And Grace goes in with a dull, heavy look of utter exhaustion, bodily and mental, and quietly sets the things for supper, and goes about her cottage work as one who bears a heavy chain, but has borne it too long to let it hinder the daily drudgery of life.

Grace had reason to pray at least, for the soldiers who were going to the war.  For as she prayed, the Orinoco, Ripon, and Manilla, were steaming down Southampton Water, with the Guards on board; and but that morning little Lord Scoutbush, left behind at the depot, had bid farewell to his best friend, opposite Buckingham Palace, while the bearskins were on the bayonet-points, with—­

“Well, old fellow, you have the fun, after all, and I the work;” and had been answered with—­

“Fun? there will be no fighting; and I shall only have lost my season in town.”

Was there, then, no man among them that day, who

  “As the trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll,
  Heard in the wild March morning the angels call his soul”?

* * * * *

Verily they are gone down to Hades, even many stalwart souls of heroes.

CHAPTER III.

ANYTHING BUT STILL LIFE.

Penalva Court, about half a mile from the quay, is “like a house in a story;”—­a house of seven gables, and those very shaky ones; a house of useless long passages, useless turrets, vast lumber attics where maids see ghosts, lofty garden and yard walls of grey stone, round which the wind and rain are lashing through the dreary darkness; low oak-ribbed ceilings; windows which once were mullioned with stone, but now with wood painted white; walls which were once oak-wainscot, but have been painted like the mullions, to the disgust of Elsley Vavasour, poet, its occupant in March 1854, who forgot that, while the oak was left dark, no man could have seen to read in the rooms a yard from the window.

He has, however, little reason to complain of the one drawing-room, where he and his wife are sitting, so pleasant has she made it look, in spite of the plainness of the furniture.  A bright log-fire is burning on the hearth.  There are a few good books too, and a few handsome prints; while some really valuable nick-nacks are set out, with pardonable ostentation, on a little table covered with crimson velvet.  It is only cotton velvet, if you look close at it; but the things are pretty enough to catch the eye of all visitors; and Mrs. Heale, the Doctor’s wife (who always calls Mrs. Vavasour “my lady,” though she does not love her), and Mrs. Trebooze, of Trebooze, always finger them over when they have any opportunity, and whisper to each other half contemptuously,—­“Ah, poor thing! there’s a sign that she has seen better days.”