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This text has been proofread but is not guaranteed to be free from errors. Corrections to the original text have been left in place.
Title: The Half-Caste, an electronic edition
Author: Craik, Dinah Maria Mulock, 1826-1887
Publisher: W. & R. Chambers, Limited
Place published: London
Date: 1897
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Frontispiece of Craik's The
Half-Caste.The Half-CasteAn Old Governess's Tale.BY THE AUTHOR OF'JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN'WITH PREFATORY LETTER BY THE AUTHORW. & R. CHAMBERS, LIMITEDLONDON AND EDINBURGH1897Copyright information for Craik's The
Half-Caste.PREFACE.The publishers have here gathered into one volume some of Dinah Maria Mulock's early contributions to their publications, believing that the present generation may still read with pleasure and profit what charmed and instructed their fathers and mothers. From another point of view, this early work is interesting, as it contains the germ which blossomed more fully in her longer stories, and shows her best qualities of head and heart. Her first story appeared in 1849, four years after she began her literary career with W. & R. Chambers.In this connection a note received by the late Robert Chambers, Junior, in the Jubilee Year of Chambers's Journal (which he was then editing), may be of interest:
THE CORNER HOUSE, SHORTLANDS, KENT,January 24, 1882.DEAR ROBERT,--May I send for your Journal two of the sort of leaders--essays--which your father used to do so admirably? These--by a friend of mine, which, however, you may print or not, as you choose--are exceedingly good. Will you give me Yes or No, as soon as you can; and if it is Yes, as I hope, will you send the proofs and cheque to me?I see you are soon going to have the 50th anniversary of the dear old Journal. Would I could 'assist' thereat, and say and affectionate and grateful word for the firm with whom I began my career in 1845, nearly forty years ago.--Ever sincerely yours,
D. M. CRAIK.Table of contents for Craik's The
Half-Caste.THE HALF-CASTE.
AN OLD GOVERNESS'S STORY.'We know what we are, but we know not what we may be,' as my quaintly-clever niece and name-child, Cassia, would say. And, truly, who could have thought that I, a plain governess, should in my old age have become a writer? Yet, for the life of me, I cannot invent a plot--I must write nothing but truth. Here I pause, recollecting painfully that in my first sentence I have sinned against truth by entitling Cassia 'my niece and name-child,' when, strictly speaking, she is neither the one nor the other. She is no blood-relation at all, and my own name happens to be Cassandra. I always disliked it heartily until Mr Sutherland called me--But I forget that I must explain a little. Mr Sutherland was--no, thank Heaven!--is, a very good man; a friend of my late father, and of the same business--an Indian merchant. When, in my twenty-fifth year, my dear father died, and we were ruined--a quiet way of expressing this, but in time one learns to speak so quietly of every pang--Mr Sutherland was very kind to my mother and to me. I remember, as though it were yesterday, one day when he sat with us in our little parlour, and

hearing my mother calling me 'Cassie,' said laughingly that I always put him in mind of a certain Indian spice. 'In fact,' he added, looking affectionately at my dear, gentle little mother, and approvingly--yes, it was approvingly, at me--'in fact, I think we three sitting thus, with myself in the centre, might be likened to myrrh, aloes, and cassia.' One similitude was untrue; for he was not bitter, but 'sweet as summer.' However, from that time he always called me Cassia. I rather like the name; and latterly it was very kind of him to--There, I am forestalling my history again!When I was twenty-five, as I said, I first went out as a governess. This plan was the result of many consultations between my mother and myself. A hard thing was my leaving home; but I found I could thereby earn a larger and more regular salary, part of which, being put by, would some time enable me to live altogether with my mother. Such were her plannings and hopes for the future. As for my own--But it is idle to dwell upon things so long past. God knew best, and it all comes to the same at the end of life. It was through Mr Sutherland that I got my first situation. He wrote my mother a hurried letter, saying he had arranged for me to enter a family, concerning whom he would explain before my departure. But something hindered his coming; it was a public meeting, I remember, for though still a young man, he was held in much honour among the City merchants, and knew the affairs of India well from early residence there. Of course, having these duties to fulfil, it was natural he should not recollect my departure; so I started without seeing him, and without knowing more of my future abode than its name, and that of my employer. It was a Yorkshire village, and the gentleman whose family I was going to

was a Mr Le Poer. My long journey was dreary--God knows how dreary! In youth one suffers so much; and parting from my mother was any time a sufficient grief. In those days railways were not numerous, and I had to journey a good way by coach. About eleven at night I found myself at my destination. At the door a maidservant appeared; no one else: it was scarcely to be expected by 'the governess.' This was a new and sad. coming home' to me. I was shown to my bedroom, hearing, as I passed the landing, much rustling of dresses and 'squittling' away of little feet--(I ought to apologise for that odd expression, which, I think, I learned when I was quite a child, and used to go angling with my father and Mr Sutherland. It means a scampering off in all directions, as a shoal of minnows do when you throw a pebble among them). I asked if the family were gone to bed, and was informed, 'No;' so I arranged my dress and  went downstairs, unconsciously reassured by the fact that the house was neither so large nor so aristocratic as my very liberal salary had at first inclined me to expect.'Who shall I say, miss?' asked the rather untidy servant, meeting me in the lobby, and staring with open eyes, as if a stranger were some rare sight. 'Miss Pryor,' I said, thinking regretfully that I should be henceforth that, and not 'Cassia;' and seeing the maid still stared, I added with an effort, 'I am the new governess.' So under that double announcement I appeared at the parlour-door. The room was rather dark: there were two candles, but one had been extinguished, and was being hurriedly relighted as I entered. At first I saw nothing clearly; then I perceived a little pale lady sitting at one end of the table, and two half-grown-up girls, dressed in 'going-out-to-tea' costume, seated primly together on the sofa.

There was a third; but she vanished out of the door as I entered it.'Miss Pryor, I believe?' said a timid voice--so timid that I could hardly believe that it was a lady addressing her governess. I glanced at her: she was a little woman, with pale hair and light eyes--frightened-looking eyes--that just rose, and fell in a minute. I said 'I was Miss Pryor, and concluded I addressed Mrs Le Poer.' She answered 'Yes, yes,' and held out hesitatingly a thin, cold, bird-like hand, which I took rather warmly than otherwise; for I felt really sorry for her evident nervousness. It seemed so strange for any one to be afraid of me. 'My daughters, Miss Pryor,' she then said in a louder tone. Whereupon the two girls rose, curtsied, blushed--seemingly more from awkwardness than modesty--and sat down again. I shook hands with both, trying to take the initiative, and make myself sociable and at home--a difficult matter, my position feeling much like that of a fly in an ice-house.'These are my pupils, then?' said I cheerfully. 'Which is Miss Zillah?'--for I remembered Mr Sutherland had mentioned that name in his letter, and its peculiarity naturally struck me.The mother and daughters looked rather blankly at each other, and the former said, 'This is Miss Le Poer and Miss Matilda; Zillah is not in the room at present.''Oh, a third sister?' I observed.'No, ma'am,' rather pertly answered Miss Le Poer; 'Zill is not our sister at all, but only a sort of a distant relation of Pa's, whom he is very kind to and keeps at his expense; and who mends our stockings and brushes our hair of nights, and whom we are very kind to also.''Oh, indeed!' was all I said in reply to this running

stream of very provincially spoken and unpunctuated English. I was rather puzzled too; for if my memory was correct--and I generally remembered Mr Sutherland's letters very clearly, probably because they were themselves so clear--he had particularly mentioned my future pupil, Zillah Le Poer, and no Miss Le Poer besides. I waited with tame curiosity for the girl's reappearance; at last I ventured to say, 'I should like to see Miss Zillah. I understood'--here I hesitated, but thought afterwards that plain speech was best--'I understood from Mr Sutherland that she was to be my pupil.''Of course, of course,' hastily said the lady, and I fancied she coloured slightly. 'Caroline, fetch your cousin.'Caroline sulkily went out, and shortly returned followed by a girl older than herself, though clad in childish, or rather servant fashion, with short petticoats, short sleeves, and a big brown-holland pinafore. 'Zill wouldn't stay to be dressed,' explained Caroline in a loud whisper to her mother; at which Mrs Le Poer looked more nervous and uncomfortable than ever. Meanwhile I observed my pupil. I had fancied the Zillah so carefully entrusted to my care by Mr Sutherland to be a grown young lady, who only wanted 'finishing.' I even thought she might be a beauty. With some surprise I found her a half-caste girl-with an olive complexion, full Hindu lips, and eyes very black and bright. She was untidily dressed, which looked the worse, since she was almost a woman; though her dull, heavy face had the stupidity of an ultra-stupid child. I saw all this; for somehow--probably because I had heard of her before--I examined the girl more than I did the two other Misses Le Poer. Zillah herself stared at me much as if I had been a wild animal, and then put her finger in her mouth with a babyish air. 'How do you do, my dear?'

