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ONCE A WEEK.

[Noram 5, 1869.

tumble-down kind of a court, in one of the best situations of the town. It was inhabited by workmen; they had carpenters’ shops and such like there. A builder took a lease of these premises two years ago, with an understanding that he was to build a certain number of cottagers’ houses on some waste land, and build in this court some houses fit for gentlemen’s residences or good lodging-houses. The first house is finished, and called Beaumont. He is very lucky to let it so well. The works around are stopped; but there is such a confusion of rubbish and materials at the back, where the other three sides of the court stood, that none but a blind gentle- man would have taken Beaumont. The sitting- room windows look on it. But Sir Frederick Worth took it. And as the sea-air comes straight upon the houses, and the rooms are handsome, and there is a carriage-drive to the other side of the house, and no thoroughfare, which he seemed to think a great deal of, he took the house for three months, when the family will have to go out, and the works will begin again. If, sir, you go through our garden above the house, and get over the stile, you will see Beaumont across Hie down on your right. Tou can then walk straight to it. Tou are sure to find some one about. It is not three minutes’ walk from our garden fence. ”

Before two hours had passed, I had gone all over Beaumont. It was just as Hie woman had said. Beams, rafters, old flooring, and roof -timber piled up, or still standing, looked perilous to my uninstructed eyes in the great yard behind. The windows that looked over this bewilderment of fallen houses, had beyond them as glorious a sea-view as the eye could rest on: and the salt breeze came scented across the heath and wild thyme of the down between. A decent woman showed me the house. It did nicely for the blind genHeman, she thought. It was the healthiest place, and would be the prettiest in all Beachly. And so my first day was wandered away till about four o’clock. I had not been in my lodgings more than half-an-hour, when I heard such a music of voices — a chirruping like the first efforts of young birds at song — and low sweet laughs that made me smile. The door opened, and a child, all sash and flounce, and hat and feathers, stood rosy and speaking:

“I am Ellen Worth! If you please, Georgy, and nurse, and I, are come to say that Mrs. Barrington and mamma are at Beaumont, and they are coming here, and are you at-home, Mr. Beane?”

Upon which the little spokeswoman stept aside, rather out of breath, and Georgy, looking very shy, and nurse curtsying, appeared, in the back -ground. But few words were said, before Ellen, who had taken her place at the open win- dow, cried out: “Here they are,” and once more I was in the beautiful presence of the blind man’s wife.

Lady Worth was an elegant woman, about ten years older than Mrs. Barrington, who was not more, I thought, than five-and-twenty. I had been opening a box sent by my sister for my exa- minatton. There were things in this box which had got into her possession accidentally, and which belonged to me. I had sent her, on our dear father’s death, about a year before, a trunk which at first had appeared to contain only clothes, old lace, old music, and needle- work belonging to my mother. On her taking these things out she hul found a box, tied up and labelled, thus — “Given to me by my dear friend, Gerard Leslie — signed, Reginald Deane .” My father had written under this — * ‘ My brother, before his death, gave me thh box, and told me what the contents were. I asked what I should do with it. He answered:

• Give it to my nephew , your son , when he is forty,

if you like. ’ I intend to adhere to this suggestion — signed, Nicolas Dkank.”

I had received this box from my sister that morn- ing, and just before little Ellen Worth entered the room I had opened it. The very top thing was a miniature. Folded in soft leather and satin, it had been lying there since the death of my father’s eldest brother, a rich bachelor, of whose inheri- tance my share had been about a thousand a year; nearly double that from my father had made me in the eyes of many a rich man, I had begun to think of this since breakfast, really, as I had never thought of it before. Why did I not many? was still the question at my heart. I held the red case in its wrappings with a little thrilling sense of what it was — a miniature — of whom? Man or woman? If such a moment, reader, has ever come to you, you, too, will have felt the same. I had opened the case, glanoed at the exquisitely painted figure, and put it down — threw it — suddenly — and was all in a gasp of surprise, when Hie chirping voices ushered in the little lady at the door. I shut the case, and threw a newspaper over it.

“Here they are I” said the child, and in another moment I was welcoming my guests, and cubing after Mr. Barrington.

The children were wild about the beach and the sea. Their mother standing by them left Mrs. Barrington for a moment by my side. I opened the miniature and gave it to her.

“Do you know who that is?”

“Do you? ” she asked with a smile, wondering and beautiful.

“No.”

As she gazed smiling, and pushing her rich hair aside— for she had taken off her hat — the picture seemed to gaze on her; and whether Mrs. Bar- rington grew more like the picture, or the ivory like a mirror reflected her, it appeared to my puzzled senses difficult to decide. It was a mar- vellous picture of her, just as she stood at that moment in her glorious beauty: so like— so super- humanly like, it seemed to me, that watching for her answer, I had begun to consider whether I had any right to keep so perfect a likeness of another man’s wife.

“It is my mother,” she said. “She was a Miss Barrington — Leslie’s aunt — an heiress. My father. Colonel Leslie, outlived her several years. They are both dead now. Mr. Deane, I know how you got this.”

She looked towards Lady Worth and spoke to her.

“Margaret, the children would see the bay best from that inner- room!”