beautiful in woman, but a mysterious union of power and grace, which makes the soul of the true hero.

"Well," said old Peberdy, "That's Janet's baby sure enough! and fine an' pleased she'll be to see its bonnie face once more, my lady; for she's given it up for lost entirely, and the poor body had swooned right away when I left the Holgates."

The moon had now risen high enough to throw some light into the shadowy glade, and without waiting for further explanation, they hastened forward with their prize. At a round trot they crossed the shoulder of Blore's Hill, and a few minutes brought them to the group of cottages clustered near the gate of the park.

I need not tell with what frantic joy the poor mother clasped her rescued infant, or what blessings were invoked by all the cottagers upon those two brave children who, alone, in the darkness of the night, had followed the fierce robber to his den, and at the peril of their own lives snatched from imminent death a poor man's baby.

The Marquis and his Lady would perhaps have bestowed some sharp parental censure upon their rash daughter, had she not brought with her as a peace-offering the welcome news that the robber was slain and the child rescued.

As it was, tradition says that her mother— having due regard to the publicity of the place— kissed her forehead in a somewhat stately manner, though there were joy tears all the time in both her eyes; but looked rather askance at Master Francis, as if she half suspected him of having led her daughter into danger that he might claim the merit of getting her out again.

Her Father, says the same tradition, being less politic or less self-controlled than his wife, lifted his noble girl into his arms, regardless of the inquisitive eyes which surrounded him, and pressed her fondly to his heart for joy that she was safe.

To Francis he offered his hand and cordial thanks. But the next moment there came a thought into his brain which knit his brow and chilled his tongue; so that it was well for his honour and hospitality that he had already expressed the thanks so justly due to his young guest.

"Ah!" he muttered to himself as he turned away frowning, "what if the young upstart should fancy that to-night's exploit gives him some claim for compensation and should dare to ask my daughter's hand." The child of a Marquis-the heiress of the Greys-with Royal blood in her

pure veins, weds not with any Commoner, though all the wealth of the Indies were in his money bags!" And the great man kept his resolution; and lived just long enough to repent it. Into future history, however, our legend does not enter.

On the morning which followed that momentous day, a party of woodmen were sent to Ben's-cliff rocks to bring away the trophies of the last night's fight. They returned, bearing a pole upon their shoulders, from which was slung by the legs the carcase of a monstrous wolf. No such creature had been seen by any living woodman in that part of the forest; but old Peberdy remembered to have heard his father tell of hunting wolves in wintertime, and of many hair-breadth escapes and bloody encounters. It was concluded after various exciting debates upon the subject, that this stray beast must have wandered southwards during the sharp frosts of the preceding winter from the Scottish highlands where wolves still existed.

However, his head and brush long afterwards adorned the great hall at Bradgate, and of his skin the Lady Jane had made a soft foot-rug for her own chamber in the octagonal tower overlooking the plaisance. So perished the last wolf ever seen or heard of in Charnwood Forest.

L

WOODHOUSE SCHOOL.

In the year 1665 the Great Plague went raging like a monster through the streets of London, claiming a thousand victims daily. There were no newspapers, but the rumour of it spread through the country, and the whole nation was panic-struck. Among the few who took the infection and yet escaped with their lives was a Mr. Rawlins, a wealthy Londoner, who had some property in the distant village of Woodhouse. Having passed the crisis of the disease, he was ordered change of air, and came down to his country estate, still weak and miserable, hoping to find health in the Charnwood breezes. The Parish authorities however took alarm, and on his arrival he was forbidden to leave the cottage in which he had taken up his abode. Here he lived for some weeks by himself, in a sort of quarantine. But the kind-hearted villagers did not forget him. Every day they brought provisions and such luxuries as the place afforded, and laid them at his door. At last, all danger being over, he was permitted to come out, and returned to his home in London. In remembrance of his restoration to health and of the kind treatment of the villagers, he afterwards founded and endowed the Woodhouse School, for twenty boys.

FOREST PIC-NICS.

Thirty years ago when the Forest was only half cultivated, and had no wide-spread fame, the owners of the land took little heed of trespassers. Pic-nic parties from the neighbouring towns and villages went there occasionally, and found themselves pretty much at liberty to pitch their camps wherever they pleased. But the case is different now. The town of Leicester has more than doubled its population since that time, and sends out its pic-nic parties on a giant scale. When a large factory gives its hands a summer holiday "the Forest" is the favorite place, and five hundred people in a train of thirty char-a-bancs, with flags and music, leave the town and settle somewhere on the hills. I do not believe that they intend to do mischief; I am sure that the majority of them sincerely wish to avoid it; but mischief is inevitably done nevertheless. A large number of persons, many of them young and frolicsome, and all elated by the sweet air and the holiday, cannot congregate about one spot without damaging the grass, or