said I desperately, feeling that all four pair of family-eyes were upon me. 'I hope we shall be good friends soon.' And I put out my hand. At first the girl seemed not to understand that I meant to shake hands with her. Then she irresolutely poked out her brown fingers, having first taken the precaution to wipe them on her pinafore. I made another remark or two about my being her governess, and her studying with her cousins; at which she opened her large eyes with a dull amaze, but I never heard the sound of her voice.It must have been now near twelve o'clock. I thought it odd the girls should be kept up so late, and began at last to speculate whether I was to see Mr Le Poer. My conjectures were soon set at rest by a loud pull at the doorbell, which made Mrs Le Poer spring up from her chair, and Zillah vanish like lightning. The two others sat cowed, with their hands before them; and I myself felt none of the bravest. So upon this frightened group the master of the house walked in.'Hollo, Mrs Le Poer! Cary! Zill, you fool! Confound it, where's the supper?' (I might have asked that too, being very hungry.) 'What the deuce are you all about?''My dear!' whispered the wife beseechingly, as she met him at the door, and seemed pointing to me.Certainly I could not have believed that the voice just heard belonged to the gentleman who now entered. The gentleman, I repeat; for I never saw one who more thoroughly looked the character. He was about fifty, very handsome, very well dressed--his whole mien bespeaking that stately, gracious courtliness which now, except in rare instances, belongs to a past age. Bowing, he examined me curiously, with a look that somehow or other made me uncomfortable. He seemed viewing over my feminine

attractions as a horse-dealer does the points of a new bargain. But soon the interest of the look died away. I knew he considered me as all others did--a very plain and shy young woman, perhaps lady-like (I believe I was that, for I heard of some one saying so), but nothing more. 'I have the pleasure of meeting Miss Pryor?' said he in an ultra bland tone, which after his first coarse manner would have positively startled me, had I not always noticed that the two are often combined in the same individual. (I always distrust a man who speaks in a very mild, measured, womanish voice.) I mentioned the name of his friend Mr Sutherland. 'Oh, I recollect,' said he stiffly: ' Mr Sutherland informed you that--that'--He evidently wished to find out exactly what I knew of himself and his family. Now, it being always my habit to speak the plain truth, I saw no reason why I should not gratify him; so I stated the simple facts of our friend's letter to my mother--that he had found for me a situation in the family of a Mr Le Poer, and had particularly charged me with completing the education of Miss Zillah Le Poer. 'Oh!' said Mr Le Poer abruptly; 'were those all your instructions, my dear Miss Pryor?' he added insinuatingly. I answered that I knew no more, having missed seeing Mr Sutherland before I came away. 'Then you come quite a stranger into my family? I hope you have received the hearty welcome a stranger should receive, and I trust you will soon cease to merit that name.' So saying, he graciously touched the tips of my fingers, and in mellifluous tones ordered supper, gently reproaching his wife for having delayed that meal. 'You know, my dear, it was needless to wait for me; and Miss Pryor must be needing refreshment.'Indeed I was so, being literally famished. The meal was ordinary enough--mere bread, butter, and cheese;

but Mr Le Poer did the honours with most gentlemanly courtesy. I thought, never did a poor governess meet with such attention. The girls did not sup with us: they had taken the earliest opportunity of disappearing; nor was the half-caste cousin again visible. We had soon done eating--that is, Mrs Le Poer and I; for the gentleman seemed so indifferent to the very moderate attractions of his table, that from this fact, and from a certain redness of his eyes, I could not help suspecting he had well supped before. Still, that did not prevent his asking for wine; and having politely drunk with me, he composed himself to have a little confidential talk while he finished the decanter.' Miss Pryor, do you correspond with Mr Sutherland?'The abruptness of his question startled me. I felt my cheeks tingling as I answered most truthfully, 'No.''Still, you are a dear and valued friend of his, he tells me.'I felt glad, so glad that I forgot to make the due answer about Mr Sutherland's being 'very kind.'My host had probably gained the information he wanted, and became communicative on his part. 'I ought, my dear young lady, to explain a few things concerning your pupils, which have been thus accidentally omitted by my friend Mr Sutherland, who could not better have acceded to my request than by sending a lady like yourself to instruct my family.' Here he bowed and I bowed. We did a great deal in that way of dumb civility, as it saved him trouble and me words. 'My daughters you have seen. They are, I believe, tolerably well-informed for such mere children.' I wondered if I had rightly judged them at thirteen and fourteen. 'My only trouble, Miss Pryor, is concerning my niece.' Here I looked surprised, not

suspecting Zillah to be so near a relative. 'I call her niece through habit, and for the sake of her father, my poor deceased brother,' continued Mr Le Poer,' with a lengthened and martyr-like visage; but in truth she has no real claim to belong to my family. My brother-sad fellow always--Indian life not over-scrupulous-ties between natives and Europeans; in fact, my dear Miss Pryor, Zillah's mother--You understand?' Ignorant as I was, I did dimly understand, coloured deeply, and was silent. In the unpleasant pause which ensued, I noticed that Mrs Le Poer had let her knitting fall, and sat gazing on her husband with a blank, horrified look, until he called her to order with an impressive 'A little more wine, my dear?' Her head sank with an alarmed gesture, and her lord and master continued addressing me. 'Of course, this explanation is in strict confidence. Regard for my brother's memory induces me to keep the secret, and to bring up this girl exactly as my own--except,' he added, himself, 'with a slight, indeed a necessary difference. Therefore you will educate them all alike; at least so far as Zillah's small capacity allows. I believe' --and he smiled sarcastically--'her modicum of intellect is not greater than generally belongs to her mother's race. She would make an excellent ayah, and that is all.''Poor thing!' I thought, not inclined to despise her even after this information; how could I, when-Now that fairly nonplussed me: what made the girl an object of interest to Mr Sutherland? and why did he mention her as Miss Zillah Le Poer when she could legally have no right to the name? I should, in my straightforward way, have asked the question, but Mr Le Poer's manner showed he wished no more conversation. He hinted something about my fatigue, and the advisability of retiring;

