily though it has turned out. But my heart weighed so heavy at the thought of meeting that man in town, I did not even hear one word of uncle's evening reading and prayer. 'Tis a pleasant custom, that of gathering all the household for worship night and morning, and there is always something very moving in uncle's prayers; yet I find it odd that he makes them without book; 'tis too much in the way of the Dissenters. I said so once when Cousin John was present, and in his grave way he made sport of me, saying, 'Do you think, cousin, that St. Paul was careful to have a Prayer-book at hand when he prayed with his friends; or that Peter and John, those unlearned and ignorant men, had to read from a written form when they addressed their Heavenly Father?' 'Twas not a fair way of speaking, I said, to compare us of the English Church with saints and apostles, who seem as distant from us as angels in a picture.

Indeed I fear you speak truth,' he said, quite sadly; so that I did not go on to say what I thought, that his kind of talk seemed quite profane to me; also I had no chance of saying it, because of John taking up his hat and going out. Patty said that he went to sit up with a poor consumptive tailor who is fast declining, and for whose religious counsels John has a great value. 'Tis very strange that a young man of good sense, and well bred, should seek his religious advisers among such low people. But I am wandering far from Mrs. Bateman and her tea drinking. I wish I could forget it.

She came punctually in the morning to wait on aunt, and proved to be a little talking woman, rather pretty, although so like her brother. She spoke of a little innocent diversion she had prepared for us, which might keep us rather late; and aunt said when she was gone, 'I wish your entertainment may not be cards-my Stephen cannot away with them;' but had she guessed at our evening's diversion rightly, I think now she would have kept us at home.

Mrs. Bateman received us at night with vast civility. Her rooms are small, but handsome; and so crowded with costly toys that there was scarce room for us and two or three more guests invited to meet us: Mr. Fields being one, as I had feared. They were all prodigiously fine; even Fields was in brown and gold, and Mrs. Bateman quite splendid in blue damask and silver. 'Tis well we have put on all our airs, isn't it, Molly?' Patty whispered me; and indeed she had coaxed me into being much smarter than I meant, and was much decked out herself. I found a very new puzzling kind of talk at Mrs. Bateman's tea-table, and was fain to sit silent mostly, but Mrs. Pat seemed quite at home in it.

'What do you think of your Mr. Handel now?' began Mrs. Bateman to her; 'he is quite sunk, quite a lost creature, since the Prince quarrelled with him; the cold shade of Royal displeasure has dimmed that little rushlight genius of his.' 'Sure, madam, you will not say so?' cries Patty; 'never was there anything finer than Samson, which he hath produced since this mighty displeasure overtook him.' 'A mere oratorio,' says Mrs. Bateman; 'he does well to avoid opera: the divine grace of the Italian masters is not to be reached by a heavy German.' 'Mr. Handel says 'tis he who has quarrelled with * the Prince,' broke in one lady; and he can never be quite sunk while the Court favours him as it does.' 'Perhaps the quarrel was a politic one,' sneered Mr. Fields; ''tis the surest way to the Queen's heart to have displeased her son: never was such a loving mother!'

till

And they went on talking of music and of plays, of ridottos and lotteries, and of great Court ladies and their dresses and quarrels, my head swam. Perhaps it was envy, because I did not half understand it; but it did not seem to me natural talk, but as if a forced imitation of somebody else. I suppose the great folks talk of such things, and little common people like us parrot their speech like children. I like plain household talk better, even though it be only of spinning and sewing, or of pickling and preserving; nay, and I like better the talk at uncle's table, though that is often past me, but the things spoken of are serious and real, and lift one's thoughts up somehow. So I was glad when Mrs. Bateman announced that the coaches were at the door, and we would set off, though I

knew not where we were going. Patty looked half-pleased, halfuneasy when we were fairly off, and said to me, 'We are going to show you a play, dear little country mouse. Mrs. Bateman said nothing of it at our house, lest father's scrupulous conscience should be roused to forbid it.'

'Then there must be some harm in it,' I said; 'at least there is the harm of deceit.'

'Nonsense, child,' said she, reddening; we are but saving him annoyance by a discreet silence, and you are helping to procure me a vast pleasure which I am unjustly compelled to forego in a common way. I do not carry duty to slavishness when I can help it.'

