thought, shy and odd about her manner in answering him, but he did not take much thought of this till he was in bed. In the night his eye reverted continually to this same oak chest, and he could not sleep for thinking of it. The moon shone in at the little window and fell on the chest. Unable to rest, the traveller got up, went to the chest, raised the lid, and, to his horror, beheld a human corpse, stiff and cold.

No sleep for the traveller that night. Next morning he descended, was cheerfully received by his hosts, an old woman and her son, and, when leaving, he could not forbear to ask the latter about the oak chest and its contents. Bless 'Bless your honour!" exclaimed the young man, 'tis only old fayther!

'Father! your father! what do you mean?'

Why, you see, your honour,' replied the peasant, the snow being so thick and the distance to Tavistock being ten miles, when old fayther died, a fortnight ago, we couldn't carry him to be buried, and so mother put him in the old chest, and salted him in.'

There is a story, more or less diffused, of a young bride, on her wedding day, playing the game of hide and seek, and concealing herself in one of these ancient carved chests of large size. After she had got in, the lid closed and she found herself unable to raise it again, or it fastened with a spring and she was shut in. Search was made for her in every quarter but the right one, and great perplexity and dismay were caused by her disappearance. It was not till years after, when chance led to the opening of the chest, that the body of the young bride was discovered, and the mystery of her disappearance solved.

The story is found in so many places that it may be questioned whether it is true of any one of them. Rogers tells it of a palace in Modena. The chest, in which the poor bride was found, is shown at Bramshill, in Hampshire, the residence of Sir John Cope. Another similar chest, with precisely the same story attached to it, was long shown at Marwell Old Hall, between Winchester and Bishop's Waltham.

The folk-tale of Catskin or Peau d'Ane represents the girl flying with her bridal dresses from a marriage that is repugnant to her, and, as this tale is found over all Europe, it may have metamorphosed itself into that of the bride who got into a chest and died there.

In the Icelandic saga of 'Half and his Heroes' that belongs

to the heathen semi-mythic, semi-historic period of the Norse and Danish kings, Hjorleif, King of Hordaland, a portion of the Norwegian coast, married Ringa, daughter of Reidar, King of Zealand, and he sailed away with her on board his ship. But she fell ill at sea and died, whereupon he put her body in her chest' and threw it overboard. One day King Reidar and his son were out fishing, when the waves washed up the chest at their feet, and in it they found the body of Ringa. Very wroth they were, for they made up their minds that King Hjorleif had murdered her. King Reidar called to arms, and this occasioned a murderous war, that resulted in the subjugation of Zealand under the sway of Hjorleif, and the death of Reidar. The moral of which story is-Do not jump to rash conclusions.

Gregory of Tours tells the story how that Rigunthe, the daughter of Chilperic (A.D. 570), was disobedient to her mother. The queen, exasperated at the girl's insolence and defiance-she even struck her with her fists-offered to show her the contents of her chest and all the treasures therein which had been given her by the king. This appeased Rigunthe. The queen raised the heavy lid, and as the girl stooped to look in and search among the objects therein, her mother let it fall on her neck. She was only saved from death by the serving-maids rushing up to extricate her. After that she probably thought twice before offending her mother. In the German folk-tale of the Juniper Tree,' the wicked stepmother kills her stepson by this means. She bids him look in the great chest for apples, then brings the lid down on him, and it cuts off his head, which remains among the apples.

The earliest chests of all were simply oak trunks scooped out, much as they were scooped out for boats. In the Alemannic graves in South Germany a great many of these have been found. They were cut down the middle, and the lid was provided with a sort of button or leaf. A strap of leather passed round the two ends of the chest and was fastened about this knob, and so the chest was kept closed. The thong has, of course, disappeared; but the button can be explained as having served no other purpose. Such chests served the living as a store place for their treasures, and, when dead, they were consigned to the earth in them.

As already said, the oak chests served as seats; it was so as late as the fourteenth century. The earliest that have been preserved are strapped about with iron. A little later they were placed on

small feet for convenience in lifting, and also to preserve the contents from the damp that rose from the stone or earth floors.

But not only did they serve as seats, they were employed also as tables. In the cloister of the cathedral at Amiens a man is represented seated, very awkwardly and uncomfortably, on a low stool, writing out the Gospel of St. John on one of these chests, which is ornamented with the so-called linen pattern. At Hales Owen, in Shropshire, is a chest scooped out of one tree; in Rockingham Castle, one banded with iron; but, indeed, of those thus iron-bound there remain numerous examples.

