difference between your station in society, and
Miss Mowlem's."

"I will try and consider it, if you wish me,
love. But I think I take after my father,
who never troubles his head (dear old
man!) about differences of station. I can't
help liking people who are kind to me, without
thinking whether they are above my rank or
below it; and when I got cool, I must confess
I felt just as vexed with myself for frightening
and distressing that unlucky Miss Mowlem,
as if her station had been equal to mine. I
will try to think as you do, Lenny; but I am
very much afraid that I have got, without
knowing exactly how, to be what the
newspapers call, a Radical."

"My dear Rosamond! don't talk of yourself
in that way, even in joke. You ought
to be the last person in the world to confuse
those distinctions in rank on which the whole
well-being of society depends."

"Does it really? And yet, dear, we don't
seem to have been created with such very
wide distinctions between us. We have all
got the same number of arms and legs; we
are all hungry and thirsty, and hot in the
summer and cold in the winter; we all laugh
when we are pleased, and cry when we are
distressed; and, surely, we have all got very
much the same feelings, whether we are high
or whether we are low. I could not have
loved you better, Lenny, than I do now, if
I had been a duchess, or less than I do now,
if I had been a servant-girl."

"My love, you are not a servant-girl. And,
as to what you say about a duchess, let me
remind you that you are not so much below
a duchess as you seem to think. Many a lady
of high title, cannot look back on such a
line of ancestors as yours. Your father's
family, Rosamond, is one of the oldest in
England—even my father's family hardly
dates back so far; and we were landed gentry
when many a name in the Peerage was not
heard of. It is really almost laughably
absurd to hear you talking of yourself as a
Radical."

"I won't talk of myself so again, Lenny—
only don't look so serious. I'll be a Tory,
dear, if you will give me a kiss, and let me
sit on your knee a little longer."

Mr. Frankland's gravity was not proof
against his wife's change of political
principles, and the conditions which she
annexed to it. His face cleared up, and
he laughed almost as gaily as Rosamond
herself.

"By the bye," said he, after an interval of
silence had given him time to collect his
thoughts, "did I not hear you tell Miss
Mowlem to put a letter down on the table?
Is it a letter for you, or for me?"

"Ah! I forgot all about the letter," said
Rosamond, running to the table. "It is for
you, Lenny and,—goodness me! here's the
Porthgenna postmark on it."

"It must be from the builder whom I sent
down to the old house about the repairs. Lend
me your eyes, love, and let us hear what he
says."

Rosamond opened the letter, drew a stool
to her husband's feet, and, sitting down with
her arms on his knees, read as follows;

TO LEONARD FRANKLAND, ESQ.

Sir,—Agreeably to the instructions with which you
favoured me, I have proceeded to  survey Porthgenna
Tower, with a view to ascertaining what repairs the
house in general, and the north side of it in particular,
may stand in need of.

As regards the outside, a little cleaning and new-
pointing is all that the building wants. The walls and
foundations seem made to last for ever. Such strong
solid work I never set eyes on before.

Inside the house, I cannot report so favourably. The
rooms in the west front, having been inhabited during
the period of Captain Treverton's occupation, and
having been well looked after since, by the persons
left in charge of the house, are in tolerably sound
condition. I should say two hundred pounds would
cover the expense of all repairs in my line, which these
rooms need. This sum would not include the restoration
of the west staircase, which has given a little in some
places, and the banisters of which are decidedly
insecure, from the first to the second landing From
twenty-five to thirty pounds would suffice to set this
all right.

In the rooms on the north front, the state of dilapidation,
from top to bottom, is as bad as can be. From
all that I could ascertain, nobody ever went near these
rooms in Captain Treverton's time, or has ever entered
them since. The people who now keep the house have
a superstitious dread of opening any of the north doors,
in consequence of the time that has elapsed since any
living being has passed through them. Nobody would
volunteer to accompany me in my survey, and nobody
could tell me which keys fitted which room doors in
any part of the north side. I could find no plan
containing the names or numbers of the rooms; nor, to
my surprise, were there any labels attached separately
to the keys. They were given to me, all hanging
together on a large ring, with an ivory label to it,
which was only marked:—Keys of the North Rooms.
I take the liberty of mentioning these particulars in
order to account for my having, as you might think,
delayed my stay at Porthgenna Tower longer than is
needful. I lost nearly a whole day in taking the keys
off the ring and fitting them at hazard to the right
doors. And I occupied some hours of another day in
marking each door with a number on the outside, and
putting a corresponding label to each key, before I
replaced it on the ring, in order to prevent the possibility
of future errors and delays.

As I hope to furnish you, in a few days, with a
detailed estimate of the repairs needed in the north
part of the house, from basement to roof, I need only
say here that they will occupy some time, and will be
of the most extensive nature. The beams of the staircase
and the flooring of the first story have got the dry
rot. The damp in some rooms, and the rats in others,
have almost destroyed the wainscottings. Four of the
mantelpieces have given out from the walls, and all the
ceilings are either stained, cracked, or peeled away in
large patches. The flooring is, in general, in a better
condition than I had anticipated; but the shutters and
window-sashes are so warped, as to be useless. It is
only fair to acknowledge that the expense of setting all
these things to rights—that is to say of making the rooms
safe and habitable, and of putting them in proper