Tremenhere had two distinct characters; with those he disliked, he had more than the coldness ascribed to Englishmen in general; there was something almost despotic in his manner. With those to whom his affections kindled, he was not alone gentleness itself, but forbearing, bending, loving, the almost habitual frown quitted his face, and left it youthful, bland, and joyous in expression. Poor Miles! he had suffered, and been made to endure, keenly; he had been forced to graft suspicion on a noble nature, and this destroyed the bud of much good fruit. There was so much wild nature about him, that not unfrequently the usages of society suffered from his bluntness; what he thought, he spoke freely.

"Miss Dalzell knows, I presume," he said, as the three entered the path-field, "my history—as I was—as I am?"

"But slightly," she answered, rather embarrassed.

"Well, 'tis best, perhaps, little known to one so young and pure as yourself. It would show you a capability of vice in the human heart, which you may never discover in your personal career—so better ignore it; it might, too, tarnish your mind's purity, to see so dark a current in a life's ocean; but what I wished to allude to, is this, when I first saw you, and heard your name mentioned, it recalled you to me as one whom I have recently heard of as the elected bride of my hopeful cousin, Marmaduke Burton. My first thought of you was darker than dislike—'twas contempt; no good, true heart could love that man for himself."

"Stop, Mr. Tremenhere," cried Skaife hastily, and in evidently painful emotion. "Do not judge harshly what woman's weakness or love may lead her to forget, or forgive, for herself or another."

"Good heavens, Mr. Skaife!" cried Minnie, amazed and in almost horror; "what do you suppose?"

Skaife had forgotten her, he was thinking of another. Tremenhere stopped suddenly, and flushed deeply, as he fixed his earnest eyes on her—

"Have I, can I have been mistaken? Has my own wary judgment in general, deceived me this once? I thought," he almost uttered these last words to himself, "no one could cheat my watchfulness now."

"Mr. Tremenhere," exclaimed she in much embarrassment, yet anxious to cast from her a garment so hateful as the one which should cloak her as Burton's wife in his or any eyes, "I may be speaking boldly for a girl, and to you, a stranger too, but I would not have any one suppose, much less you, an injured man, that I can ever become your cousin's wife. Mr. Skaife, pray assure Mr. Tremenhere you did not allude to me!"

"Indeed," said Skaife, much puzzled by his own awkwardness, "I had forgotten all present; I will explain my meaning to you," and he turned to Miles.

"Oh!" answered this man again, reassured in confidence, and smiling his own peculiar smile on Minnie. "I ill deserve this kindness, this haste to soothe my wounds. Believe me, they are deep and cankering when I think of Burton, not for myself, but another. You have been so Christian in kindness to poor Mary, that I could not bear, Miss Dalzell, to associate any one I respected in even my thoughts with that traitor. Thought," he continued, musingly, "is a gift of the soul; you will inhabit mine, linked with that unfortunate girl, whom I much love."

"Am I to understand," asked Skaife aside to him in surprise, "that you know all?"

"All?" and the other stared, astonished at the question to himself. "Could any know it better? what else has again brought me to this place? what drove me from it?"

"Then, indeed, you are to be pitied, Mr. Tremenhere—deeply pitied; but I feared something of this, from your emotion in the humble cottage we have quitted."

Skaife was playing with shadows of his own creating. He fancied Tremenhere loved Mary, with whom he had been brought up from childhood; and he also thought he (Tremenhere) knew all her painful story. Skaife's last words demanded an explanation. Before the other could ask it, Minnie uttered an exclamation, and over the stile, the last one, near which they stood, struggled Mrs. Gillett—for struggle it was—whether she should overcome the stile, or the stile lay her in the ditch. However, she arrived safely on the side where stood the three, smoothed her dress, settled her apron, picked up a patten which she had dropped (she always carried these, even in the finest weather, to cross the brooks on,) and then she looked up over her spectacles, which were on the tip of her nose, and stood transfixed. At a glance she knew Miles Tremenhere. Mrs. Gillett had one excellent quality—she was no talebearer; she kept circumstances to herself; they only oozed out in imperceptible drops in her counsellings, making her seem an Œdipus for soothsaying and guessing. Her hearers were amazed when truths came to light which she had foretold, without any seeming foreknowledge of them: herein lay her strength and power over all. "Mussiful powers!" she mentally said; "here's a pretty business! What am I to do with him?" She was thinking of all the lovers for Minnie she had already on hand, with their leaders. Skaife was the first to recover self-possession. "Perhaps, Miss Dalzell," he said, "you will allow me"—he did not say "us," for Mrs. Gillett was, perhaps, ignorant who Tremenhere was; he might seem as a stranger to Minnie in her eyes—"to hand over my escort, however unwillingly done, to Mrs. Gillett; and I and my friend (he glanced at Miles) will continue our walk of business."

