walked deliberately through all the front rooms, but did not pause in any of them. In the back there were five rooms, all of similar size. As we went through these I paused frequently and looked out of the windows. It was a clear bright night. When we came to the last door he paused and said :

6 That's my room. That's where I sleep.

You do not want

to see that. It's exactly the same as the others.' 'I should like to see that room,' I answered. With elaborate reluctance he opened the door. I crossed the threshold and closed the door after me.

It was a square, white room, having one large window without blind or curtain. The furniture consisted of three old wooden chairs, an iron bedstead, a small square deal table, and a little press. On the chimney-piece were a tobacco-jar, a match-box, a piece of looking-glass, a candlestick, a telescope which had seen much service, and a hammer. A lamp burned on the table.

To the undisguised annoyance and surprise of the hunchback, I took a seat, observing that it was a long way up. His astonishment deprived him of the power of speech. After a little while he moved to the side of the bed, sat down with a sigh, and uttered in a tone of overtaxed patience the monosyllable Well!' Then he blew out the candle and resumed his stare.

'There's a good view from this window in the day time?' I asked.

'You can see a bit.'

And a good view at night?'

'You can't see much in the dark.'

'Oh! yes, you can, if there's light at the other end of the darkness, you know.'

6

Eh!' he cried, drawing himself up, and looking straight into my face with an expression of hatred paralysed by fear.

6

'I was saying,' I carelessly repeated, that one can see a good distance through the dark, provided there is a light at the other end of the darkness.'

'What has that to do with you taking a room here?' There was a dangerous glare in his eyes, and I thought I saw them fasten for a moment on the hammer, and I know he clenched his right hand fiercely.

'Not much,' again carelessly, as I rose and went towards the window. He never moved anything but his eyes; I could feel them clinging to me like a wind. I went on, as I looked into the night: Why, I can see a great deal, although it is night. What strange things a man could see here with a glass!' I turned round and looked at the telescope on the mantel-piece. His eyes

fled from me to the hammer.

I crossed the room and returned to

the window with the glass. I raised it and pointed it down. As I did so, I heard him stealthily cross the floor and saw him seize the hammer. Then he came close to me, holding the weapon in his right hand behind him.

'What can you see?' he whispered, half in fury, half in

terror.

Keeping my eye upon him, although affecting to follow the direction of the tube, I continued, 'I can see into several rooms of houses down there.'

He retreated a pace, brought his right hand in front, settled his fingers on the handle, and then drew them round it with such force that the fingers grew deadly white. Well?' he whispered.

I went on, Ha! what have I now? An old man, a miser evidently, sitting on the floor of a mean room. The board is raised. He is looking into the hole and running gold through his fingers.'

A loud noise made me turn around. The hammer had fallen from his nerveless hand, his mouth was wide open, and his dilated eyes were glaring at me out of his yellow terror-stricken face.

'Take the glass and look,' I whispered, at the same moment tapping the floor with my foot.

He caught the telescope in his palsied hands, and, after ineffectual attempts to fix it, let it fall with a whine of agony, whispering, 'I can't see it to-night, but I did the other night.'

As he staggered across the floor, he uttered a hideous yell of despair, and fell to the ground insensible. He had seen the counterfeit of the old man standing at the open door holding out to him the instrument by which he had effected his crime.

RICHARD DOWLING.

204

Lady Fanshawe.

FEW nobler footprints have been left on the sands of time than those impressed by the heroic gentlewomen who shared the good and evil fortunes of their husbands during the Civil War, and under the Commonwealth and Restoration. Here and there we obtain a glimpse of sufferings patiently endured, of heart-wringing solicitude tempered by a living faith, and of an active and intelligent co-operation in the dramatic incidents of the times. Never, perhaps, did women show themselves more conspicuously in their natural part of a 'help meet for man' than during that chequered period, nor does any one of them appear in a brighter and purer light than the wife and widow of Sir Richard Fanshawe, Ambassador to the Court of Madrid..

Ann, eldest daughter of Sir John Harrison, Knight, of Balls, in the county of Herts, was born at St. Olave's, Hart Street, London, on March 25, 1625. When she was three months old her mother fell sick of fever, and, falling into a trance, was accounted as dead. In that condition she remained for two days and a night, many of her friends and relatives being permitted to take a last view of the deceased lady. Among these was a physician named Winston, who felt so convinced that he was not in the presence of death, that he pulled a lancet out of his pocket and cut the sole of one of her feet. Blood at once began to flow, and by the application of proper remedies she was brought back to animation. By her bedside stood Lady Knollys and Lady Russell, and when her eyes, on first opening, fell on the exceedingly wide sleeves that were then worn, she murmured, 'Did you not promise me fifteen years, and are you come again?' A few hours later she told her husband and the Rev. Dr. Howlsworth that, whilst she lay in a trance, it seemed to her that she was in a strange place impossible to describe, and that a great quiet was upon her, except that her mind was troubled about her infant. Suddenly two beings stood before her, clad in long white garments, who asked the cause of her unhappiness. Then she fell on her face and cried, 'Oh, let me have the same grant given to Hezekiah, that I may live fifteen years to see my daughter a woman!' Her prayer was accepted, and according to Lady Fanshawe her mother lived exactly fifteen years from the date of her singular vision. However that may be, it is quite certain that no pains could have been spared to make her daughter Ann a virtuous and accomplished gentlewoman. Lady Fanshawe herself says that the education she received of her mother embraced

