fitted the intellectual calibre of a lady who, had she been told that one of Adeline's ancestors was a French knight who had fought at Agincourt, would have failed to see the argument for her nobility because he was not an Englishman. While these worthy persons were possessed by the belief that Adeline Burnham was not quite noble enough, they were not free from an uneasy suspicion that she was a little too clever for their society. They could have got over her beauty, but her talent, her fascination-for she possessed that indefinable gift in fullest perfection-these were too much for them; and Lady Burnham knew it, and was amused, but decidedly bored. She did not see much of Burnham, who was an ardent sportsman, and a popular man in the county, where it was his business to make himself liked just now, as it was his ambition to represent it in Parliament at the next vacancy, which was likely to take place soon. In this, as in everything else, his wife sympathised with him; and she was very careful to hide from her husband that she was bored, philosophically considering that it could not last, and solacing herself by writing long and amusing letters to Lady Madeleine Charter. It was the beginning of Christmas week; the snow, which had been falling lightly for some days, was frozen, and the weather had reached a point of "seasonableness" which precluded outdoor amusements, except to such hardy individuals as professed a taste for the noble art of skating. Burnham Castle had its full complement of Christmas guests, and they were sometimes a little heavy in hand, and gave the Countess some trouble in their management-trouble which she sustained nevertheless with indefatigable courage, for the sake of her pride and her son. A portentously long morning had been beguiled by a visit to the picture-gallery, of which Lady Burnham had done the honours. She had no knowledge of art, but she had an unlearned taste for pictures, and she had taken some pains to make herself acquainted with the valuable though not extensive collection at Burnham Castle. Lady Madeleine's remark upon her likeness to the portrait known as that of "the French countess," but unmentioned in the catalogue pretentiously inscribed on vellum and kept in the library,had not escaped her at the time; and she had afterwards asked her sister-in-law who the "French countess" was, and whether there was anything remarkable in her story, purposing to inspect the portrait on her return to Burnham, and see what she thought of the supposed likeness. But Lady Marlesdale had been beforehand with her son's wife. Some inexplicable feeling, an impulse which she did not care to define, had induced her to caution her daughter. "You said a thoughtless thing, Madeleine," she remarked; "you should not have mentioned the resemblance, even if it exists. It is bad taste to make Lady Burnham aware that we think her like the only female ancestor of our family of whom we have any reason to be ashamed, the only one with whom an unpleasant tradition is connected. If she asks you anything about the matter, turn it off as well as you can, and tell her you don't know any of the particulars of the story of the French countess." "I don't know much about her in reality, mamma," said Madeleine in a provokingly-careless tone; "not much more than that she was the original of the Burnham ghost." "Don't talk nonsense," said Lady Marlesdale, displeased; “and mind you don't let such an expression slip before Lady Burnham. Remember she is a foreigner, and likely to be superstitious." "Very well, mamma," said Lady Madeleine; then she added, when Lady Marlesdale left the room, "I know someone who is superstitious, and about the Burnham ghost too, and who is not a foreigner." Nevertheless, Lady Madeleine obeyed her mother; and when Adeline asked her the meaning of the observation she had made, she gave her a careless general reply, to the effect that the likeness was not much, but the resemblance in her attitude and manner of holding back her dress was remarkable; and that "the French countess" was a lady of that nation who had married a Lord Marlesdale in the time of Charles the First. "We were not earls then," said Lady Madeleine ; countess in her own right." "What was her name?" asked Lady Burnham. "she was a "I forget," said Madeleine. "I have heard it; but whenever she is mentioned-which is not often, for we don't care much to talk of her -she is called the French countess." Months elapsed after that conversation before Lady Burnham returned to Burnham Castle; but she had not forgotten the circumstance, and she took an early opportunity of inspecting the portrait in question. She recognised the likeness at once: it was no fancy of Lady Marlesdale's or of Madeleine's; and