upon me. I assured her she had neither to fear my urging her with impertinent questions, nor my misconstruing her declining to answer those which might in themselves be reasonable, or at least natural. "I was too much obliged," I said, " by the interest she had taken in my affairs, to misuse the opportunity her goodness had afforded me of prying into her's—I only trusted and entreated, that if my services could at any time be useful, she would command them, without doubt or hesitation." "Thank you thank you," she replied; "your voice does not ring the cuckoo chime of compliment, but speaks like that of one who knows to what he pledges himself. If-but it is impossible-but yet, if an opportunity should occur, I will ask you if you remember this promise; and I assure you I shall not be angry if I find you have forgotten it, for it is enough that you are sincere in your intentions just now--múch may occur to alter them ere } call upon you, should that moment ever come, to assist Die Vernon, as if you were Die Vernon's brother." "And if I were Die Vernon's brother," said I, "there could not be less chance that I should refuse my assistance-And now I am afraid I must not ask whether Rashleigh was willingly accessory to my deliverance ?” "Not of me; but you may ask it of himself, and, depend upon it, he will say yes; for rather than any good action should walk through the world like an unappropriated adjective in an ill-arranged sentence, he is always willing to stand noun substantive to it himself." "And I must not ask whether this Campbell be himself the party who eased Mr. Morris of his portmanteau, or whether the letter, which our friend the attorney received, was not a finesse to withdraw him from the scene of action, lest he should have marred the happy event of my deliverance? And I must not ask- 66 "You must ask nothing of me," said Miss Vernon so it is quite in vain to go on putting cases. You are to think just as well of me, as if I had answered all these queries, and twenty others besides, as glibly as Rashleigh could have done; and observe, whenever I touch my chin just so, it is a sign that I cannot speak upon the topic which happens to occupy your attention. I must settle signals of correspondence with you, because you are to be my confidant and my counsellor, only you are to know nothing whatever of my affairs." 66 Nothing can be more reasonable," I replied, laughing;" and the extent of your confidence will, you may rely upon it, only be equalled by the sagacity of my counsels." This sort of conversation brought us, in the highest good-humour with each other, to Osbaldistone Hall, where we found the family far advanced in the revels of the evening. "Get some dinner for Mr. Osbaldistone and me in the library," said Miss Vernon to a servant. "I must have some compassion upon you," she added, turning to me, "and provide against your starving in this mansion of brutal abundance; otherwise I am not sure that I should show you my private haunts. This same library is my den-the only corner of the Hall-house where I am safe from the Ouran-Outangs, my cousins. They never venture there, I suppose, for fear the folios should fall down and crack their skulls; for they will never affect their heads in any other way-So follow me." And I followed through hall and bower, vaulted passage and winding stair, until we reached the room where she had ordered our refreshments. CHAPTER X. in the wide pile, by others heeded not, Whose gloomy aisles and bending shelves contain Anonymous THE library at Osbaldistone Hall was a gloomy room, whose antique oaken shelves bent beneath the weight of the ponderous folios so dear to the seventeenth century, from which, under favour be it spoken, we have distilled matter for our quartos and octavos, and which, once more subjected to the alembic, may, should our sons be yet more frivolous than ourselves, be still farther reduced into duodecimos and pamphlets. The collection was chiefly of the classics, as well foreign as ancient history, and, above all, divinity. It was in wretched order. The priests, who, in succession, had acted as chaplains at the Hall, were, for many years, the only persons who entered its precincts, until Rashleigh's thirst for reading had led him to disturb the venerable spiders, who had muffled the fronts of the presses with their tapestry. His destination for the church rendered his conduct less absurd in his father's eyes, than if any of his other descendants had betrayed so strange a propensity, and Sir Hildebrand acquiesced in the library receiving some repairs, so as to fit it for a sitting room. Still an air of dilapidation as obvious as it was uncomfortable, pervaded the larg apartment, and announced the neglect from which the knowledge which its walls contained had not been able to exempt it. The tattered tapestry, the worm-eaten shelves, the huge and clumsy, yet tottering, tables, desks, and chairs, the rusty grate, seldom gladdened by either . sea-coal or faggots, intimated the contempt of the lords of Osbaldistone Hall for learning, and for the volumes which record its treasures. "You think this place somewhat disconsolate, I suppose?" said Diana, as I glanced my eye round the forlorn apartment; "but to me it seems like a little paradise, for I call it my own, and fear no intrusion. Rashleigh was joint proprietor with me, while we were friends." "And are you no longer so ?" was my natural question. Her forefinger immediately touched her dimpled chin, with an arch look of prohibition. "We are still allies," she continued, "bound, like other confederate powers, by circumstances of mutual interest; but I am afraid, as will happen in other cases, the treaty of alliance has survived the amicable dispositions in which it had its origin. At any rate, we live less together; and when he comes through that door there, I vanish through this door here; and so, having made the discovery that we two were one too many for this apartment, as large as it seems, Rashleigh, whose occasions frequently call him elsewhere, has generously made a cession of his rights in my favour; so that I now endeavour to prosecute alone the studies in which he used formerly to be my guide." "And what are those studies, if I may presume to ask?” "Indeed you may, without the least fear of seeing my forefinger raised to my chin. Science and history are my principal favourites; but I also study poetry and the classics." "And the classics? Do you read them in the original ?” "Unquestionably; Rashleigh, who is no contemptible scholar, taught me Greek and Latin, as well as most of the languages of modern Europe. I assure you, there has been some pains taken in my education, although I can neither sew a tucker, nor work cross-stitch, nor make a pudding, nor, as the vicar's fat wife, with as much truth as elegance, good-will, and politeness, was pleased to say in my behalf, do any other useful thing in the varsa! world." "And was this selection of studies Rashleigh's choice or your own, Miss Vernon ?" I asked. "Um!" said she, as if hesitating to answer my question," it's not worth while lifting my finger about, after all-why, partly his, and partly mine. As I learned out of doors to ride a horse, and bridle and saddle him in case of necessity, and to clear a five-barred gate, and fire a gun without winking, and all other of those masculine accomplishments that my brute cousins run mad after, I wanted, like my rational cousin, to read Greek and Latin within doors, and make my complete approach to the tree of knowledge, which you men scholars would engross to yourselves, in revenge, I suppose, for our common mother's share in the great original transgression." "And Rashleigh readily indulged your propensity to learning ?" 66 Why, he wished to have me for his scholar, and he could but teach me that which he knew himself-he was not likely to instruct me in the mysteries of washing laceruffles, or hemming cambric-handkerchiefs, I suppose." "I admit the temptation of getting such a scholar, and have no doubt that it made a weighty consideration on the tutor's part." "O, if you begin to investigate Rashleigh's motives, my finger touches my chin once more. I can only be frank where my own are inquired into. But to resume -he has resigned the library in my favour, and never enters without leave had and obtained; and so I have taken the liberty to make it the place of deposit for some of my own goods and chattels, as you may see by looking round you. "I beg pardon, Miss Vernon, but I really see nothing around these walls which I can distinguish as likely to claim you as mistress." "That is, I suppose, because you neither see a shepherd or shepherdess wrought in worsted, and handsomely framed in black ebony,-or a stuffed parrot,—or a breeding-cage, full of canary-birds, or a housewife-case, broidered with tarnished silver-or a toilette-table, with a |