"Have you made one as to the cause of Miss Brotherton's graciousness to you yesterday?" "At least I remarked the change." "I will tell you. There was a short notice of some of your writings in a certain magazine which I contrived should fall in her way." 66 Impossible!" I exclaimed. never put my name to anything.” "I have 'Yes, and I call it mine still." "Why don't you take it then? I should have carried it off long ago." "To steal my own would be to prejudice my right," I returned. "But I have often thought of telling Sir Giles about it." "Why don't you then? "I hardly know. My head has been full of other things, and any time will do. But "But you have put the same name to I should like to see it in its own place once all your contributions." "How should the reviewer know it meant me?" "Your own name was never mentioned." I thought she looked a little confused as she said this. "Then how should Miss Brotherton know it meant me?" She hesitated a moment swered: 66 more." I had taken it from the wall, and now handed it to her. "Is this it?" she said carelessly. "It is just as it was carried off my bed that night." "What room were you in? she asked, trying to draw it from the sheath. "I can't tell. I've never been in it then an- since." Perhaps from internal evidence - I osity natural to a suppose I must confess I told her." 66 Well, I shall soon find out. There is but one could have done it. It is very kind of him, no doubt; but I don't like it. That kind of thing should come of itself — not through friends." "Who do you fancy has done it? "If you have a secret, so have I." My answer seemed to relieve her, though I could not tell what gave me the impression. You are welcome to yours, and I will keep mine," she said. "I only wanted to explain Miss Brotherton's condescension yesterday." "I thought you had been going to explain why you didn't come to-day.' "That is only a reaction. I have no To a woman Why, dead-years and years ago! "So I understand. I can't well apply to him then,- and I am certain no one else knows." "Don't be too sure of that. Perhaps Sir Giles "I am positive Sir Giles knows nothing about it." "I have reason to think the story is not altogether unknown in the family." "Have you told it then?" "No. But I have heard it alluded to." By Sir Giles?" 66 "No." "That is always your way," she said. "You take everything so seriously! Why couldn't I make a proposition without being supposed to mean it?" "And have you ever thoroughly searched it?" "I haven't had time yet." "Not had time!" she repeated, in a tone of something so like the uttermost contempt that I was bewildered. "I mean some day or other to have a rummage in the old lumber-room," I said. "Well, I do think that is the least you can do - if only out of respect to your ancestors. Depend on it, they don't like to be forgotten any more than other people." I was not satisfied. There was something short of uprightness in the whole The intention I had just announced tone of her attempted persuasion which was however but just born of her words. indeed I could hardly believe to have been I had never yet searched even my grandso lightly intended as she now suggested. mother's bureau, and had but this very The effect on my feeling for her was that moment fancied there might be papers in of a slight frost on the spring blossoms. some old chest in the lumber-room. She had been examining the hilt with a look of interest, and was now for the third time trying to draw the blade from the sheath. "It's no use, Clara," I said. "It has been too many years glued to the scabbard." "Glued!" she echoed. "What do you mean?" I did not reply. An expression almost of horror shadowed her face, and at the same moment, to my astonishment, she drew it half-way. "Why! you enchantress!" I exclaimed. "I never saw so much of it before. It is wonderfully bright- when one thinks of the years it has been shut in darkness." She handed it to me as it was, saying. "If that weapon was mine, I should never rest until I had found out everything concerning it." "That is easily said, Clara; but how can I? My uncle knew nothing about it. My grandmother did, no doubt, but almost all I can remember her saying was something about my great-grandfather and Sir Marmaduke." As I spoke, I tried to draw it entirely, but it would yield no farther. I then endeavoured to replace it, but it would not move a particle. That it had yielded to Clara's touch gave it a fresh interest and value. That room had already begun to occupy my thoughts from another point of view, and hence, in part, no doubt the suggestion. I was anxious to have a visit from Charley. He might bring with him some of our London friends. There was absolutely no common room in the house except the hall-kitchen. The room we had always called the lumber-room was over it, and nearly as large. It had a tall stone chimney-piece, elaborately carved, and clearly had once been a room for entertainment. The idea of restoring it to its original dignity arose in my mind; and I hoped that, furnished after as antique a fashion as I could compass, it would prove a fine room. The windows were small, to be