But Tremenhere stepped boldly forward; something more than his usual candour forbade disguise, even if practicable: "Mrs. Gillett," he said, "you and I are old friends. Surely you remember the 'sweet youth,' as you were used to call me when I visited Gatestone and your cosey room there!"

Mrs. Gillett shrunk back—she was on her slippery rock: had they been alone, she would gladly have spoken to Miles, before witnesses she durst not. She looked down, and, affecting not to hear, stooped, resting on one toe to support her knee, on which, placing a patten, she very assiduously begun tying its string. Miles laughed aloud: it was a cold, contemptuous, unpained laugh. "Miss Dalzell," he said, lowly bowing, and changing his tone to one of feeling, "I do indeed thank you for to-day, for all your gentle words. Whenever I revisit this spot, here shall I pause to salute the shade of one whose kindness will be ever present with me." He was turning sadly away: "Good bye, Mr. Tremenhere," she cried, extending her hand; "and when we meet again, may you be very differently circumstanced to what you are to-day."

He grasped her hand, and all the speeches ever formed could not have been half so eloquent, as his tremulous "I thank you deeply and sincerely, may your kind wish be heard;" and with a sigh, which we often grant to sympathy, though refusing it to our own hardened feelings, he turned away with Skaife, who shook Minnie kindly by the hand; it was a parting of three very kindred spirits. As they walked off, Mrs. Gillett rose from her occupation. "Your dear aunts sent me to meet you, darling," she said, glancing round cautiously, "and I always like to bring my pattens with me; I don't like damp grass, it don't agree with my rheumatics." At that moment Tremenhere paused in his walk, and turned round, as if irresolute whether to return, and perhaps say something left unsaid. Mrs. Gillett saw it, and, once more stooping, she gave a violent tug to her patten string; she had raised herself three inches upon those kind of young stilts, which even yet old-fashioned country folks wear. "Bless the tie!" she cried, bent nearly double, her back curved like a boy at leap-frog; "bless the tie, it always comes undone, or gets into a knot—I never see such strings!" Minnie saw nothing of this; she could not have comprehended Mrs. Gillett's policy; then, too, her thoughts were more knotted than even the patten tie;—who might unweave and straighten them? Alas! a few moments will often entangle the skein of our existence, knotting up hopes, fears, and cares, in one unravelable mass. Tremenhere turned, and walked on; Minnie had seen the action, and it troubled her, "What had he wished to say? would he tell Skaife? could she serve him in any way? poor fellow—poor Miles Tremenhere!" Every one knows the reputed relationship between friendship and love; they have a family likeness, and are not unfrequently mistaken for one another, till the latter pirouettes, and then we find the arrowless quiver, (they remain with us,) and the extended wings,—who may clip them?

"Your aunts were very anxious about you," continued Minnie's companion, peering over her spectacles to read if the other had read her; "poor, dear ladies, I'm sure it's a great blessing for you to have such relations in your orphan state; and then your kind uncle, too, he is more sensible, and judges better what's good for you than any, as in course he should—in course he should," here she paused, and peeped at the thoughtful girl. "The lawyer Mr. Dalby's very well," ran on Mrs. Gillett, "and so is Mr. Skaife—oh, he's a pious young man! and his sermons are quite edifying; but then, I've always remarked, your very pious young men don't make very good husbands, or happy homes. A man should only think of his wife, and how can the clargy do that when they're the fathers of the whole parish? and I'm sure Mr. Skaife has enough to do hereabouts, for they are an ill broughtened-up set as ever I met with, and, as his housekeeper says, when he isn't writin' his sermons, he's astonishing some one," (query, admonishing?) "Now, as to marrying him, with all his occupation, it might do very well for Miss Sylvia, or Miss Dorcas, but for a fine young lady like you, why, you should have horses, and carriages, and servants at command, and be the grandest lady in the neighbourhood. Then, as for Mr. Dalby, why, what with lattycats, rejectments, and briefs, it's but little time he'd find to pay you proper attention."

"Mrs. Gillett!" exclaimed Minnie, so suddenly that she almost frightened her off her pattens, "don't you know Mr. Tremenhere? didn't you know him as a boy?"

"Bless me, Miss Minnie, what are you talking of! don't speak of that dreadful young man, Miss; it's unbecoming a modest young lady to know there's such a person living."

"Mrs. Gillett!" and the girl stood still in amazement.

"To be sure," responded the woman, "he must be a bad character—wasn't his mother? and how could he be good?—Don't a cat always have kittens?"

"Mrs. Gillett," cried Minnie, again grasping her arm, and her eyes looked deepest violet with emotion. "You would be a very wicked woman to think what you say; that was Miles Tremenhere with Mr. Skaife. I pitied him before knowing him, and now, if I could by any means see him righted, I'd lend my hand to the good work, and I do hope some day he may be at the manor-house again!"