'I am sure of that, but these crooked ways are more than undutifulness,' I said sharply; but what was the good? it did but vex Pat, and I had not the courage to say I would not go. Our party was divided at the theatre, but I found with sorrow that Fields entered the same box as we two. Yet that annoyance and all my scruples went out of my head very soon. "Tis not that I have never seen a play before; but very different was it to see poor strolling players in a little dim house, lit with smoking tallow candles, and a country fiddler or two supplying all the music,-and to take a place among the gay company in this busy, animated scene, full of light and colour and sweet sound; never had I heard such delicious music; and I was too happy even to mind that Mr. Fields was set beside me. The play, he told me, was one of the great Mr. Congreve's most admired performances, called, Love for Love. I do not know who the great Mr. Congreve may be, nor do I wish to know more of him than this play. It might be owing to my rustical simplicity that Patty so often mocks at, but I was soon lost in wonder to see men and women of good repute listening and laughing while the actors, wondrous fine in dress and courtly in manner, said the things that they did. For my part I felt myself going cold and hot with shame, and if any one did but look my way, I shrank as if I had been caught stealing something. How do you like it, madam?' said Fields to me as the curtain came down on the first act, and every one began to laugh and talk and stir. 'Not at all,' I said bluntly; 'it seems to me as if all the people in the play were either knaves or fools, and 'tis a kind of company I do not love to be forced into.'

'O, what coarse words, Molly!' says Patty, looking half affronted. 'I have heard you just now laughing at some much coarser,' I said hotly; but Mrs. Bateman interposed in a soothing voice, saying, 'Tis but a kind of fairy world we are looking into; we don't judge it by working-day rules of honesty; its inhabitants are only created to amuse, and we don't hold these pretty stage-puppets answerable for

their morals, any more than we credit the players with the wit of the author.'

'I know not how such an author can find people willing to represent his characters,' I said; 'I should feel disgraced for ever by speaking such words before such a vast crowd.'

I'll see the play You always take intruder, settling

'That delicacy and tenderness of thinking suits admirably with your sweet, innocent youth,' said Fields; and I certainly will never be the one to wish it changed.' 'It does not concern you,' I said hastily, and I fear rudely, for a black change came over his face which dismayed me; but just then there was a little stir at the back of our box, and two richly-dressed men who were not of our party pushed their way into it. So here you are, old fox,' said one of them, who was much flushed and spoke thickly, slapping Mr. Fields on the shoulder; 'when Herries, here, said he had spied you in a private box with some ladies, I could hardly credit it. You do things at a cheaper rate commonly, don't you? Pray introduce us to the pretty country cousin who has so loosened your purse-stringsfor the lady is your cousin, of course? you've such hosts of cousins. Mr. Fields looked like fire, and did not speak. 'Well then, I'll introduce myself-make room for us here,' went on the young man, pushing Fields aside and seating himself by me. out here couldn't be a more charming place.' care to secure the best place, Bob,' said the other himself beside Patty; ''tis well I can content myself with the secondbest-no offence, pretty one,' he said as Patty shrank away; 'no doubt it was your good-nature made you yield the front row to that little angel, and I like you the better for it.' I rose in my place meaning to move away, but my unwelcome companion caught my sleeve, saying, 'Nay, that's too much cruelty-will you not let a starved insect bask in your rays for a moment?' And Fields leaning across to me whispered, 'Tis my lord Robert Wrottesley, and his friend-endure them, I entreat, till the play is over-I would not offend them—they are men of few scruples.' He looked so anxious and so scared, I saw there was no help in him; but O, how I longed at that moment for the strong arm that had pulled me back from the lion's cage! he would not have feared offending a dozen lords on my behalf, were they ever so insolent. No chance of seeing him here,' I thought, since uncle has so strong an aversion to plays, and I felt we were well punished for our disregard of uncle's wishes. I know not what odious things the stranger beside me kept saying by way of compliment-sure these great folks keep strange company, to judge by their talk. I strove not to listen, and kept my eyes fixed on the stage; and so it was that I recognised, in an actress

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