THE terrace-walk at Aspens, (what a pleasant fancy it is to call country retreats after the names of trees!) is renowned as the most perfect thing of its kind on a small scale, within twenty miles of the cheerful cathedral town of W-: with its sloping flower-knots and rich lawn on the one side, and on the other the old fantastically pierced screen or wall, which it is said once belonged to the cloisters of a religious house, the very name whereof is now forgotten. A long irregular onestoried house terminates the walk at one extremity; and, though a thing of shreds and patches, with here a niche and there a sashed door, in one place something meant for a pinnacle, and a little further a huge stack of chimneys, laced with aspiring shoots of ivy: it has a comfort, and homeliness, and propriety of appearance, which rarely belong to the most regular and classically correct design for "villa or casino" (your dilletanti con descend not to cottages, save as objects in their " ornamental grounds)," which ever found its way out of architect's studio. The lady of Aspens was as perfect of her kind as her terrace-walk: a little old-fashioned, a little absurd; but "just the best creature in the world;" outwardly a structure of antiquated silks and cobweb laces, and jewellery as ancient as the reign of Queen Anne: at heart religious and discreet -the very pink of good neighbours a lady, (as some one or other said of her), "down to the very tips of her pins." What else but a strong sense of duty, equalled only by her kindliness, could have induced her to trouble the waning years of a long and tranquil widowhood with the charge of an orphan niece? and, being herself a woman of small abilities and requirements, whose sole accomplishment was making the most of her cards when Fortune was unkind, and whose best talk was no more intellectual than Mrs. Barbauld's gossip Of farm and orchard, pleasant curds and cream, could persuade her to devote herself unweariedly to the companionship of one whose meanest ideas touched upon "pictures, taste, Shakspeare, and the musical glasses;" who was sentimental to the sky-blue point, and who mourned over the day as trifled away in unideal worldliness if it was not spent among books, and prints, and papers, and pictures; or in discussions of the mysteries of the human heart, and the more subtle workings of the affections? But, Laura Beresford, (happy at least in her picturesque name), was poor and homeless: and her aunt felt her presence at Aspens as much a matter of course as if she had been No dainty lady of degree, Of beauty, or of book but a "nice, good-humoured, well brought-up, companion of a girl," who could manage a genteel establishment if required, could embroider patiently at a composition of worsted and canvas, which should last as serious occupation for three years: and, best of all, eke out a rubber, if wanted. In spite, however, of the resignation in which genuine Christianity and constitutional good-humour had each a part, which enabled Mrs. Gray to trip over the small trials of daily life; to come into close contact with a nature far different from her own-and that in the person of a dependent and still preserve her smoothness of temper unfrayed; there were times when Laura's perverse sensibility troubled her meditations like a passing ghost. Nay, when the former had gone the length of refusing Sir Antony Oliphant, because he fell short of the heroic standard enthroned by her imagination, it is said that Mrs. Gray could not eat for three days, revoked at whist half-a-dozen times in one evening, though the Dean was her partner, and walked slowly to and fro within the precincts of Aspens saying little: the strangest thing of all. One simple remonstrance, indeed, she had attempted. She had hinted, in the inno cent concern of her heart, that ten thousand a year was ten thousand a year, and that Sir Antony was a pattern for sons and landlords; but the bare suggestion of these truths had called forth such a torrent of eloquent remonstrance, with tears, sighs, and insinuations of a fearful future, if the least constraint were offered to the inclinations of the young lady, that the good little woman was scared into silence. Still she brooded over these inexplicable things long and earnestly : adopted the only and most hackneyed plan which occurred to her of sending Laura to pay a visit of six weeks to an old friend; and, hopeless as the matter seemed to be, turned in her mind the to her momentous step of recommending patience and expectation in a letter to the disconsolate baronet, who, Rumour averred, pined upon his refusal, and had been even heard discussing the erection of a mausoleum within sight of his drawing-room windows. -: On the April evening when my tale commences, Mrs. Gray was soliloquizing upon the terrace at Aspens, swept along at a brisk pace by a full but not rude breeze, and looking from a distance like a dwarf balloon surmounted with a couple of arms precisely crossed, and a high-crowned bonnet and streamers:· "Dear me! the poor young man !" so ran her thoughts," poor Sir Antony! So well brought up, and so genteel! his mother was a Middlehurst-and to think of his setting up that gloomy thing to remind him of his end! — so close under the very windows of the house- how |