through the minds of the family at Tichborne they could have been only transient. The shy, pale-faced boy with the long, dark locks came always to Tichborne in his holidays, making his way steadily in the favor of that household, and this not from interested motives on the part of Lady Doughty, as has been falsely alleged, and triumphantly disproved, but clearly from something in the nature of the youth which disarmed ill-feeling. It is curious to observe in the letters which Roger Tichborne was so fond of writing to his friends the evidences of how soon the English instincts that had been so carefully suppressed by his French mother began to assert themselves. He took delight in country life, and though he did not bring down the partridges in the woods or throw the fly upon the surface of the Itchen with a degree of skill that would command much respect in the county of Hants, he did his best, and really liked the out-door life. In hunting he took a genuine delight from the time when he donned his first scarlet coat, with the regulation buttons of the Hampshire Hunt, and he rarely, when at his uncle's, missed an opportunity of appearing at "the meet" in that neighborhood. Country gentlemen saw and approved, and the offense of an heir to Tichborne being half a Frenchman was probably soon condoned in the face of such genuine proof of sympathy with an English country gentleman's pastime.

The time had now come when Roger should think of a profession, and Mr. James Tichborne again gave mortal offense to his wife by determining that the young man should go into the army. Mrs. Tichborne was shocked. and amazed that the English army should be chosen, when Roger could easily have gone into a foreign service, and storms were again brewing in Paris; but poor Mr. Tichborne made up his mind to bear the brunt of her displeasure at his pursuing a course so natural as that

of choosing an English life for his son and heir. Among the cousins of Roger-daughters of Sir Henry—was one who had married Colonel William Greenwood, of the Grenadier Guards. Their house at Brookwood was but half an hour's ride from Tichborne, and Roger was fond of visiting there. Colonel William's brother George was also in the army, and Colonel George took kindly to Roger, was fond of the youth, and determined to do his best to get him on. So he took him one morning to the Horse Guards, and introduced him to Lord Fitzroy Somerset, the Commander-in-Chief, afterwards better known as Lord Raglan, who promised him a commission. There was a little delay in keeping this promise, but the young man did not go troubling uncles again, but took the self-reliant course of writing direct to the Horse Guards, to remind the Commander-in-Chief of what he had said; and before long Mr. Roger Charles Tichborne was gazetted a cornet in the 6th Dragoons, better known as the Carabineers. Roger had been studying hard both at Tichborne and at Mr. Seymour's house in Grosvenor Square at military matters. He passed his examination at Sandhurst satisfactorily, and went straight over to Dublin to join his regiment. From Dublin he went to the south of Ireland, and twice he came over to England on short visits. He went through the painful ordeal of practical joking which awaited every young officer in those days, and came out of it, not without annoyance and an occasional display of resentment, yet, on the whole, in a way which conciliated his brother officers, and no man was more liked in the regiment than Roger Tichborne, affectionately nicknamed among them "Teesh." In 1852 the Carabineers came over and were quartered at Canterbury. They expected then to be sent to India, but the order was countermanded, and Roger with chagrin saw himself doomed apparently

to a life of inaction. With chagrin, for he was now weary of life in England, for a reason that was well known at the old home in Hampshire, but which was as yet a secret even from Mr. James and Mrs. Tichborne.·

There is a letter of Roger Tichborne among the mass of correspondence which he kept up at this, and indeed. at every other period of his grown-up life, in which he notices the fact that his mother still dwelt upon her old idea of providing him with a wife in the shape of one of those Italian princesses of which he had heard so much. The lady who had sprung from the great House of Bourbon Conti would have nothing less in rank for her son, and Italian princesses were, to her mind, not difficult to find, "though," said Roger, in the letter referred to, "I would not give a sixpence for a whole wagon-load of them." In fact, Roger's heart had already no place unoccupied.

In all his visits to Tichborne, though on one occasion he had stayed there many months, Roger had for many years never met his cousin, Miss Kate Doughty, the only child of his aunt and uncle. He had seen her long before, when he came over as a child from Paris on a visit, but Miss Doughty was too young at that time to have retained much impression of the little dark-haired French boy, who could hardly have said "Good morning, cousin," in her native tongue. Some dim recollection that they rode on ponies together in the grounds at Upton, attended by a servant, may have remained; but since then Roger Tichborne had grown to manhood, and his cousin herself was coming to the close of her schooldays. It was at this critical period, Roger being then twenty years of age, that they met for a few days at Bath, where both had come on the melancholy duty of taking leave of Mr. Seymour, then lying dangerously ill and near his death. Then they parted again; Roger

went to Tichborne for a long stay, but Miss Doughty returned to school at the convent at Taunton. In the Midsummer holidays, however, they once more met at the house in Hampshire, and for six weeks the young cousins saw each other daily. Then Miss Doughty went away to Scotland with her parents; but the "cousin from Paris" was assiduous, and took upon himself the pleasant duty of going to see the party take their departure from St. Katherine's Wharf. The cool, bright days of October found the party again assembled in the walks and gardens of Tichborne Park. But the sterner business of life was approaching. Roger took farewell of uncle, aunt, and cousin, that month, to go to Ireland and join his regiment, and Miss Doughty, whose schooldays were not yet ended, went down to a convent at Newhall, in Essex, there to continue her studies. When Roger got a short leave of absence, his first thought was to visit his uncle and aunt, who had so affectionate a regard for him. There was a summer visit to Upton, in Dorsetshire, for a week, when Miss Doughty happened to be there; and there was a visit to Tichborne in January, 1850, when there were great festivities, for Roger attained his majority on the fifth of that month; and there were family balls and servants' balls, and trees planted in honor of the occasion. But again the cousins took farewell, and, as cruel Fate ordained, met no more for a year and a half.

It was no wonder that Roger loved Tichborne, with all its associations. In that well-ordered and affectionate household he found a tranquillity and happiness to which he had been a stranger in his own home. In his correspondence with his father and mother at this time there were no lack of tokens of a loving son; but no one was more sensible than Roger of the miseries of that life which he had led up to the ever-blessed day when

he came away to pursue his studies at the Jesuit College, and to learn to be an Englishman. He felt deeply for his father, and the sorrows which domestic differences caused him, and for a long time there were no happier days for the young officer of Dragoons than those which he spent with Mr. James Tichborne when he came over on brief visits. But Tichborne had come to be his home. He knew all the green lanes and fields for many a mile around: and the dull sound of his horse's hoofs upon the turf of the chalk downs was music in his ears. But there was another association-deeper ani more tender-long unsuspected, yet growing steadily, until it absorbed all his thoughts, and gave to that neighborhood a glory and a light invisible to other eyes. Roger had spent many happy hours with. his cousin; she had grown in those few years from a girl almost into a woman, and he had come to love her deeply.

To Miss Doughty he said not a word; to Sir Edward he dared not speak; but one day Roger took an opportunity of confiding to Lady Doughty the new secret of his life. To his great joy his aunt did not discourage. the idea; but Miss Doughty was still but a girl of fifteen; and there was the grave objection-more than ordinarily grave in the eyes of professors of their religion that the twain were first cousins. Still, Catholic first cousins do marry with the leave of the Church; and Lady Doughty had too much regard for her nephew to feel displeasure at the thought of his being united to them by a closer tie. But there were important conditions. If the day was ever to come when she could allow him to speak with his cousin on the footing of lovers, he must reform his habits. Though Roger was of a kind and considerate disposition, truthful, honorable, and scrupulous in points of duty, he had certain