nay, even lighted my candle for me, and dismissed his wife and myself with an air so pleasant and gracious that I thought I had scarcely ever seen such a perfect gentleman.Mrs Le Poer preceded me upstairs to my room, bade me good-night, asked timidly, but kindly, if all was to my liking, and if I would take anything more--seemed half-inclined to say something else, and then, hearing her husband's voice, instantaneously disappeared.I was at last alone. I sat thinking over this strange evening--so strange that it kept my thoughts from immediately flying where I had supposed they were sure to fly. During my cogitations there came a knock to the door, and on my answering it a voice spoke without, in a dull, sullen tone, and an accent slightly foreign and broken: 'Please, do you want to be called to-morrow, and will you have any hot water?' I opened the door at once to Zillah. 'Is it you, my dear? Come in and say good-night to me.' The girl entered with the air and manner of a servant, except for a certain desperate sullenness. I took her hand, and thanked her for coming to see after my comforts. She looked thoroughly astonished; but still, as I went on talking, began to watch me with more interest. Once she even smiled, which threw a soft expression over her mouth. I cannot tell what reason I had--whether from a mere impulse of kindness, with which my own state of desolation had something to do, or whether I compelled myself from a sense of duty to take all means of making a good first impression on the girl's feelings--but when I bade Zillah good-night I leant forward and just touched her brown cheek with mine--French fashion: for I could not really kiss anybody except for love. I never saw a creature so utterly amazed! She

might have never received that token of affection since her birth. She muttered a few unintelligible words-I fancy they were in Hindustanee--flung herself before me, Eastern fashion, and my poor hand was kissed passionately, weepingly, as the beloved ladies' hands are in novels and romances. But mine was never kissed save by this poor child! All passed in a moment, and I had hardly recovered my first surprise when Zillah was gone. I sat a little while, feeling as strange as if I had suddenly become the heroine of a fairy tale; then caught a vision of my own known self, with my pale, tired face and sad-coloured gown. It soon brought me back to the realities of life, and to the fact that I was now two hundred miles away from my mother and from--London.I had not been three weeks resident in the Le Poer family before I discovered that if out of the domestic mysteries into which I became gradually initiated I could create any fairy tale, it would certainly be that of 'Cinderella' but my poor Cinderella had all the troubles of her prototype without any of the graces either of mind or person. It is a great mistake to suppose that every victim of tyranny must of necessity be an angel On most qualities of mind oppression has exactly the opposite effect. It dulls the faculties, stupefies the instinctive sense of right, and makes the most awful havoc among the natural affections. I was often forced to doubt whether Mr Le Poer was very far wrong when he called Zillah by his favourite name of the 'ugly little devil.' There was something quite demoniac in her black eyes at times. She was lazy, too--full of the languor of her native clime. Neither threats nor punishments could rouse her into the slightest activity. The only person to whom she paid the least attention was Mrs Le Poer, who alone never ill-used her. Poor lady!

she was too broken-spirited to ill-use anybody; but she never praised. I do not think Zillah had heard the common civility, 'Thank you,' until I came into the house; since, when I uttered it, she seemed scarcely to believe her ears. When she first joined us in the school-room I found the girl was very ignorant. Her youngest cousin was far before her even in the commonest knowledge; and, as in all cases of deadened intellect, it cost her incalculable trouble to learn the simplest things. I took infinite pains with her; ay, and felt in her a strong interest too--ten times stronger than in the other two; yet for weeks she seemed scarcely to have advanced at all. To be sure, it must be taken into account that she was rarely suffered to remain with me half the school-hours without being summoned to some menial duty or other; and the one maid-servant bestowed on me many black looks, as being the cause why she herself had sometimes to do a morning's household work alone. Often I puzzled myself in seeing how strangely incompatible was Zillah's position with Mr Sutherland's expressed desire concerning her. Sometimes I thought I would write and explain all to him; but I did not like. Nor did I tell my mother half the désagreéments and odd things belonging to this family--considering that such reticence even towards her nearest kindred is every governess's duty. In all domestic circles there must be some secrets which chance observers should strictly keep.More than once I determined to take advantage of the very polite and sociable terms which Mr Le Poer and myself were on, to speak to him on the subject, and argue that his benevolence in adopting his brother's unfortunate child might not suffer by being testified in a more complete and gracious form. But he was so little at home--and no wonder; for the miserably dull, secluded, and

painfully economical way in which they lived could have little charms for a man of fashion and talent, or at least the relics of such, which he evidently was. And so agreeable as he could be! His conversation at meals--the only time I ever saw him--was a positive relief from the dull blank, broken only by the girls' squabbles, and their mother's faint remonstrances and complaints. But whenever, by dint of great courage, I contrived to bring Zillah's name on the tapis, he always so adroitly crept out of the subject, without pointedly changing it, that afterwards I used to wonder how I had contrived to forget my purpose and leave matters as they were. The next scheme I tried was one which, in many family jars and family bitternesses among which my calling has placed me, I have found to answer amazingly well. It is my maxim that 'a wrong is seldom a one-sided wrong;' and when you cannot amend one party, the next best thing is to try the other. I always had a doctrine likewise, that it is only those who have the instinct and the sins of servitude who will hopelessly remain oppressed. I determined to try if there was anything in Zillah's mind or disposition that could be awakened, so as to render her worthy of a higher position than that she held. And as my firm belief is, that everything and everybody in time rise or sink to their own proper level, so I felt convinced that if there were any superiority in Zillah's character, all the tyranny in the world would not keep her the pitiable Cinderella of such ordinary people as the Le Poers. I began my system by teaching her, not in public, where she was exposed to the silent but not less apparent contempt of her cousins, but at night in my own room, after all the house had retired. I made this hour as little like lessons as possible, by letting her sit and work with me, or brush my hair, teach-

ing her orally the while. As much as her reserve permitted, I lured her into conversation on every indifferent subject. All I wanted was to get at the girl's heart. One day I was lecturing her in a quiet way on the subject concerning which she was the first young woman I ever knew that needed lecturing--care over her personal appearance. She certainly was the most slovenly girl I ever saw. Poor thing! she had many excuses; for, though the whole family dressed shabbily, and, worse, tawdrily, her clothes were the worst of all. Still, nothing but positive rags can excuse a woman for neglecting womanly neatness. I often urged despairingly upon poor Zillah that the meanest frock was no apology for untidy hair; that the most unpleasant work did not exclude the possibility of making face and hands clean after it was over. 'Look at yours, my dear,' said I once, taking the reluctant fingers and spreading them out on mine. Then I saw what I have often noticed in the Hindu race, how delicate her hands were naturally, even despite her hard servant's work. I told her so; for in a creature so crushed there was little fear of vanity, and I made it a point to praise her every good quality, personal and mental.Zillah looked pleased. 'My hands are like my mother's, who was very handsome, and a Parsee.''Do you remember her?''A little--not much; and chiefly her hands, which were covered with rings. One, a great diamond, was worth ever so many hundred rupees. It was lost once, and my mother cried. I saw it, a good while after, on my father's finger when he was dying,' continued she carelessly; and afterwards added mysteriously, 'I think he stole it.''Hush, child! hush! It is wrong to speak so of a dead father,' cried I, much shocked.'Is it? Well, I'll not do it if it vexes you, Miss Pryor.'This seemed her only consciousness of right or wrong--pleasing or displeasing me. At all events it argued well for my influence over her and her power of being guided by the affections. I asked again about her father; somehow, with a feminine prejudice, natural though scarcely right, I felt a delicacy in mentioning the mother. But she was the only parent of whom Zillah would speak. 'I hardly know,' 'I can't remember,' 'I don't care,' were all the answers my questions won. 'You saw your father when he was dying?' I persisted. 'An awful sight it must have been.' Zillah shuddered at the recollection. 'What did he say to you?''I don't remember, except that I was like my mother. All the rest was swearing, as uncle swears at me. But uncle did not do it then.''So Mr Le Poer was present?''Yes; and the ugly, horrible-looking man they said was my father talked to him in whispers, and Uncle took me on his knee and called me "My dear."   He never did it afterwards.'I asked her one question more--'How long was this ago?' and she said, 'Several years; she did not recollect how many.'I talked to her no more that night, but bade her go to rest. In fact, my mind was so full of her that I was glad to get her visible self out of the way. She went, lazily and stupidly as ever. Only at the door she paused. 'You won't tell what I have been saying, Miss Pryor? You'll not mention my mother before them? I did once, and they laughed and made game of her, uncle and all. They did--they'--She stopped, literally foaming at the mouth with rage.'Come in again; do, my poor child,' said I, gently approaching. But she shut the door hurriedly and ran downstairs to the kitchen, where she slept with her dire enemy, yet sole companion, the servant-maid.Six months after my coming to the Le Poers I began heartily to wish for some of my salary; not that I had any doubt of it--Mr Sutherland had said it was sure--but I wanted some replenishment of my wardrobe, and, besides, it was near my mother's birthday, when I always took care she had some nice, useful gift. It quite puzzled me to think what little luxury she wanted, for she wrote me word Mr Sutherland brought her so many. 'He was just like a son to her,' she said. Ah me! One day, when disconsolately examining my last pair of boots--the 'wee boots,' that, for a foolish reason I had, were one of my few feminine vanities--I took courage to go downstairs and ask Mr Le Poer 'if he could make it convenient,' &c. 'My dear Miss Pryor,' said he, with most gentlemanly empressemet, 'if I had thought--indeed you should have asked me before. Let me see; you have been here six months, and our stipulated sum was'--I thought he hesitated on account of the delicacy some gentlemen feel in business dealings with a lady; indeed I supposed it was from that cause he had never spoken to me about money matters. However, I felt no such delicacy, but answered plainly, 'My salary, Mr Sutherland said, was to be a hundred guineas a year.' 'Exactly so; and payable yearly, I believe?' Mr Le Poer added carelessly. Now, I had not remembered that, but of course he knew. However, I looked and felt disappointed. At last, as Mr Le Poer spoke with the kindest politeness, I confessed the fact that I wanted the money for habiliments. 'Oh, is that all? Then pray, my excellent young lady, go with Caro-