'all the advantages that time afforded, both for working all sorts of fine works with my needle, and learning French, singing, lute, the virginals, and dancing; and notwithstanding I learned as well as most did, yet was I wild to that degree, that the hours of my beloved recreation took up too much of my time, for I loved riding in the first place, running and all active pastimes; in short, I was that which we graver people call a hoyting girl; but to be just to myself, I never did mischief to myself or people, nor one immodest word or action in my life, though skipping and activity were my delight. But upon my mother's death I then began to reflect, and as an offering to her memory I flung away those little childnesses that had formerly possessed me, and by my father's command took upon me charge of his house and family, which I so ordered, by my excellent mother's example, as found acceptance in his sight.'

Her father was the younger son, and commenced life with 201. and a small place in the Customs, but by his energy and sagacity acquired such a considerable fortune that he was able to lose 130,000l. in the King's service, and yet leave 1,600l. a year in land to his son by his second wife, and 20,000l. to that son's uterine sister. He lived, as his illustrious daughter informs us, in a state of great plenty and hospitality, but no lavishness in the least, no prodigality,' and as a proof of his temperance it is remarked that he 'never drank six glasses of wine in his life in one day.' When the Civil War broke out he was member for Lancaster, but was arrested by order of the Long Parliament at Montague House, Bishopsgate Street, his town residence, which was plundered from roof to basement, his landed property being also sequestered. Effecting his escape, he fled to Oxford, where the Court was then held, and, as Lady Fanshawe writes, 'we, that had till that hour lived in great plenty and good order, found ourselves like fishes out of the water, and the scene so changed that we knew not at all how to act any part but obedience; for, from as grand a house as any gentleman of England had, we came to a baker's house in an obscure street, and from rooms well furnished to lie on a very bad bed in a garret, to one dish of meat, and that not the best ordered, no money, for we were as poor as Job, nor clothes more than a man or two brought in their cloak bags; we had the perpetual discourse of losing and gaining towns and men; and at the windows the sad spectacle of war, sometimes plague, sometimes sicknesses of other kind, by reason of so many people being packed together, as I believe there never was before of that quality; always in want, yet I must needs say that most bore it with a martyr-like cheerfulness.'

The dark cloud, however, soon showed its silver lining to the distressed damsel, and before she had completed her twentieth year she was wooed and married and a', and never had reason to regret the seeming recklessness with which she gave herself to a man whose fortunes were in as sorry a plight as her own. To no young and sprightly cavalier did Ann Harrison plight her troth, but to a man sixteen years her senior, and eminent rather for intellectual attainments than for the showy accomplishments which usually win favour with women. Richard Fanshawe, born at Ware Park, Herts, in June 1608, was the fifth son and the tenth child of Sir Henry Fanshawe, Knight, his mother being a daughter of Thomas Smythe, Esq., ancestor of the Viscounts Strangford. His eldest brother was raised to the peerage by the title of Viscount Fanshawe, of Cromore, in Ireland, but he himself was intended for the Bar, and was entered of the Inner Temple on January 22, 1626. The legal profession being little to his taste, Mr. Fanshawe set out on his travels in 1626, carrying with him 801. in gold quilted in his doublet, and 5l. in French silver coin. Crossing from Dover to Calais, he posted thence to Paris, and alighted apparently at a public hostelry in the Faubourg St. Germain, intending to look for suitable apartments on the morrow. That same evening, however, two English friars walked into his chamber on the pretext of paying their respects to a fellow-countryman. To while away the time, they engaged him to play at cards with them, to which he readily assented, thinking it was merely for amusement; and when he discovered his mistake, he was compelled to hand over to them the whole of his little stock of money. His despoilers were not utterly ruthless, for they gave him back five gold pieces for his immediate wants, until he could receive further supplies from home. As it chanced, seven years afterwards Mr. Fanshawe fell in with a Captain Taller, in whom he recognised one of his visitors, and who turned out to be the famous Friar Sherwood.

After spending twelve months in Paris Mr. Fanshawe proceeded to Madrid, where he acquired the Spanish language, which proved the foundation of his future career. On his homeward journey he met with a singular incident. Having lain down to rest in a village inn, he was surprised on awaking to find himself lying on some timber in the high road, with his portmanteau and clothes by his side. While he slept the house had been burned to the ground, but the honest landlord, assisted by the villagers, had rescued the weary traveller with all his belongings at the risk of their own lives. For two years after his return to England Mr. Fanshawe played that most irksome of all rôles, the part of a