'What's this I have heard about Thomasin and Mr. Wildeve?' 'It is true in many points,' said Mrs. Yeobright quietly; 'but it is all right now, I hope.' She looked at the clock..

'True?'

'Thomasin is gone to him to-day.'

Clym pushed away his breakfast. Then there is a scandal of some sort, and that's what was the matter with Thomasin. Was it this that made her ill?'

'Yes. Not a scandal: a misfortune. I will tell you all about it, Clym. You must not be angry, but you must listen, and you'll find that what we have done has been done for the best.'

She then told him the circumstances. All that he had known of the affair before he returned from Paris was that there had existed an attachment between Thomasin and Wildeve, which his mother had at first discountenanced, but had since, owing to the arguments of Thomasin, looked upon in a little more favourable light. When, therefore, she proceeded to explain all, he was greatly surprised and troubled.

'And she determined that the wedding should be over before you came home,' said Mrs. Yeobright, that there might be no chance of her meeting you after you had heard the news, and so having a very painful time of it. That's why she has gone to him; they have arranged to be married this morning.'

'But I can't understand it!' said Yeobright, rising. 'Tis so unlike her. I can see why you did not write to me after that unfortunate return home; but why didn't you let me know when the wedding was going to be for the first time?'

'Well, I felt vexed with her just then. She seemed to me to be very obstinate; and when I found that you were nothing in her mind, I vowed that she should be nothing in yours. I felt that she was only my niece after all; I told her she might marry, but that I should take no interest in it, and should not bother you about it either.'

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It wouldn't have been bothering me. wrong.'

Mother, you did

'I thought it might disturb you in your business, and that you might throw up your situation, or injure your prospects in some way because of it, so I said nothing. Of course, if they had married at that time in a proper manner, I should have told you at once.'

'Tamsin actually being married while we are sitting here!' 'Yes. Unless some accident happens again as it did the first time. It may, considering he's the same man.'

'Yes; and I believe it will. Was it right to let her go? Suppose Wildeve is really a bad fellow?'

'Then he won't come, and she'll come home again.'

"You should have looked more into it.'

'It is useless to say that,' his mother answered, with an impatient look of sorrow. 'You don't know how bad it has been here with us all these weeks, Clym. You don't know what a mortification anything of that sort is to a woman. You don't know the sleepless nights we've had in this house, and the almost bitter words that have passed between us since that fifth of November. I hope never to pass six such weeks again. Tamsin has not gone outside the door, and I have been ashamed to look anybody in the face; and now you blame me for letting her do the only thing that can be done to set that trouble straight.'

'No,' he said slowly. Upon the whole, I don't blame you. But just consider how sudden it seems to me. Here was I, knowing nothing; and then I am told all at once that Tamsin is gone to be married. Well, I suppose there was nothing better to do. -Do you know, mother,' he continued after a moment or two, looking suddenly interested in his own past history, 'I once thought of Tamsin as a sweetheart. Yes, I did. How odd boys are! And when I came home and saw her this time, she seemed so much more affectionate than usual, that I was quite reminded of those days, particularly on the night of the party, when she was unwell. We had the party just the same-was not that rather cruel to her?'

'It made no difference. I had arranged to give one, and it was not worth while to make more gloom than necessary. To begin by shutting ourselves up and telling you of Tamsin's misfortunes, would have been a poor sort of welcome.'

Clym remained thinking. I almost wish you had not had that party,' he said; and for other reasons. But I will tell you in a day or two. We must think of Tamsin now.'

They lapsed into silence. I'll tell you what,' said Yeobright again, in a tone which showed some slumbering feeling still. ‘I don't think it kind to Tamsin to let her be married like this, and neither of us there to keep up her spirits, or care a bit about her. She hasn't disgraced herself, or done anything to deserve that. It is bad enough that the wedding should be so hurried and unceremonious, without our keeping away from it in addition. Upon my soul, 'tis almost a shame. I'll go.'

"It is over by this time,' said his mother with a sigh; unless they were late, or he――

"Then I shall be soon enough to see them come out. I don't

quite like your keeping me in ignorance, mother, after all. Really, I half hope he has failed to meet her.'

'And ruined her character.'

'Nonsense! that wouldn't ruin Thomasin.'

He took up his hat and hastily left the house. Mrs. Yeobright looked rather unhappy, and sat still, deep in thought. But she was not long left alone. A few minutes later Clym came back again, and in his company came Diggory Venn.

'I find there isn't time for me to get there,' said Clym.

Is she married?' Mrs. Yeobright inquired, turning to the reddleman a face in which a strange strife of wishes, for and against, was apparent.

Venn bowed. She is, ma'am.'

'How strange it sounds!' murmured Clym.

'And he didn't disappoint her this time?' said Mrs. Yeobright. 'He did not. And there is now no slight on her name. I was hastening ath'art to tell you at once, as I saw you were not there.'

'How came you to be there? how did you know of it?' she asked.