line to town at once. Order anything you like of my trades-people. Bid them put all to my account: we can settle afterwards. No excuses; indeed you must.' He bowed me away with the air of a benefactor disdaining gratitude, and set off immediately on one of his frequent jaunts. There was no help for it; so I accepted his plan, and went to town with Caroline and Matilda.It seemed a long time since I had been in any town, and the girls might never have been there in their lives, so eagerly did they linger at shop-windows, admiring and longing after finery. The younger consoled the elder, saying that they would have all these sort of grand things some time. 'It's only four years,' whispered she--' just four years, and then that stupid Zill'--  Here Caroline pushed her back with an angry 'Hush!' and walked up to my side with a prim smile. I thought it strange, but took no notice, always disliking to play the governess out of school-hours.Another odd thing happened the same week. There came a letter to Mr Le Poer from Mr Sutherland. I could not help noticing this, as it lay on the mantel-shelf two days before the former returned, and I used to see it always when I sat at meals. His--Mr Sutherland's I mean--was a fair, large hand, too, which would have caught any one's eye; it was like old times to see it again. I happened to be by when Mr Le Poer opened the letter. He was so anxious over it that he did not notice my presence. Perhaps it was wrong of me to glance toward him, but yet natural, considering it was a friend's letter. I saw a little note enclosed, the address of which, I was almost sure, bore my own name. I waited, thinking he would give it me. I even made some slight movement to attract his attention. He looked up

--he actually started--but next moment smiled as only Mr Le Poer could smile. 'News from our friend, you see,' said he, showing me the outside envelope. 'He is quite well, and--let me consider'--glancing over his own letter--'he sends his kindest remembrances to you. A most worthy man is Mr Sutherland.' So saying, he folded the epistle and placed it in his desk. The little note, which he had turned seal uppermost, he quietly put, unopened, into his pocket. It must have been my own delusion, then. Not the first, nor yet the last!At the expiration of my first year as a governess, just as I was looking with untold eagerness to my midsummer holidays, when I was at length to go home to my mother--for the journey to London was too expensive to admit of that happiness more than once a year--there happened a great disaster to the Le Poer family: no less than that terrible scourge, typhus fever. Matilda took it first, then Caroline, then the mother. These three were scarcely convalescent when Zillah caught the fever in her turn, and had it more dangerously than any of the rest. Her life was in danger for many days, during which I had the sole anxiety and responsibility; for Mr Le Poer, on the first tidings of the fever, had taken flight, and been visible at home no more. True, he wrote every other day most touching letters, and I in return kept him constantly informed as to the progress of his wife and children. When Zillah was taken ill, however, I did not think it necessary to send him word concerning her, feeling that the poor orphan's life was precious to no one. I never was more surprised than when, on Mr Le Poer's venturing back and finding Zillah in the crisis of her disease, his terror and anxiety appeared uncontrollable. 'Good God!' he cried, 'Zillah ill? Zillah going to die? Impossible!

Why was I not informed before? Confound you, madam'--and he turned furiously to his still ailing wife--'did you not think? Are you mad-quite mad?'I declare I thought he was. Mrs Le Poer only sobbed in silence. Meanwhile the outcries of the delirious girl were heard in the very parlour. I had given her my room; I thought, poor soul, she should not die in her damp kitchen-closet.Mr Le Poer turned absolutely white with terror--he, who had expressed only mild concern when his wife and daughters were in peril. 'Miss Pryor,' said he hoarsely, 'something must be done. That girl must be saved; I'd snatch her from the very fiend himself! Send for advice, physicians, nurses; send to Leeds, Liverpool--to London even. Only, by --, she must not die!'Poor Zillah did not die. She was saved for Heaven's strange purposes; though I, in my then blindness, often and often, while sitting by her bed-side, thought it would be better did she slip quietly out of the bitter world in which she seemed to be only an unsightly and trampled weed. Mr Le Poer's unwonted anxiety did not end with her convalescence, which was very slow. 'She may die yet!' I heard him muttering to himself the first day after he saw his niece.  'Miss Pryor, my wife is a foo--I mean, a rather undecided person. Tell me what you think ought to be done for Zillah's recovery.'  I prescribed, but with little hope that my advice would be followed--immediate change to sea air. 'It shall be done!' at once said he. 'Mrs Le Poer and the girls can take care of her; or stay--she likes you best. Miss Pryor, are you willing to go?'This question perfectly confounded me. I had been so longingly anticipating my going home--delayed, as in

common charity I could not but delay it, on account of the fever. Now this trouble was over I had quite counted on my departure. That very week I had been preparing my small wardrobe, so as to look as nice as possible in my mother's eyes. She had given me a hint to do so, since she and I were to spend the vacation together at Mr Sutherland's country-house, and old Mrs Sutherland was so very particular. 'Why do you hesitate?' said Mr Le Poer rather sharply. 'Are you thinking of the money? You shall have any additional salary--£50 more if you choose. Upon my soul, madam, you shall!--only I entreat you to go.' I would not have minded his entreaties, but I was touched by those of Zillah, who seemed terrified at the idea of going to a strange place without me. Then, too, the additional money, not unneeded; for Mr Sutherland, so kindly generous in other things, had the still rarer generosity never to offer us that. I determined to write and tell my mother the position of affairs. Her good judgment would decide; or if hers failed, she would be sure to appeal to her trusty and only adviser since my father died; and I was content to abide by his decision. He did decide. He told my mother that it was his earnest wish I should stay a little longer with Zillah Le Poer, whom he called 'his ward.' Her history, he said, he would inform me of when we met, which must be ere long, as he was contemplating returning to India for some years.Mr Sutherland returning to India! And before his departure he must see me--me! It was a very simple and natural thing, as I felt afterwards, but not then. I did what he desired--as indeed I had long been in the habit of doing--and accompanied Zillah.I had supposed that we should go to some near water-