sure, and the pitch rather low, but the whitewashed walls were panelled, and I had some hopes of the ceiling. "Who knows," I said to myself, as I walked home that evening, "but I may come upon papers? I do remember something in the farthest corner that looks like a great chest." Little more had passed between us, but Clara left me with the old dissatisfaction beginning to turn itself, as if about to awake once more. For the present I hung the half-naked blade upon the wall, for I dared not force it lest the scabbard should go to pieces. When I reached home, I found a letter "I was sure it had a history," said Clara. from Charley, to the effect that, if con"Have you no family papers? Your venient, he would pay me a visit the fol lowing week. His mother and sister, he said, had been invited to Moldwarp Hall. His father was on the continent for his health. Without having consulted them on the matter, which might involve them in after difficulty, he would come to me, and so have an opportunity of seeing them in the sunshine of his father's absence. I wrote at once that I should be delighted to receive him. The next morning I spent with my man in the lumber-room; and before mid-day the rest of the house looked like an old curiosity shop-it was so littered with odds and ends of dust-bloomed antiquity. It was hard work, and in the afternoon I found myself disinclined for more exercise of a similar sort. I had Lilith out, and took a leisurely ride instead. The next day and the next also I remained at home. The following morning I went again to Moldwarp Hall. I had not been busy more than an hour or so, when Clara, who, I presume, had in passing heard me at work, looked in. "Who is a truant now?" she said. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Here has Miss Brotherton been almost curious concerning your absence, and Sir Giles more than once on the point of sending to inquire after you!" "Why didn't he then?" "Oh! I suppose he was afraid it might look like an assertion of-of- of baronial rights, or something of the sort. How could you behave in such an inconsiderate fashion!" "You must allow me to have some business of my own." "Certainly. But with so many anxious friends, you ought to have given a hint of your intentions." "I had none, however." "Of which? Friends or intentions?" "Either." "What! No friends? I verily surprised Miss Pease in the act of studying her Cookery for Invalids'—in the hope of finding a patient in you, no doubt. She wanted to come and nurse you, but daren't propose it." "It was very kind of her." "No doubt. But then you see she's ready to commit suicide any day, poor old thing, but for lack of courage! "It must be dreary for her!" "Dreary! I should poison the old dragon." "Well, perhaps I had better tell you, for Miss Pease's sake, who is evidently the only one that cares a straw about me in the matter, that possibly I shall be absent a good many days this week, and perhaps the next too." 66 Why then-if I may ask - Mr. Absolute ?" "Because a friend of mine is going to pay me a visit. You remember Charley Osborne, don't you? Of course you do. You remember the ice-cave, I am sure." "Yes I do- quite well," she answered. I fancied I saw a shadow cross her face. "When do you expect him?" she asked, turning away, and picking a book from the floor. "In a week or so, I think. He tells me his mother and sister are coming here on a visit." "Yes so I believe to-morrow, I think. I wonder If I ought to be going. I don't think I will. I came to please them at all events not to please myself; but as I find it pleasanter than I expected, I won't go without a hint and a half at least." "Why should you? room.” 66 There is plenty of "Yes; but don't you see?-so many inferiors in the house at once might be too much for Madame Dignity. She finds one quite enough, I suspect." "You do not mean that she regards the Osbornes as inferiors?" Not a doubt of it. Never mind. I can take care of myself. Have you any work for me to-day?" 66 66 Plenty, if you are in a mood for it? I will fetch Miss Brotherton." "I can do without her." She went, however, and did not return. As I walked home to dinner, she and Miss Brotherton passed me in the carriage on their way, as I learned afterwards, to fetch the Osborne ladies from the rectory, some ten miles off. I did not return to Moldwarp Hall, but helped Styles in the lumber-room, which before night we had almost emptied. The next morning I was favoured with a little desultory assistance from the two ladies, but saw nothing of the visitors. In the afternoon, and both the following days, I took my servant with me, who got through more work than the two together, and we advanced it so far that I was able to leave the room next the armoury in the hands of the carpenter and the housemaid, with sufficient directions, and did not return that week. of the water in the lake, while vegetable life is busy adding peat to the banks. And thus marshy ground or a shallow loch with shelving beach is converted into a deep moss loch with perpendicular sides. The rising of the channel of the outlet and of the sides does not always take place at