found it, by a series of elaborate accidents,
bestrewn with testimonies to Joe. Portrait of Mr.
Specks, bust of Mr. Specks, silver cup from
grateful patient to Mr. Specks, presentation
sermon from local clergyman, dedication poem from
local poet, dinner-card from local nobleman,
tract on balance of power from local refugee,
inscribed Hommage de I'auteur à Specks.

When my old schoolfellow came in, and I
informed him with a smile that I was not a patient,
he seemed rather at a loss to perceive any reason
for smiling in connexion with that fact, and
inquired to what was lie to attribute the honour?
I asked him, with another smile, could he
remember me at all? He had not (he said) that
pleasure. I was beginning to have but a poor
opinion of Mr. Specks, when he said, reflectively,
"And yet there's a something, too." Upon
that, I saw a boyish light in his eyes that looked
well, and I asked him if he could inform me, as
a stranger who desired to know and had not the
means of reference at hand, what the name of
the young lady was, who married Mr. Random?
Upon that, he said "Narcissa," and, after staring
for a moment, called me by my name, shook
me by the hand, and melted into a roar of
laughter. "Why, of course you'll remember
Lucy Green," he said, after we had talked a little.
"Of course," said I. "Whom do you think
she married?" said he. "You?" I hazarded.
"Me," said Specks, "and you shall see her."
So I saw her, and she was fat, and if all the hay
in the world had been heaped upon her, it could
scarcely have altered her face more than Time
had altered it from my remembrance of the face
that had once looked down upon me into the
fragrant dungeons of Seringapatam. But when
her youngest child came in after dinner (for I
dined with them, and we had no other company
than Specks, Junior, Barrister-at-Law, who went
away as soon as the cloth was removed, to look
after the young lady to whom he was going to
be married next week), I saw again, in that
little daughter, the little face of the hayfield,
unchanged, and it quite touched my heart.
We talked immensely, Specks and Mrs. Specks,
and I, and we spoke of our old selves as though
our old selves were dead and gone, and
indeed they were—dead and gone, as the playing-
field that had become a wilderness of rusty iron,
and the property of S.E. R.

Specks, however, illuminated Dullborough
with the rays of interest that I wanted and
should otherwise have missed in it, and linked
its present to its past, with a highly agreeable
chain. And in Specks's society I had new
occasion to observe what I had before
noticed in similar communications among other
men. All the schoolfellows and others of old,
whom I inquired about, had either done
superlatively well or superlatively ill—had either
become uncertificated bankrupts, or been felonious
and got themselves transported; or had made
great hits in life, and done wonders. And this is
so commonly the case, that I never can imagine
what becomes of all the mediocre people of
people's youth—especially, considering that we
find no lack of the species in our maturity. But
I did not propound this difficulty to Specks, for
no pause in the conversation gave me an occasion.
Nor could I discover one single flaw in the
good doctor—when he reads this, he will receive
in a friendly spirit the pleasantly meant record
—except that he had forgotten his Roderick
Random, and that he confounded Strap with
Lieutenant Hatchway: who never knew Random,
howsoever intimate with Pickle.

When I went alone to the Railway to catch
my train at night (Specks had meant to go with
me, but was inopportunely called out), I was in
a more charitable mood with Dullborough than
I had been all day; and yet in my heart I had
loved it all day too. Ah! who was I that I
should quarrel with the town for being changed
to me, when I myself had come back, so changed,
to it! All my early readings and early
imaginations dated from this place, and I took them
away so full of innocent construction and
guiless belief, and I brought them back so worn
and torn, so much the wiser and so much the
worse!

BLACK TARN.

IN THREE PORTIONS. CHAPTER VII.

MRS. LAURENCE GRANTLEY had disappeared.
The country was searched for miles round, but
not a trace of her was to be found. No one had
called the day after the ball; her maid had
dressed her for a walk, and she had been seen to
leave the Hall grounds by the small side gate;
the steward had met her in the lane, a dozen
yards from the gate; from this point even
conjecture was at a loss. The affair made an
intense sensation, and people were dreadfully
shocked and alarmed—as they always are when
there is anything mysterious. Much
sympathy was felt for the husband, and much pity
was expressed for the wife: all her good
points were remembered and magnified, and all
her bad forgotten. A veil of universal charity
shadowed the Hall from basement to roof. But
still the mystery remained unsolved: what had
become of her?

Laurence kept much in the house, was very
silent and moody and subdued, and the neighbourhood
wondered that he should take his affliction
so much to heart; for however tragically it
might have happened, it seemed unlike Laurence
Grantley to fret himself ill for the loss of his
wife. It was matter of history that they had
not been violently happy in their union, and
his distress seemed to every one disproportioned
to the event. The gentlemen of the
neighbourhood rode daily up to the Hall to offer
advice and sympathy, but no plan yet proposed
had resulted in any certainty; the body had not
been found, and there were no tidings of flight.
It was a desolate state of things, every one
agreed; and the most terrible certainty would
bo preferable to dragging on in doubt and
suspense.

One day, there chanced to be quite a meeting
at the Hall. Dr. Downs, the clergyman, and