ing-place, or at all events the Liverpool shore. Indeed I had pointedly recommended Tranmere, where, as I stated to Mr Le Poer, there was living an aunt of Mr Sutherland's, who would have taken lodgings or done anything in her power for her nephew's ward. To my surprise, he gently objected to this plan. After staying a night in Liverpool, instead of crossing to the opposite shore, as I expected, he put us all--that is, Zillah, the two other girls, and myself--on board the Belfast boat, and there we found ourselves floating across the Irish Channel! The two Misses Le Poer were considerably frightened; Zillah looked most happy. She said it reminded her of her voyage to England when she was a little child. She had never seen the sea since. Long after we got out of sight of land she and I sat together on the deck in the calm summer evening, talking of this Indian voyage, and what it was like, and what people did during the long four months from land to land. She gave me much information, to which I listened with strange interest. I well remember--fool that I was--sitting on the deck of that Belfast boat, with the sun dipping into the sea before us, and the moon rising on the other side--sitting and thinking what it would be to feel one's self on the deck of some Indian-bound ship, alone, or else in companionship that might make the word still correct, according to its original reading--all one: an etymological notion worthy of a governess!The only remarkable event of our voyage was my sudden introduction by Mr Le Poer to a personage whom I had not thought existed. 'My son, Miss Pryor; my eldest and only son, Lieutenant Augustus Le Poer.' I was very considerably surprised, as I had never heard of the young gentleman. I could only hurriedly con-

jecture, what I afterwards found to be the truth, that this was the son of a former marriage, and that there had been some family quarrel, lately healed. The lieutenant bowed to me, and I to him. Zillah, who sat by me, had no share in the introduction, until the young man, sticking his glass into his eye, stared at her energetically, muttering to his father some question, in which I just detected the words, 'odd fish.' 'Only Zillah,' answered Mr Le Poer carelessly. 'Child, this is your cousin Augustus, lately returned from foreign service. Shake hands with him.' Zillah listlessly obeyed; but her 'cousin' seemed not at all to relish the title. He cast his eyes superciliously over her. I must confess my poor child's appearance was not very attractive. I did not wonder that Lieutenant Augustus merely nodded his head, twirled his moustache, and walked away. Zillah just looked lazily after him, and then her eyes declined upon the beautiful expanse of sea.For my part, I watched our new friend with some curiosity and amusement, especially when Caroline and Matilda appeared, trying to do the agreeable.  The lieutenant was to them evidently the beau-ideal of a brother. For myself, I did not admire him at all. Unluckily, if I have three positive aversions in the world, it is for dandies, men with moustaches, and soldiers--and he was a compound of all three. Also, he was a small man; and I, like most little women, have a great reverence for height in the other sex--not universally, for some of my truest friends have been diminutive men--excellent, worthy, admirable Zacchuses. Still, from an ancient prejudice, acquired--no matter how--my first impression of any man is usually in proportion to his inches; therefore Lieutenant Le Poer did not stand very high in my estimation.Little notice did he condescend to take of us, which was rather a satisfaction than otherwise; but he soon became very fraternal and confidential with his two sisters. I saw them all chattering together until it grew dusk; and long after that, the night being fine, I watched their dark figures walking up and down the other side of the deck. More than once I heard their laughter, and detected in their talk the name of Zillah; so I supposed the girls were ridiculing her to their brother. Poor child! she was fast asleep, with her head on my shoulder, wrapped closely up, so that the mild night could do her no harm. She looked almost pretty--the light of the August moon so spiritualised her face. I felt thankful she had not died, but that, under Heaven, my care had saved her--for what? Ay, for what? If, as I kissed the child, I had then known--But no, I should have kissed her still!Our brief voyage ended, we reached Belfast and proceeded to Holywood--a small sea-bathing village a few miles down the coast. To this day I have never found out why Mr Le Poer took the trouble to bring us all over the water and settle us there, as it was so dull and dreary that, to all intents and purposes, we might as well have been buried in the solitudes of the Desert of Sahara. But perhaps that was exactly what he wanted.I-think that never in her life, at least since childhood, could Zillah have been so happy as she was during the first week or two of our sojourn at Holywood. To me, who in my youth, when we were rich and could travel, had seen much beautiful scenery, the place was rather uninteresting; to her it was perfection! As she grew stronger life seemed to return to her again under quite a new aspect. To be sure, it was a great change in her existence to have no one over her but me--for her uncle and cousin

Augustus had of course speedily vanished from this quiet spot--to be able to do just what she liked, which was usually nothing at all. She certainly was not made for activity; she would lie whole days on the beach, or on the grassy walk which came down to the very edge of high-water-mark--covering her eyes with her poke-bonnet, or gazing sleepily from under her black lashes at the smooth loch, and the wavy line of hills on the opposite shore. Matilda and Caroline ran very wild too: since we had no lessons, I found it hard work to make them obey me at all; indeed it was always a great pain for a quiet soul like me to have to assume authority. I should have got on better even with Mrs Le Poer to assist me; but she, poor little woman, terrified at change, had preferred staying quietly at home in Yorkshire. I was not quite sure but that she had the best of it after all.In the course of a week my cares were somewhat lightened. The lieutenant reappeared, and from that time forward I had very little of the girls' company. He was certainly a kind brother; I could not but acknowledge that. He took them about a great deal, or else stayed at Holywood, leaving us by the late evening train, as he said, to go to his lodgings at Belfast. I, the temporary mistress of the establishment, was of course quite polite to my pupils' brother, and he was really very civil to me, though he treated me with the distance due to an ancient duenna. This amused me sometimes, seeing I was only twenty-six--probably his own age; but I was always used to be regarded as an old maid. Of Zillah the lieutenant hardly ever took any notice at all, and she seemed to keep out of his way as much as possible. When he left us in the evening--and there was always a tolerable confusion at that time, his two sisters wanting to see him off by the

train, which he never by any chance allowed--then came the quietest and pleasantest half-hour of the day. The Misses Le Poer disliked twilight rambles, so Zillah and I always set off together. Though oftentimes we parted company and left sitting on the beach, while she strolled on to a pleasant walk she said she had found- a deserted house, whose grounds sloped down to the very shore. But I, not very strong then, and weighed down by many anxious thoughts, loved better to sit and stupefy myself with the murmur of the sea--a habit not good for me, but pleasant. No fear had I of Zillah's losing herself, or coming to any harm; and the girl seemed so happy in her solitary rambles that I had not the desire to stop them, knowing how a habit of self-dependence is the greatest comfort to a woman, especially to one in her desolate position. But though, as her nature woke up and her dullness was melting away, Zillah seemed more self-contained, so to speak, more reserved, and relying on her own thoughts for occupation and amusement, still she had never been so attentive or affectionate to me. It was a curious and interesting study--this young mind's unfolding, though I regret to say that just then I did not think about Zillah as much as I ought to have done. Often I reproached myself for this afterwards; but as things turned out, I now feel, with a quiet self-compassion, that my error was pardonable.I mind one evening--now I mind is not quite English, but I learned it, with other Scottish phrases, in my young days, so let it stand!--I mind one evening that, being not quite in a mood to keep my own company, I went out walking with Zillah; somehow the noise of the sea wearied me, and unconsciously I turned through the village and along the high-road--almost like an English road, so

beautiful with overhanging trees. I did not talk much, and Zillah walked quite silently, which indeed was nothing new. I think I see her now, floating along with her thin but lithe figure and limp, clinging dress--the very antipodes of fashion--nothing about her that would really be called beautiful except her great eyes, that were perfect oceans of light  When we came to a gateway--which,
like most things in poor Ireland, seemed either broken down or left half finished--she looked round rather anxiously.'Do you know this, my dear?''It is an old mansion--a place I often like to stroll in.''What! have you been there alone?''Of course I have,' said she quickly, and slightly colouring. 'You knew it; or I thought you did.'She appeared apprehensive of reproof, which struck me as odd in so inoffensive a matter, especially as I was anything but a cross governess. To please and reassure her I said, 'Well, never mind, my dear; you shall show me your pet paradise. It will be quite a treat.''I don't think so, Miss Pryor. It's all weeds and disorder, and you can't endure that. And the ground is very wet here and there. I am sure you'll not like it at all''Oh, but I will, if only to please you, Zillah,' said I, determined to be at once firm and pacific--for I saw a trace of her old sullen look troubling my pupil's face, as if she did not like her haunts to be intruded upon even by me. However, she made no more open opposition, and we entered the grounds, which were almost English in their aspect, except in one thing--their entire desolation. The house might not have been inhabited, or the grounds cultivated, for twenty years. The rose-beds grew wild,

