EXILES IN BABYLON.

I.

First Impressions.

H mother, you've not a notion what a splendid place this is!" exclaimed Ned Holdich, the steward's son, as with his bright young face glowing with pleasure, he burst into the little parlour in which his parent was engaged on her knees in unpacking a box.

'I could see as we came along the drive last evening, that the park is large and well wooded; but it was growing late, and-"

'Oh, we just saw nothing in the dark," cried Ned; "why we scarcely caught a glimpse of the deer behind the trees, and there are hundreds of them, bounding so lightly that they scarce seem to touch the ground. There is one with such grand I've been exploring ever since

branching antlers!

breakfast, for one could not set to work the first day."

"I'm afraid that play first and work afterwards' is your motto, Ned," said Mrs. Heldich, glancing up from her employment.

That's to remind me that I ought to help you, mother," cried the boy, making a sudden dive at the box, and scattering half of its contents over the floor; heaping books upon linens, and medicine bottles on books, with most alarming energy.

Nay, nay, my dear boy, you had better leave things alone," expostulated the mother; "let me go on quietly with my unpacking, while you tell me of all that you have discovered."

"I see that you won't let me practise digging here, for fear of what I should turn up," laughed Ned, as he threw himself on a chair, glad enough of the permission to be idle. "You shall do the working while I do the talking, that's what uncle would call a fair division of labour. Well, where shall I begin my description? Just between this cottage and the castle, there's a place-such a place, I don't believe that there's anything like it in London. Fancy a broad gravel walk, with a row of statues on each side, each upon a high stand-"

"Pedestal," suggested Mrs. Holdich.

"I never remember the grand names! And then at the end of the row, fancy a high green hillock, with grass as smooth as velvet, and a set of marble steps, right up it; and at the top of it a building, half finished, one of the finest, I do be

lieve, that ever was seen. Of course it will look fifty times as well when they take away all the scaffolding about it. There are men at work still on the outside, but the inside looks quite complete. I could not resist going in, and oh, such painting, and carving, and gilding! I never saw anything like it in my life."

"It's

"Is it for a chapel?" inquired Mrs. Holdich. "A chapel! oh, dear no!" exclaimed Ned. a kind of monument, Parker told me, of all the grand deeds of all the Lestrange family, since the old Conqueror came. On the tip top there's to be a huge group in bronze, of a Sir Digby Lestrange, who lived hundreds and hundreds of years ago, riding over a luckless Saracen, whom he has cut down with his sword. Parker says that from such a height it will be seen for twenty miles round. The building itself has eight sides, and each side has a painted window, and each window shows, or is meant to show, some great deed done by a Lestrange. There's one defending his castle for King Charles; another in red uniform, wig and pig-tail, at some battle fought in America; another dying at Waterloo. Parker says that Sir Digby managed well enough to find subjects for six of the windows, but was in a fix about the two last. He was obliged to have his grandfather being thrown from his horse in hunting, though that was rather the horse's deed than his own; and the last window is filled with the marriage

of Sir Digby's parents, though what there was reremarkable about that, except the funny old-fashioned dresses, I could not make out at all. Parker says-"

"Who is this Parker ?" interrupted Mrs. Holdich.

'He's one of the chaps working under Mr. Slimes, the grand engineer from London, whom Sir Digby employs to do all these wonderful things. It was Mr. Slimes who threw the Chinese bridge over the river that you catch a glimpse of yonder through the trees; it was he who put up the rows of statues, and made the plan of this eight-sided monument, which he calls the Val-Val, I can't for the life of me remember the name," and Ned hit his forehead to sharpen his wits.

"The Walhalla, I suppose," said Mrs. Holdich, SO called after the famous building raised by a German king to the memory of the distinguished dead.”

"Oh, mother, what a deal of learning you have! No one would think that the wife of a steward could be such a scholar."

Mrs. Holdich gave a little melancholy sigh as she slowly rose, and carried the books which she had unpacked towards a shelf on the wall.

"Now I must help you," cried Ned, jumping up; "that bit of a shelf won't hold half your books. The last steward can't have been much of a reader, or he would have put up a bookcase. But what a lot of money he made!"

"How do you know?" inquired Mrs. Holdich,