he had himself selected for Waife's pannier. And the girl stating in
reply to his inquiry that her father had bought that pelerine as a
present for her, not many days before, of a pedlar in a neighbouring
town, to the market of which the farmer resorted weekly, Merle cast an
horary scheme, and finding the Third House (of short journeys) in
favourable aspect to the Seventh House (containing the object desired),
and in conjunction with the Eleventh House (friends), he gravely informed
the scholar that their toils were at an end, and that the Hour and the
Man were at hand. Not over-sanguine, George consigned himself and the
seer to an early train, and reached the famous town of Oazelford,
whither, when the chronological order of our narrative (which we have so
far somewhat forestalled) will permit, we shall conduct the inquisitive
reader.

Meanwhile Lionel, subscribing without a murmur to Lady Montfort's
injunction to see Sophy no more till Darrell had been conferred with and
his consent won, returned to his lodgings in London, sanguine of success,
and flushed with joy. His intention was to set out at once to Fawley;
but on reaching town he found there a few lines from Dairell himself, in
reply to a long and affectionate letter which Lionel had written a few
days before asking permission to visit the old manor-house; for amidst
all his absorbing love for Sophy, the image of his lonely benefactor in
that gloomy hermitage often rose before him. In these lines, Darrell,
not unkindly, but very peremptorily, declined Lionel's overtures.

"In truth, my dear young kinsman," wrote the recluse--"in truth I am,
with slowness, and with frequent relapses, labouring through
convalescence from a moral fever. My nerves are yet unstrung. I am as
one to whom is prescribed the most complete repose;--the visits, even of
friends the dearest, forbidden as a perilous excitement. The sight of