green corn and over the daisied meadows in which the cows lay half-asleep.  And when he looked beyond that low green hill, where there were one or two hares hopping about on their ungainly high haunches, and past that great stretch of receding country in which strips of red-and-white villages peeped here and there from the woods, behold! a horizon as of the sea, faint and blue and far, rising and ever rising in various hues and tones, until it was lost in a quivering mist of heat; and he could only guess that there, too, under the glowing sky, some other fair expanse of our beautiful English landscape lay basking in the sunlight and sweet air of the early summer.

Of course Lionel was the hero of the hour when they were all assembled in the dining-room—­at a very sumptuously furnished board, by the way, for the hale old doctor was fond of good living and a firm believer in the virtues of port wine.  Moreover, the young man had an attentive audience; for the worthy old lady at the head of the table never took her admiring eye’s off this wonderful boy of hers; and Miss Francie Wright meekly listened too; while as for Maurice Mangan, who was he in his humble station to interrupt this marvellous tale of great doings and festivities?  Not that Lionel magnified his own share in these things; nay, he modestly kept himself out altogether; it was merely to interest these simple country folk that he described the grand banquets, the illuminated gardens, the long marquees, and told them how the princess looked, and who it was who had the honor of taking her in to supper.  But when he came, among other things, to speak of the rehearsal of the little pastoral comedy, in the clear light of the dawn, by Lady Adela Cunyngham and her friends, he had to admit that he himself was present on that occasion; and at once the fond mother took him to task.

[Illustration:  “They passed in through the gate, and found the door left open for them.”]

“It’s wicked, Lionel,” she said, severely; “it’s downright wicked to keep such hours.  Look at the result of it all.  You can’t eat anything—­you’re not taking a mouthful!”

“But, you know, mother, I’m not used to luncheon,” he said, cheerfully enough.  “I have to dine at five every day—­and I’ve no time to bother with luncheon, even if I could eat it.”

“Take a glass of port, my lad,” the old doctor said.  “That will put some life into you.”

“No, thanks,” he said, indifferently, “I can’t afford to play tricks.  I have to study my throat.”

“Why, what better astringent can you have than tannic acid?” the old gentleman called down the table.  “I suppose you drink those washy abominations that the young men of the day prefer to honest wine; what’s that I hear about lemonade?  Lemonade!” he repeated, with disgust.

“It’s home-brewed—­it’s wholesome enough; Miss Burgoyne makes some for me when she is making it for herself,” the young man said; and then he turned to his mother:  “Mother, I wish you would send her something from the garden—­”