Burnham recognised it also. But while Adeline was pleased and flattered, for the beauty of the French countess was very striking, her husband's indifference piqued and provoked Lady Burnham. "I do believe," she said, "you have a touch of your mother's notions on this point, and would be delighted if I could be proved like any of those pretty dolls of English women, with their china-blue eyes and their silly simpers." "Indeed you mistake me," said Lord Burnham earnestly. "The only woman as beautiful as you-if indeed she was that, and I doubt it-who ever belonged to our family was that lady whom you are strikingly like; but she brought disgrace and shame with her, Adeline, and there has been little of them in the history of the Burnhams. You can understand now, my darling, why we do not much like the mention of the French countess, and why my mother, in particular, dislikes it." "Tell me the story," said Adeline imperiously; "sit down here, and tell it to me at once. I want to hear it; I must hear it.” She looked so beautiful, so engaging, so delightful, in her playful imperative ways, and with her brown eyes sparkling, partly with curiosity and partly with scorn, that he could not resist. All his own reluctance, and the reluctance of his mother, were forgotten in the impulse he felt to give pleasure to his young wife, and he said, "I will not tell you the story myself, Adeline, because I should only spoil it; but I promise you shall hear it, well told, on Christmas-eve, with all the effect due to a ghost-story." "A ghost-story! Is there a ghost, then, attached to the picture, as well as the coincidence of my likeness to it ?" "There is," said Burnham rather seriously, "and Crawford is the only person I know who can tell the story. So you shall hear it on Christmas-eve, just at the witching hour. My mother has a horror of its being told, but she will never know." Lady Burnham thanked her husband with a sparkling smile. There was the slightest touch of mischief in it, but he did not perceive that; and she protested he had given her a fresh interest in the old house. "Even when I found out there was some delightful absurd mystery about a picture, I was far from imagining I should be so fortunate as to come upon a ghost into the bargain. Does Lady Marlesdale believe in the ghost ?" "I rather think she does implicitly," said Burnham demurely. "And the pious and exemplary Blanche.” "Quel bonheur ! And you, my dear, dear Burnham, I will give you sixteen kisses this very minute if you also will confess to believing in the actual ghost of this identical French countess." "I think I could undertake to profess any amount of faith for the same consideration," said her husband, laughing; "but seriously, or as seriously as possible, to be near the truth, I think I do believe in the ghost of the French countess, or, as they call her hereabouts, the Brown Lady.'" There had been a dinner-party, and the picture-gallery was lighted; but the guests were assembled in the drawing-room, and the family portraits had the gaslights all to themselves, when two women emerged from the door communicating with the library, and placed themselves opposite the portrait of the Brown Lady. They were Lady Burnham and her maid, Zelie Huret, known to the household as the "mamzell." They talked together in subdued tones, and minutely inspected the picture, looking at it from different points, and occasionally laughing in a suppressed but confidential fashion. Lady Burnham made some memoranda on a sheet of paper, which her maid put in her pocket; then they left the gallery as quietly as they had entered it. The servants' wagonette was ordered to be in readiness on the following morning, to take the "mamzell" to the train for London; and the "mamzell" gave no further explanation of this unseasonable journey than that she was going to town on business for her lady. At a little after eleven o'clock on Christmas-eve, when the grave and elderly portion of the guests at Burnham Castle,-not to be beguiled by any sentimental ideas of hearing even Christmas chimes at midnight, --had retired, a select party occupied Lady Burnham's boudoir, where a superb fire and brilliant clusters of wax-lights formed comfortable accessories to the correct and sensational narration of the ghost-story. The party consisted of Lord and Lady Burnham, Captain Crawford, and Sir Cecil Morse his particular friend, and a respectful but ardent admirer of Lady Burnham, whom he lost no opportunity of declaring to be "a stunner." Adeline occupied a low chair at the side of the fire; the light of the dancing flames played upon the folds of her dress of rich blue satin and lace, and found a thousand reflections in the jewels on her neck and arms. She was looking down at