great patches of white clover overspread the lawn and flower-garden, and all the underwood was one mass of tall fern.I had not gone far in and out of the tangled walks of the shrubbery when I found that Zillah had slipped away. I saw her at a distance standing under a tall Portugal laurel seemingly doing nothing but meditate--a new occupation for her; so I left her to it, and penetrated deeper in what my old French governess would have called the bocage. My feet sank deep in fern, amidst which I plunged, trying to gather a great armful of that and of wild-flowers; for I had, and have still, the babyish propensity of wishing to pluck everything I see, and never can conquer the delight I feel in losing myself in a wilderness of vegetation. In that oblivion of child-like content I was happy--happier than I had been for a long time. The ferns nearly hid me, when I heard a stirring in the bushes behind, which I took for some harmless animal that I had disturbed. However, hares, foxes, or even squirrels do not usually give a loud 'Ahem!' in the perfectly human tone which followed. At first I had terrors of some stray keeper, who might possibly shoot me for a rabbit or a poacher, till I recollected that I was not in England but in Ireland, where unjust landlords are regarded as the more convenient game.'Ahem!' reiterated the mysterious voice--'ahem! Is it you, my angel?' Never could any poor governess be more thoroughly dumfounded. Of course the adjective was not meant for me. Impossible! Still, it was unpleasant to come into such near contact with a case of philandering. Mere philandering it must be, for this was no village-tryst, the man's accent being refined and quite English. Besides, little as I knew of love-making,

it struck me that in any serious attachment people would never address one another by the silly title of 'my angel.' It must be some idle flirtation going on among the strolling visitants whom we occasionally met on the beach, and who
had probably wandered up through the gate which led to these grounds. To put an end to any more confidential disclosures from this unseen gentleman, I likewise said 'Ahem!' as loud as I could, and immediately called out for Zillah. Whereupon there was a hasty rustling in the bushes, which, however, soon subsided, and the place became quite still again, without my ever having caught
sight of the very complimentary individual who had in this extempore manner addressed me as his 'angel.' 'Certainly,' I thought, 'I must have been as invisible to him as he to me, or he never would have done it.'Zillah joined me quickly. She looked half frightened, and said she feared something was the matter: had I seen anything? At first I was on the point of telling her all, but somehow it now appeared a rather ridiculous position for a governess to be placed in--to have shouted for assistance on being addressed by mistake by an unknown admirer; and, besides, I did not wish to put any love-notions into the girl's head: they come quite soon enough of their own accord. So I merely said I had been startled by hearing voices in the bushes--that perhaps we were intruders on the domain, and had better not stay longer. 'Yet the place seems quite retired and desolate,' said I to Zillah as we walked down the tangled walk that led to the beach, she evidently rather unwilling to go home. 'Do you ever meet any strangers about here?'She answered briefly, 'No.''Did you see any one to-night?''Yes '--given with a slight hesitation.'Who was it?''A man, I think--at a distance.''Did he speak to you?''No.'I give these questions and answers verbatim, to show--what I believed then, and believe now--that, so far as I questioned, Zillah answered truthfully. I should be very sorry to think that either at that time or any other she had told me a wilful lie. But this adventure left an uncomfortable sensation on my mind--not from any doubt of Zillah herself, for I thought her still too much of a child, and, in plain words, too awkward and unattractive, to fear her engaging in love-affairs, clandestine or otherwise, for some time to come. Nevertheless, after this evening, I always contrived that we should take our twilight strolls in company, and that I should never lose sight of her for more than a few minutes together. Yet even with this precaution I proved to be a very simple and short-sighted governess after all.We had been at Holywood a whole month, and I began to wonder when we should return home, as Zillah was quite well, indeed more blooming than I had ever seen her. Mr Le Poer made himself visible once or twice, at rare intervals: he had always 'business, in Dublin,' or' country visits to pay.' His son acted as regent in his absence--I always supposed by his desire; nevertheless I often noticed that these two lights of the family never shone together, and the father's expected arrival was the signal of Mr Augustus's non-appearance for some days. Nor did the girls ever allude to their brother. I thought family quarrels might perhaps have instructed them in this, and so was not surprised. It was certainly a relief to all when the head of the family again departed. We usually

kept his letters for him, he not being very anxious about them, for which indifference, as I afterwards comprehended, he might have good reasons. Once there came a letter--I knew from whom--marked in the corner, 'If absent, to be opened by Miss Pryor.' Greatly surprised was I to find it contained a bank-note, apparently hurriedly enclosed, with this brief line: 'If Zillah requires more, let me know at once. She must have every luxury needful for her health.--A. S.' The initials meant certainly his name--Andrew Sutherland; nor could I be mistaken in the hand. Yet it seemed very odd, as I had no idea that he held over her more than a nominal guardianship, just undertaken out of charity to the orphan, and from his having slightly known her father. At least so Mr Le Poer told me. The only solution I could find was the simple one of this being a gift springing from the generosity of a heart whose goodness I knew but too well. However, to be quite sure, I called Caroline into counsel, thinking, silly as she was, she might know something of the matter. But she only tittered, looked mysteriously important, and would speak clearly on nothing, except that we had a perfect right to use the money--Pa always did; and that she wanted a new bonnet very badly indeed. A day or two after, Mr Le Poer, returning unexpectedly, took the note into his own possession saying, smilingly,' that it was all right;' and I heard no more. But if I had not been the very simplest woman in the world I should have certainly suspected that things were not 'all right' Nevertheless, I do not now wonder at my blindness. How could I think otherwise than well of a man whom I innocently supposed to be a friend of Mr Sutherland?'Zillah, my dear, do not look so disappointed. There

is no help for it. Your uncle told me before he left us that we must go home next week.' So said I, trying to say it gently, and not marvelling that the girl was unhappy at the near prospect of returning to her old miserable life. It was a future so bitter that I almost blamed myself for not having urged our longer stay. Still, human nature is weak, and I did so thirst for home--my own home. But it was hard that my pleasure should be the poor child's pain. 'Don't cry, my love,' I went on, seeing her eyes brimming and the colour coming and going in her face--strange changes which latterly, on the most trifling occasions, had disturbed the apparent stolidity of her manner. 'Don't be unhappy; things may be smoother now; and I am sure your cousins behave better and kinder to you than they did. Even the lieutenant is very civil to you.' A sparkle, which was either pleasure or pride, flashed from the girl's eyes, and then they drooped, unable to meet mine. 'Be content, dear child; all may be happier than you expect. You must write to me regularly--you can write pretty well now, you know; you must tell me all that happens to you, and remember that in everything, you can trust me entirely.' Here I was astonished by Zillah's casting herself at my knees as I sat, and bursting into a storm of tears. Anxiously I asked her what was the matter.'Nothing--everything! I am so happy--so wretched! Ah! what must I do?'These words bubbled up brokenly from her lips, but just at that unlucky moment her three cousins came in. She sprang up like a frightened deer, and was off to her own room. I did not see her again all the afternoon, for Lieutenant Augustus kept me in the parlour on one excuse or another until I was heartily vexed at him and