"That Mr. Tremenhere!" exclaimed the politic Gillett. "How boys do alter, to be sure!" She evaded replying to the other things said; it would not do, too decidedly, to take any side of the question; the womb of Time is very prolific—we never know what offspring it may produce. They were in the shrubberies of Gatestone by this time; a few moments' silence ensued, interrupted only by the click-clack of Mrs. Gillett's pattens.

"Mrs. Gillett, why will you wear those horrid things on the gravel walks? you cut them up terribly," said a voice behind them. Minnie turned, her companion stopped, and stooped to disencumber her feet of their appendages, by which movement Juvenal nearly fell over her. She was pitched forward on her hands and knees by the concussion, with a scream; another picked her up—'twas the squire. Juvenal was evidently cross, or he would not have spoken so disrespectfully to his matron housekeeper.

"I hope I see Miss Dalzell well?" said Burton, offering his hand.

"Well, thank you," answered she, not appearing to notice it—he bit his lip, and dropped beside her.

"I really should like to know where you go every day—where you have been this morning, Minnie?" asked her uncle crossly.

"Shall I tell you, uncle?" she answered, and then, without giving herself a moment to consider possible consequences to herself or others, with the too hasty candour of a generous mind anxious to espouse the weaker side, she continued, addressing herself this time to Marmaduke Burton,—"I've been to Mary Burns's cottage, and there I met Mr. Skaife, and your cousin, Mr. Burton, Mr. Tremenhere." Certainly she created an effect; the squire tottered and became ghastly pale, Juvenal looked amazed and annoyed. "What—together?" he cried. "How came that about? Where is Mr. Tremenhere? and how dare you become acquainted with that man?"

"Your surprise equals mine," said Burton, recovering himself partially, then added ironically—"Our young curate might do better composing his sermons, than becoming bear-leader to an impostor, and a man of Mr. Tremenhere's character. As cousin, Miss Dalzell, allow me to disavow him; he is none such by law, and I have no desire to outstep any bounds to claim that enviable distinction."

"I only judge the law of humanity," she replied, in a slightly tremulous tone; she began to be afraid of the storm of such passions as his face bespoke working in his frame. "And no man should be condemned for the faults—if faults there were—of his parents."

"If faults there were," said Burton, echoing her words. "Allow me, Miss Dalzell, to reject, in all politeness, the right your speech offers me, of standing in Mr. Tremenhere's position. He or I am an impostor, a claimant to an unjust title of proprietorship; besides, there are more personal faults appertaining to that gentleman, at variance with my ideas of honour."

For an instant a doubt crossed her mind about Mary and Miles; could Burton allude to this? But her heart repudiated the thought.

"Did he become suddenly so wicked?" she calmly asked. "As boys together—as men, indeed—up to the period of his father's death, had he the deep hypocrisy to conceal all this?"

"Miss Dalzell seems well informed of my history," he said, through his half-closed teeth. "I cannot but feel flattered by the kind interest it evinces in me." He bowed low.

"Really, Minnie," said her uncle, "you have chosen a strange subject; pray, drop it. How could you have become acquainted with that man? This comes of your running about alone—it must be seen to, and quickly: Mrs. Gillett!" The woman stepped forward at his call; and now she blessed her forethought and policy in having ignored Tremenhere's identity!

"Mrs. Gillett," said her master, while the other two walked on in silence, "what do you know about this? You were with Miss Dalzell: where did you find her, and how?" The woman was quite calm under this criminal examination—she felt so sure of her innocence.

"I know nothing of it, master," she said decidedly: "I met Miss Dalzell, dear child, in the holly field; just as I stepped over the stile, my patten came undone; I was busy settling it; I saw Mr. Skaife and another gentleman, but I'm sure I couldn't swear to him; I never looked in his face—it isn't my custom so to do to them above me, 'specially gentlemen!" and she smoothed her virginal-looking apron, tied over her modest heart with wide tape strings.

Sylvia and Dorcas came out to meet the approaching group. "Where was the child?" demanded the former at the top of her voice. Juvenal looked, and was, much excited. "Mrs. Gillett found her," he replied, "with an improper—a most improper—character!"

"What a dreadful thing!" screamed Sylvia; "who was it?"

Dorcas was by the girl's side, calmly speaking, and inquiring the cause of her protracted stay, which had alarmed them. She knew, however, that Minnie was not in any wilful harm, yet her affection made her fearful of ill. We will leave them to their explanations, to which Mr. Burton was not a witness, having taken his leave hastily of all. Poor Minnie had a sad trial, and a severe lesson and lecture, the consequences of her warm heart and candour—two things, bad guides in this world of brambles; with these her garments would be, haplessly, frequently rent and disfigured.

We will ask our readers to step into the holly field with us, to where we left Skaife and Miles Tremenhere, both of them walking back in deep thought.