Burnham, who was lying on the hearthrug, his head supported by her footstool, and her little Skye-terrier nestling in his arms. Sir Cecil sat opposite to her; and the story-teller walked up and down the room, in which exercise he found much assistance and delight. "Now then, Crawford," said Burnham, "begin. We are all ready; and I am in a delightful situation for shivering." "Don't spoil the effect of my story by your chaff," said Captain Crawford. "I address myself solely to her ladyship." "I am listening," said Lady Burnham. "The legend of the Brown Lady of Burnham is in this wise," began Captain Crawford. "In the evil days of Charles the First, the earldom of Marlesdale did not exist; but there had been Barons of Marlesdale time out of mind, good men and true for the most part, and loyal alike to their friends, their country, and their king. The women who had come into the Marlesdale family by marriage or by birth had all been handsome, as your portrait-gallery testifies-and virtuous, as the family annals boast. But no woman married or born among the Marlesdales had equalled in beauty and fascination the bride whom Jocelyn Lord Marlesdale wooed and won at the court of the French queen, Henrietta Maria. Tongues wagged when the bride came home to Burnham, attended by a brilliant company from London, for she was a foreigner and a widow." Lady Burnham looked up suddenly, and made Captain Crawford feel rather awkward; he remembered that the listener was also a foreigner. "A widow, you say," she asked him, "and a foreigner? Was she a French woman?" "She was,"-Lord Burnham answered the question;-" her name was Marcelline de Senaart." Lady Burnham said no more, and Captain Crawford continued: "The new Lady Marlesdale was popular with her London friends, and her husband had an infatuated love for her, which shut his eyes to her faults and induced him to gratify every wish she formed. Her wishes were neither few nor moderate, and Lord Marlesdale's fortune soon proved inadequate to their demands. Lady Marlesdale, the French countess as she was called, was the most extravagant woman at the court of Queen Henrietta Maria, and her extravagance in the expenditure of money was not the only charge brought against her by the country neighbours of Jocelyn Lord Marlesdale, who envied her for the gay and brilliant life which was beyond their reach, and hated her because she disliked and despised them, and suffered her lord to pass but few and brief periods of his life at Burnham. The portrait in your picture-gallery, which represents the French countess in the zenith of her beauty, was painted by a famous court-painter, one Antony Vandyke, in the third year of her marriage, when rumours had begun to circulate about an estrangement between her and her husband, mainly caused, it was said, by the determined enmity of Charles Raby, Lord Marlesdale's brother, who held his beautiful sister-in-law in abhorrence, which people were apt to say had had its origin in her rejection of him in favour of his elder brother. Be that as it may, Charles Raby hated the French countess, and betrayed to her husband, either personally or through his agents, the fact of her infidelity. The lover for whom the French countess deceived her English lord was a countryman of her own, a dissolute young noble, who had come to England in the Queen's train, and had enjoyed much of the Queen's favour. Indeed, when the case, fully made out, was laid before Lord Marlesdale, he had the clearest conviction that the Queen, his loyally-served master's wife, had been a consenting and assisting party in the dishonour that had been brought upon him. The first step taken by Lord Marlesdale was to withdraw from the court. This he did at some risk to his reputation; for the troubles of the monarchy, the downfall of the King, were beginning, and it was a time when it behoved true men to stand fast by that which was falling. But Lord Marlesdale cared nothing for that-his life was centred in the beautiful base woman who had been false to him always, from the beginning. He challenged the man who had wronged him, and ran him through with his sword: this occurred on the old Christmas-day-the 6th January-as we style it now. The French countess was in attendance on the Queen at the time, and knew nothing of what had happened until a page brought her a token at supper, and she opened the packet laughingly, amid somewhat jeering comments on the devotion of her lord. It contained a few lines, in which he bade her farewell for ever, and a kerchief of her own, which her lover had worn, steeped in his heart's blood. Lord Marlesdale lived openly and unmolested at Burnham; no effort was made to call him to account; the scandal was too flagrant. The King attempted to in |