myself. When I went upstairs to put on my bonnet--we were all going to walk that evening--Zillah slipped away, almost as soon as I appeared. I noticed that she was quite composed now, and had resumed her usual manner. I called after her to tell the two other girls to get ready, thinking it wisest to make no remarks concerning her excitement of the morning.I never take long in dressing, and soon went down, rather quietly perhaps; for I was meditating with pain on how much this passionate child might yet have to suffer in the world. I believe I have rather a light step; at all events I was once told so. Certainly I did not intend to come into the parlour stealthily or pryingly; in fact, I never thought of its occupants at all. On entering, what was my amazement to see standing at the window--Lieutenant Augustus and--my Zillah! He was embracing--in plain English, kissing her. Now, I am no prude; I have sometimes known a harmless father-like or brother-like embrace pass between two, who, quite certain of each other's feelings, gave and received the same in all frankness and simplicity. But generally I am very particular, more so than most women. I often used to think that, were I a man, I would wish, in the sweet day of my betrothal, to know for certain that mine was the first lover's kiss ever pressed on the dear lips which I then sealed as wholly my own. But in this case, at one glance, even if I had not caught the silly phrase, 'My angel!'--the same I heard in the wood (ah! that wood!)--I or anyone would have detected the truth. It came upon me like a thunderbolt; but, knowing Zillah's disposition, I had just wit enough to glide back unseen, and re-enter, talking loudly at the door. Upon which I found the lieutenant tapping his boots carelessly, and Zillah shrinking into

a corner like a frightened hare. He went off very soon--he said, to an engagement at Belfast; and we started for our ramble. I noticed that Zillah walked alongside of Caroline, as if she could not approach or look at me.I know not whether I was most shocked at her, or puzzled to think what possible attraction this young man could find in such a mere child--so plain, and awkward--looking, too. That he could be 'in love' with her, even in the lowest sense of that phrase, seemed all but an impossibility; and if not in love, what possible purpose could he have in wooing or wanting to marry her?-for I was simple enough to suppose that all wooing must necessarily be in earnest.Half bewildered with conjectures, fears, and doubts as to what course I must pursue, I walked on beside Matilda, who, having quarrelled with her sister, kept close to me. She went chattering on about some misdoings of Caroline. At last my attention was caught by Zillah's name.'I won't bear it always,' said the angry child; 'I'll only bear it till Zillah comes of age.''Bear what?''Why, that Carry should always have two new frocks to my one. It's a shame!'' But what has that to do with Zillah's coming of age?''Don't you know, Miss Pryor?--oh, of course you don't, for Carry wouldn't let me tell you; but I will' she added maliciously.I hardly knew whether I was right or wrong in not stopping the girl's tongue, but I could not do it.'Do you know,' she added in a sly whisper, 'Carry says we shall all be very rich when Zillah comes of age. Pa

and ma kept it very secret; but Carry found it out, and told it to brother Augustus and to me.''Told what?' said I, forgetful that I was prying into a family secret, and stung into curiosity by the mention of Augustus.'That Zillah will then be very rich, as her father left her all he had; and uncle Henry was a great nabob, because he married an Indian princess, and got all her money. Now, you see,' she continued, with a cunning smile, shocking on that young face, 'we must be very civil to Zillah, and of course she will give us all her money. Eh, you understand?'I stood aghast. In a moment all came clear upon me: the secret of Mr Sutherland's guardianship--of his letter to me intercepted--of the money lately sent--of Mr Le Poer's anxiety concerning his niece's life--of his desire to keep her hidden from the world, lest she might wake to a knowledge of her position. The whole was a tissue of crimes. And--deepest crime of all!--I now guessed why Lieutenant Augustus wished, unknown to his father, to entrap her still childish affections, marry her, and secure all to himself. I never knew much of the world and its wickedness; I believed all men were like my father or Mr Sutherland. This discovery for the time quite dizzied my faculties. I have not the slightest recollection of anything more that passed on that seaside walk, except that, coming in at the door of the cottage, I heard Zillah say in anxious tones, 'What ails Miss Pryor, I wonder?' I had wisdom enough to answer, 'Nothing, my dears!' and send them all to bed.'Shall you be long after us?' asked Zillah, who, as I said, was my chamber-companion. 'An hour or two,' I replied, turning away. I went and sat alone in the little
 
parlour, trying to collect my thoughts. To any governess the discovery of a clandestine and unworthy love-affair among her pupils would be most painful, but my discoveries were all horror together. The more I thought it over, the more my agonised pity for Zillah overcame my grief at her deceitfulness. Love is always so weak, and girlish love at fifteen such a fascinating dream. Whatever I thought of the young lieutenant, he was very attractive to most people. He was, besides, the first man Zillah had ever known, and the first human being except myself who had treated her with kindness. He had done that from the first; but what other opportunities could they have had to become lovers? I recollected Zillah's wanderings, evening after evening, in the grounds, of the deserted estate. She must have met him there. Poor girl! I could well imagine what it must be to be wooed under the glamour of summer twilight and beautiful solitude.  No wonder Zillah's heart was stolen away! Thinking of this now, I feel I am wrong in saying 'heart' of what at best could have been mere 'fancy.' Women's natures are different; but some natures I have known were gravely, mournfully, fatally in earnest, even at sixteen.However, in earnest or not, she must be snatched from this marriage at all risks. There could be no doubt of that. But to whom should I apply for aid? Not to Mr Le Poer, certainly. The poor orphan seemed trembling between the grasp of either villain, father and son. Whatever must be done for her I must do myself, of my own judgment, and on my own responsibility. It was a very hard strait for me. In my necessity I instinctively turned to my best friend in the world, and, as I suddenly remembered, Zillah's too. I determined

to write and explain all to Mr Sutherland. How well I remember that time! The little parlour quite still and quiet, except for the faint sound of the waves rolling in; for it was rather a wild night, and our small one-storeyed cottage stood by itself in a solitary part of the beach. How well I remember myself! sitting with the pen in my hand, uncertain how to begin; for I felt awkward, never having written to him since I was a child. At first I almost forgot what I had to write about. While musing I was startled by a noise like the opening of a window. Now, as I explained, our house was all on one flat, and we could easily step from any window to the beach. Shuddering with alarm, I hurried into Zillah's room. There, by the dim night-light, I saw her bed was empty. She had apparently dressed herself--for I saw none of her clothes--and crept out at the window. Terrified inexpressibly, I was about to follow her, when I saw the flutter of a shawl outside and heard her speaking.'No, cousin--no, dear cousin! Don't ask me. I can't go away with, you to-night. It would be very wrong when Miss Pryor knows nothing about it. If she had found us out, or threatened, and we were obliged to go'--(Immediately I saw that with a girl of Zillah's fierce obstinacy discovery would be most dangerous. I put out the light and kept quite still.)'I can't, indeed I can't,' pursued Zillah's voice, in answer to some urging which was inaudible; adding with a childish laugh: 'You know, Cousin Augustus, it would never do for me to go and be married in a cotton dressing-gown; and Miss Pryor keeps all my best clothes. Dear Miss Pryor! I would much rather have told her, only you say she would be so much the more surprised and
 
pleased when I came back married. And you are quite sure that she shall always live with us, and never return to Yorkshire again!'Her words, so childish, so unconscious of the wrong she was doing, perfectly startled me. All my notions of girlish devotion following its own wild will were put to flight. Here was a mere child led away by the dazzle of a new toy to the brink of a precipice. She evidently knew no more of love and marriage than a baby. For a little time longer the wicked--lover I cannot call him-suitor urged his suit, playing with her simplicity in a manner that he must have inwardly laughed at all the time. He lured her to matrimony by puerile pet names, such as 'My angel'--by idle rhapsodies and pictures of fine houses and clothes. 'I don't mind these things at all,' said poor Zillah innocently; 'only you say that when I am married I shall have nothing to do, and you will never scold me, and I shall have Miss Pryor always with me. Promise!' Here was a pause, until the child's simple voice was heard again: 'I don't like that, cousin. I won't kiss you. Miss Pryor once said we ought never to kiss anybody unless we love them very much.''And don't you love me, my adorable creature?''I--I'm not quite sure: sometimes I love you, and sometimes not; but I suppose I shall always when we are married''That must be very soon,' said the lieutenant, and I thought I heard him trying to suppress a yawn. 'Let us settle it at once, my dear, for it is late. If you will not come to-night, let me have the happiness, the entire felicity, of fetching you to-morrow.''No, no,' Zillah answered; 'Miss Pryor will want

