any one, that this reluctance proceeded from no feelings of conscious plebeianism.

However, from putting together broken hints and observations I suppose, Reginald knew well enough, in process of time, not only that his father was a gentleman born, but that he had relations of considerable consequence living in one of the neighbouring counties. That some coldness subsisted between Mr Dalton and these kindred, was an inference which the lad could scarcely fail to draw, from the mere fact of the families having no intercourse with each other. Taking this distinct circumstance in connexion with others of a nature less tangible, he began to suspect, and at length to believe, that the alienation he witnessed had had its origin in a fault. That fault, whatever it might be, he, of course, attributed not to his parent.

Some notions of this sort had imperceptibly taken possession of Reginald's mind, but the subject was, as I have hinted, one on which he was early taught not to question Mr Dalton; and there was no one else near him from whom he thought himself likely to derive that information

which his father had never chosen to supply. Perhaps, had he known that there were such persons near him, the lad would have hesitated very much about applying to them. Most assuredly he ought to have so hesitated, for, by making any such application to a stranger, he must have betrayed an unseemly want, either of reliance on his father's judgment, or of confidence in his father's kindness. As it happened, there was no such temptation, either to be indulged, or to be resisted.

Of Reginald's mother, (who, as we have seen, was dead before he had passed his infancy,) Mr Dalton spoke almost as rarely, though not so obscurely, as of his own connexions. He gave his son to understand, that she had been born in a condition of life below his own; but that she had been the gentlest, the best of wives; and Reginald had too much reverence for his father's feelings, to inquire farther. These, however, were, I believe, the only topics, in regard to which the Vicar of Lannwell was accustomed to treat his son with anything like reserve.

CHAPTER II.

IN relation to the former of them, he was indebted to a mere accident for a great increase, both of his knowledge and of his perplexity. I suppose he might be rather more than fifteen years old, when, one day, Mr Dalton having gone abroad on some of his parochial duties, the youth was sitting alone, reading, as usual, in the library. A servant brought in a packet, which had been sent from the nearest market-town, and laid it before him on the table. From the shape of the packet, Reginald perceived that a book was the inclosure; and, as there was no seal, he, without hesitation, cut the cord which secured it.

He found, as he had expected, a new book; but it was one of a species by which he was then too young to be much attracted at first sight. It was a History of the County of Lancaster; a large

folio, full of Latin charters, and other heavy-looking materials. He turned, however, with more pleasure to the engravings at the end of it; and after amusing himself for a while among views of Lancaster Castle, Furness Abbey, the College at Manchester, and the like, at length lighted upon a print, the title of which effectually rivetted his attention-" GRYPHERWAST-HALL, the seat of Richard Dalton, Esq." A shield of arms was represented underneath, and Reginald recognized the motto, the crest, the very griffin of his father's seal. "Hah!" said he to himself, "have I at length discovered it? Here, then, is the seat of my kinsmen, the home of my forefathers! Was it under these very roofs that my ancestors were nursed? Was it indeed under these venerable oaks that they loitered ?”

Reginald gazed upon the image of this old hall, until he had made himself intimate with every projecting window and tower-like chimney belonging to it, and then it occurred to him all at once, that there might be some letter-press in the heart of the book, bearing reference to the prints at its conclusion. In what a flutter of zeal, after this

idea had struck him, did the boy turn over the huge leaves with what delight did his eye at length catch again, at the head of a chapter, the names of Grypherwast and Dalton!

To save my reader the trouble of referring to a book, which, if he be not a Lancashire squire or rector, is most probably not in his possession, I shall tell him, in a very few sentences, the amount of what Reginald here found expanded over a goodly number of long pages. He found, then, a prolix deduction of the Dalton pedigree, from which it appeared, that the family had been distinguished enough to furnish a sheriff and knight of the shire, so far back as the days of John of Gaunt; but that their importance had risen very considerably under the Eighth Henry, in consequence of sundry grants, which that monarch had bestowed upon the existing squire, at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries. The Daltons lost these lands again, under Mary; but it seemed that, on the accession of her sister, the donation of the bluff monarch had quietly, and as of its own accord, resumed its efficacy. From that period, Reginald Dalton had followed Richard,