In sixteenth and seventeenth century oak chests it is often found that on the right-hand side is a small box, oblong, furnished with a cover near the top. This was intended to contain the jewellery of the bride. Such a chest almost certainly belonged to a woman. These small receptacles were designed to contain the numerous and mysterious articles that belonged to a lady's trousseau, as catalogued by Autolycus in 'The Winter's Tale :'

Gloves as sweet as damask roses,
Masks for faces and for noses;
Bugle bracelet, necklace amber,
Perfume for a lady's chamber;
Golden quoifs and stomachers,
For my lads to give their dears;
Pins and poking-sticks of steel,

What maids lack from head to heel.

The lids of these little side trays or boxes are not on hinges; they are composed of oak; at the extreme ends of the lid are projections that pass through holes in the framework.

Of one thing the purchaser of an oak chest may be very certain, as a criterion of age. No ancient chest has an iron nail in it. Iron would rust and injure the linen. Every part of the chest is put together and held in place by oak pegs.

Occasionally, in later examples, a drawer may be found in the lower part; and a drawer in an old example, whether of chest or cupboard, is always made to run on runners or staves let into the sides of the chest halfway down the sides of the drawer, and these drawer-sides are grooved to run on them. When, with age, these strips of wood have been rubbed so as to lose their edges, the drawers move awkwardly on them; but they have their advantage, they prove long use, and prove the antiquity of the article when found.

'COLBORNE-Douglas Colborne?' said his Excellency the British Ambassador to the French Republic. No; I don't remember ever to have heard of him before; still that is no fault of his, and I dare say he is all right. Even if he isn't all right, it doesn't much matter. By all means ask him to your horrid crush.'

Lady Royston, the Ambassador's wife, who was seated at her writing table, was a tall, graceful woman, not so very many years younger than her grey-headed little husband as she looked. "I was wondering' said she, 'whether we ought not, perhaps, to ask him to dinner. He called yesterday and left a letter of introduction from Peggy Rowley. She says'

'Oh,' interrupted Sir Edmund Royston, with a laugh, what she says is of no consequence. From the moment that Peg Rowley answers for him, we are bound to accept him. Tell her, with my love, that her friend shall be looked after and that everything shall be done to make his stay in Paris pleasant. That is, unless he is an inquiring M.P. or a man with ideas about European politics who writes for reviews-in either of which cases you will have to undertake him. You might intimate to Peg that it is as much as my place is worth to mix myself up with people of that kind, and that I really can't do it, even to please her.'

But Mr. Colborne, it appeared, was not a person of that kind. After her husband had left her, Lady Royston glanced again at the open letter, which lay before her, and which seemed to classify the stranger in a few graphic touches :

'I hope you will be kind to him, and introduce him to anybody worth knowing; for he rather requires introductions to those who are worth knowing, having hitherto led the healthy but narrow sort of life that most young Englishmen of good birth lead. They are sure to like him, and so are you; because he is

very nice in every way. Clever, too, and with distinct ambitions -which isn't a disadvantage. His mother considers him remarkably good-looking, and there are moments when I almost agree with her. At any rate, he has good manners, and he has lately succeeded to a property near this which ought to be worth more than it is, and he has resigned his commission in the Guards in order to look after it, and I shouldn't wonder if he were to get into Parliament one of these days-and I believe that is about all. Don't cold-shoulder him. You will hurt his feelings, if you do, not to speak of mine; for I am fond of his mother and his sisters, and I want him to be a credit to them. He can't be expected to do credit to anybody or anything until he has seen a little more of the world than he has at present.'

After that, the very least that Lady Royston could do was to take care that a card of invitation to her forthcoming reception should be despatched to Mr. Colborne's hotel. She thought it might be as well just to have a look at him before taking further steps; because in these days the utmost circumspection is, unhappily, necessary, and it can no longer be deemed an absolute guarantee of fitness for the highest circles to have held a commission in the Guards, or even to be a friend and neighbour of Peggy Rowley's.

However, the misgivings of this experienced lady were satisfactorily dispelled before she had exchanged a dozen observations with the hero of the present narrative. Douglas Colborne, it may at once be stated, is only presented to the reader as a hero in the sense of having been the chief personage affected by certain events and episodes: nobody has ever thought of calling him heroic, nor, if there was a substratum of heroism in his character, was it of that nature which appeals to popular enthusiasm and is rewarded by laurel wreaths. But everybody who knew him admitted that he was a thorough gentleman, and Lady Royston, without knowing him at all, admitted as much as soon as she saw him and heard his voice. He approached her on the evening of her reception, threading his way through the gold-laced and ribboned official throng which had congregated near the doorway, with the easy, assured air of one who knows that he is in his proper place and is consequently free from any embarrassing consciousness of his own personality. He was a tall, spare young man, with dark hair and iron-grey eyes, not exactly handsome, yet as near being so as any male specimen of the race can be required to be, and