'I have been in that neighbourhood for some time, and I saw them go in,' said the reddleman. 'Wildeve came up to the door, punctual as the clock. I didn't expect it of him.' He did not add, as he might have added, that how he came to be in that neighbourhood was not by accident; that since Wildeve's resumption of his right to Thomasin, Venn, with the thoroughness which was part of his character, had determined to see the end of the episode, and had accordingly kept strict watch upon his rival for that purpose.

Who was there?' said Mrs. Yeobright.

'Nobody hardly. I stood right out of the way, and she did not see me.' The reddleman spoke huskily and looked into the garden.

Who gave her away?

'Miss Vye.'

How very remarkable! Miss Vye! It is to be considered an honour, I suppose.'

Who's Miss Vye?' said Clym.

'Captain Drew's granddaughter, of Mistover Knap.'

A proud girl from Budmouth,' said Mrs. Yeobright. 'One not much to my liking.'

The reddleman kept to himself his acquaintance with that fair personage, and also that Eustacia was there because he went to fetch her, in accordance with a promise he had previously given as

soon as he learnt that the ceremony was to take place. He merely said, in continuation of the story:

"I was sitting on the churchyard wall when they came up, one from one way, the other from the other; and Miss Vye was walking thereabouts, looking at the headstones. As soon as they had gone in I went to the door, feeling I should like to see it, as I knew her so well. I pulled off my boots because they were so noisy, and went up into the gallery. I saw then that the parson and clerk were already there.'

'How came Miss Vye to have anything to do with it, if she was only on a walk that way?'

'Because there was nobody else. She had gone into the church just before me, not into the gallery. The parson looked round before beginning, and as she was the only one near he beckoned to her, and she went up to the rails. After that, when it came to signing the book, she pushed up her veil, and signed; and Tamsin seemed to thank her for her kindness.' The reddleman told the tale thoughtfully, for there lingered upon his vision the changing colour of Wildeve when Eustacia lifted the thick veil which had concealed her from recognition, and looked calmly into his face. 'And then,' said Diggory sadly, I came away, for her history as Tamsin Yeobright was over.'

'I offered to go,' said Mrs. Yeobright regretfully. But she said it was not necessary.'

'Well, it is no matter,' said the reddleman. The thing is done at last as it was meant to be at first, and God send her happiness. Now I'll wish you good morning.'

He placed his cap on his head and went out.

From that instant of leaving Mrs. Yeobright's door the reddleman was seen no more in or about Egdon Heath for a space of many months. He vanished entirely. The nook among the brambles where his van had been standing was as vacant as ever the next morning, and scarcely a sign remained to show that he had been there, excepting a few straws, and a little redness on the turf, which was washed away by the next storm of rain.

The report that Diggory had brought of the wedding, correct as far as it went, was deficient in one significant particular, which had escaped him through his being at some distance back in the church. When Thomasin was tremblingly engaged in signing her name, Wildeve had flung towards Eustacia a glance which said plainly, I have punished you now.' She had replied in a low tone, and he little thought how truly, 'You mistake; it gives me the sincerest pleasure to see her your wife to-day.'

(To be continued.)

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Stage Properties.

BY DUTTON COOK.

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"In the mean time, I will draw you a bill of properties such as our play wants,' says Peter Quince, the carpenter, when the performance of the most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of "Pyramus and Thisby" has been duly agreed upon by the crew of patches, rude mechanicals that work for bread upon Athenian stalls.' 'Properties' have been, time out of mind, indispensable to theatrical exhibitions. When Melpomene first appeared, she grasped a 'property' dagger; when Thalia entered upon the scene, she carried a property' pastoral crook. Mr. Tennyson's burthen of 'Property, property, property,' has been from days immemorial a sort of watchword to Thespis and his children.

Upon the Elizabethan stage certain properties were almost of the nature of set-pieces or detached portions of scenes. There were as yet no movable scenes employed as backgrounds to the figure-pictures formed by the actors; but the stage was not altogether without furniture or accessories to theatrical illusion. One of the earliest of properties was a representation of 'hellmouth,' very frequently employed in the performance of miracle plays and morals. Malone's liberal quotations from the Diary or Account Book of Henslowe, the manager, under date March 10, 1598-9-the original work has unfortunately disappeared from Dulwich College, where it had long been preserved-supply curious information touching the properties, machinery, and fittings of our early stage. It is clear that rocks and steeples, trees and beacons, pictures now of Mother Redcap and now of Tasso,-in plays by Munday and Drayton and Dekker,—were freely brought upon the stage, in addition to such properties, in the stricter sense of the term, as musical instruments, weapons, armour, clubs, fans, feathers, crosiers, sceptres, skins of beasts, coffins and bedsteads, bulls' and boars' heads, a chariot for Phaeton, a trident for Neptune, wings for Mercury, a mitre for the Pope, a cauldron to be employed in the 'Jew of Malta,' and a dragon-one of the terrible monsters made of brown paper' ridiculed by Stephen Gosson in 1581-to figure in the Faustus' of Marlowe. A mysterious item, 'the Moris lymes,' is supposed by Malone to refer to the limbs of Aaron the Moor in Titus Andronicus,' who in the original play was probably tortured on the stage; in the same way, 'for the playe of Faeton

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