Walter L'Estrange.

though decimated by illness and weakened by climate , have never wavered , never failed to any appeal , but have asserted , with dominant vigour , the tolerant and kindly regime of the Feringhee . How many , like Walter l'Estrange , have passed away , as in a tale of chivalry , or a romance of olden days . Like the knight errant in other ages , fighting for his " ladye love ; " like Ivanhoe"by the help of Monseigneur St . Georgethe good kniht" doing

, , g , duty for honour , justice , right , and poor Rebecca ; ancl like him who , on board the "Birkenhead , " when there was nothing but the roaring surf and hungry sharks around , with the voice of a trumpet exclaimed , " Men , stand fast ; women and children , to the boats . They must be saved ! " Ancl he and his men went calmly down to death , though the ship was settling , and the waves were pouring in !

At the Mote the news of poor Walter ' s death was received with great grief , but when Charles Hope , Walter ' s great friend , returned with his effects , and with one arm' himself , having lost the other in the same hot skirmish , after a little , Amy , who had known him before as the son of their old clergyman , was not insensible to the bold soldier ' s tale ; and Captain and Mrs . Hope now keep up the old house and seem likely to maintain the

family name . The house is permeated by the remembrance of Walter , who is the cherished hero of that family circle . ' There is a picture of him , by a young French artist at Calcutta , which is very striking . He is standing with his helmet in his hand , under eveningstillness , with his bold , clear face , that wavy hair , ancl those wondrous eyes , as stately and as calm as " Sir Launcelot " ere he went on his last expedition . Lady Clanmorris is still the admiration of all who know her . You may

see her any clay in the season in the most effective turn-out ancl with the prettiest children in London . Great as is her beauty , greater are her gifts ; she is , as ever , kindly ancl stately , cold and sedate . No cloud has come upon her married life , no whisper of the smoking-room has affected her ; she is above ancl beyond the scandal ancl tittle-tattle of society . But I , who remember her in her early grace ancl winning waysin that wondrous development of

, interest , ancl animation , and wreathed smiles , ancl soft voice , and lighted eyes , often think , though I may be wrong , that there seems to be a sort of haze , a mist over them , as if for her the " light of other clays has faded , " never to return , leaving her really all alone to battle with the strife , and to pass through the crowds , so noisy , so vulgar , and so uninteresting who fill the great Yanity Fair of life .

It is just possible that through all these things and over all these things , wealth , rank , position , splendour , diamonds , ancl all that seems to attract us and rule us here , she is looking far , far away , to where , in his lonely grave , lies the noblest form that a British uniform ever covered , and where the truest heart in mortal breast is still for ever . I cannot say whether it is so or not . It has struck me that , like others , she has an outer and inner life of her ownand that she lives a twofold existence in the past and in the present .

, But she , too , in her place , does her duty , let us not doubt , and though my story is a very common one and trite one , very simple , very unpretending , and very dull , it may have a meaning for some as it has for myself—and that is why I tell it—the interest of a little veracious history of what often happens in Society to-day . In our busy life and in our customary livingthings so often seem to he in

, the natural order of things , that very few of us are inclined to see or to believe hut that ours is not the very best of worlds , and so anything which appears abnormal or out of the common current of affairs , we think ought at once to be deprecated and disavowed . But the truth is that all the while our life is made up , if only we could see it , of countless romances , all true , all touching , and which appeal equally to our sentiment ancl our sensibility , all we are accustomed