the same relative rate. In one loch recently visited the peat bank was about eight feet above the water, whilst in another where there was a vigorous growth of water plants in the outlet, the water was within a few inches of being over its banks. That water plants are capable of producing this result will be doubted by none who have seen them fairly establish themselves in a pond, how soon they over-run, and, if let alone, fill it up. Moss Locпs. As these lochs are seldom visited save by sportsmen of either the rod or the gun, it will be necessary for me to give a short description of them. These lochs are generally situated high up, near the tops of the hills, the hills being wholly or in part covered with heather and moss. They are of small size, varying from about a mile to a hundred yards in length; the water is of a dark porter colour. They look as if an immense hole had been dug in the peat, and the hole then filled with water; the banks, which are wholly or in part composed of peat, rising almost perpendicularly out of the water, and at some places extending downwards for many feet under it; at other places going only to a depth of a foot or two, and then extending for some feet in a nearly horizontal direction, when they again dip abruptly to a considerable depth. These abrupt precipices of peat, as seen under the water, are often formed in curious, fantastic shapes, and look more like rock than soft peat; and when seen by the sunshine - broken by the passing waves-through the dusky water, with the surroundings of bleak, bare hill, total silence, save the plaintive cry of some bird passing overhead, and no life, save the lizard and the snake the whole presents a scene, the weird effect of which on the imagination is seldom if ever ex-it never gets up speed sufficient to damage its ceeled by anything else in nature. What strikes the observer of these lochs is, that not only are the banks made of peat, but the sides and bottom are wholly or in part made of the same material; and there seems to be no difference between the peat at the bottom of the loch and that on the banks. It looks exactly like as if the peat had begun to be formed at the bottom of the loch and had gradually extended upwards till it had risen above the wa ter. Yet it could not have done so, because, although water-lilies and some grasses are seen growing under a depth of a foot or two of water, yet all vegetation ceases at a depth of a very few feet. How then came the sides and bottom of these lochs to be formed of peat? There are no signs of any convulsions of nature after the peat had been formed to account for it. If produced by any upheaving of the earth stopping the exit of the water, the upheaving must have been very violent, because many of these lochs are deep and yet of but small size. How, then, came the peat in the position in which we now find it? An examination of the outlet will at once explain the difficulty. The stream which leaves the loch winds its way through mossy ground, the bottom of its channel being covered with water plants. These water plants, as they grow from year to year, are gradually filling up the channel, and so adding to the depth of the loch. It is now easy to understand how peat is found at such depths in these lochs. We will suppose the loch to begin from marshy ground or from a small loch. The channel of the outlet - being covered with water plants gradually gets filled up, so increasing the depth Moss lochs stand in marked contrast to other lochs. In other lochs the water, as it passes from them, has worn their channels, and is year by year wearing them further, so lowering the water in them; whilst in moss lochs the channels are year by year being filled up, so gradually raising the water in them. It may be objected that the water plants in the outlet would be uprooted by the water from the loch during floods; but such is not the case, because in most cases, when the water leaves the loch, it passes through a nearly level channel, so that bed. And besides, these lochs being situated near the tops of the hills, they drain but a small extent of country. In no case visited had any of the lochs a stream of any size running into it, and the amount of water which passed from them was in every case small. As there are few rules without exceptions, it is possible that the rule that the outlets from moss lochs are covered with water plants may not hold good in every case; it is quite possible that the outlet from a moss loch might be over a rocky channel. If such should happen to be found, it does not necessarily prove that it was not formed in the way shown. The plants might continue to fill up the outlet till the water was raised to such a height that it found a passage over a new channel at a part of the hill where there was no moss and nothing but bare rock. We would thus have a moss loch grown in the way shown, but which had ceased to grow. Nature. 1 NUMBERS OF THE LIVING AGE WANTED. The publishers are in want of Nos. 1179 and 1180 (dated respectively Jan. 5th and Jan. 12th, 1867) of THE LIVING AGE. 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