me to help her to pack. We leave this day week; let me stay till the night before that; then come for me, and I'll have my best frock on, and we can be married in time to meet them all before the boat sails next day.'In any other circumstances I should have smiled at this child's idea of marriage, but now the crisis was far too real and awful; and the more her ignorance lightened her own error, the more it increased the crime of that bad man who was about to ruin her peace for ever. A little he tried to reverse her plan and make the marriage earlier; but Zillah was too steady. In the obstinacy of her character--in the little influence which, lover as he was, he seemed to have over her--I read her safeguard, past and present. It would just allow me time to save her in the only way she could be saved. I listened till I heard her say good-bye to her cousin, creep back into the dark room through the open window, and fasten it securely as before. Then I stole away to the parlour, and, supported by the strong excitement of the moment, wrote my letter to Mr Sutherland. There would be in the six days just time for the arrival of an answer, or--himself. I left everything to him, merely stating the facts, knowing he would do right. At midnight I went to bed. Zillah was fast asleep. As I lay awake, hour after hour, I thanked Heaven that the poor child, deluded as she had been, knew nothing of what love was in its reality. She was at least spared that sorrow.'During all the week I contrived to keep Zillah as near me as was possible, consistent with the necessity of not awaking her suspicions.  This was the more practicable, as she seemed to cling to me with an 
 
unwonted and even painful tenderness. The other girls grumbled sadly at our departure; but luckily all had been definitely arranged by their father, who had even, strange to say, given me money for the journey. He had likewise gracefully apologised for being obliged to let us travel alone, as he had himself some business engagements, while his son had lately rejoined his regiment.  I really think the deceiving and deceived father fully credited the latter fact. Certainly they were a pretty pair! I made all my plans secure, and screwed up my courage as well as I could; but I own on the evening previous to our journey--the evening which, from several attesting proofs, I knew was still fixed for the elopement--I began to feel a good deal alarmed. Of Mr Sutherland there were no tidings. At twilight I saw plainly that the sole hope must lie in my own presence of mind, my influence over Zillah, and my appeal to her sense of honour and affection. I sent the children early to bed, saying I had letters to write, and prepared myself for whatever was to happen. Now many may think me foolish, and at times I thought myself so likewise, for not going at once to Zillah and telling her all I had discovered; but I knew her character better than that. The idea of being betrayed, waylaid, controlled, would drive her fierce Eastern nature into the very commission of the madness she contemplated. In everything I must trust to the impulse of the moment, and to the result of her suddenly discovering her own position and the villainous plans laid against her.Never in my life do I remember a more anxious hour than that I spent sitting in the dark by, the parlour window, whence, myself unseen, I could see all that

passed without the house; for it was a lovely night: the moon high up over the loch and making visible the Antrim hills. I think in all moments of great peril one grows quiet; so did I. At eleven there was a sound of wheels on the beach, and the shadow of a man passed the window. I looked out. It was the most unromantic and commonplace elopement with an heiress; he was merely going to take her away on an outside car. There was no one with him but the carman, who was left whistling contentedly on the shore. The moment had come. With the energy of desperation, I put off the shawl in which I had wrapped myself in case I had to follow the child; for follow her I had determined to do were it necessary. Quietly, and with as ordinary a manner as I could assume, I walked into Zillah's room. She was just stepping from the window. She had on her best frock and shawl, poor innocent! with her favourite white bonnet, that I had lately trimmed for her, carefully tied up in a kerchief. I touched her shoulder.'Zillah, where are you going?' She started and screamed. 'Tell me; I must know,' I repeated, holding her fast by the arm, while Augustus rather roughly pulled her by the other.'Cousin, you hurt me!' she cried, and instinctively drew  back. Then for the first time the lieutenant saw me.I have often noticed that cunning and deceitful people--small villains, not great ones--are always cowards. Mr Augustus drew back as if he had been shot. I took no notice of him, but still appealed to Zillah.'Tell me, my child, the plain truth, as you always do; where were you going?'She stammered out, 'I was going to--to Belfast-to be married.''To your cousin?'She hung her head and murmured, 'Yes.'At this frank confession the bridegroom interposed. He perhaps was the braver for reflecting that he had only women to deal with. He leapt in at the chamber window, and angrily asked me by what right I interfered. 'I will tell you,' said I, 'if you have enough gentlemanly feeling to leave my apartment, and will speak with me in the open air.' He retreated. I bolted the window, and, still keeping a firm hold of the trembling girl, met him outside the front door. It certainly was the oddest place for such a scene; but I did not wish to let him inside the house.'Now, Miss Pryor,' said he imperatively, but still politely--a Le Poer could not be otherwise--'will you be so kind as to let go that young lady, who has put herself under my protection, and intends honouring me with her hand?''Is that true, Zillah? Do you love this man, and voluntarily intend to marry him?''Yes, if you will let me, Miss Pryor. He told me you would be so pleased. He promised always to be kind to me, and never let me work. Please don't be angry with me, dear Miss Pryor. Oh, do let me marry my cousin!''Listen to me a few minutes, Zillah,' said I, 'and you shall choose.' And then I told her, in as few words as I could, what her position was--how it had been concealed from her that she was an heiress, and how, by marrying her, her cousin Augustus would be master over all her wealth. So unworldly was she that I think

the girl herself hardly understood me; but the lieutenant was furious.'It is all a lie--an infamous cheat!' he cried. 'Don't believe it, Zillah. Don't be frightened, little fool! I promised to marry you, and, by Heaven! marry you I will!''Lieutenant Le Poer,' said I very quietly, 'that may not be quite so easy as you think. However, I do not prevent you, as indeed I have no right; I only ask my dear child Zillah here to grant me one favour, as, for the sake of my love for her'--(here Zillah sobbed)--' I doubt not she will: that she should do as every other young woman of common-sense and delicacy would do, and wait until to-morrow, to ask the consent of one who will then probably be here, if he is not already arrived--her, guardian, Mr Andrew Sutherland.'Lieutenant Augustus burst out with an oath, probably mild in the mess-room, but very shocking here to two women's ears. Zillah crept farther from him and nearer to me.'I'11 not be cheated so!' stormed he. 'Come, child, you'll trust your cousin? you'll come away to-night?' and he tried to lift her on the car, which had approached--the Irish driver evidently much enjoying the scene.'No, cousin; not to-night,' said the girl, resisting. 'I'd rather wait and have Miss Pryor with me, and proper bridesmaids, and all that--that is, if I marry you at all, which I won't unless Miss Pryor thinks you will be kind to me. So good-bye till to-morrow, cousin.' He was so enraged by this time that he tried forcibly to drag her on the car. But I wound my arms round my dear child's waist and shrieked for help.'Faith, sir,' said the sturdy Irishman, interfering half

in amusement, half in indignation, 'ye'd betther lave the women alone. 'I'd rayther not meddle with an abduction.' So Zillah was set free from the lieutenant's grasp, for, as I said before, a scoundrel is often a great coward. I drew the trembling and terrified girl into the house--he following with a storm of oaths and threatenings. At last I forcibly shut the door upon him and bolted him out. Whether this indignity was too much for the valorous soldier, or whether he felt sure that all chance was over, I know not; but when I looked out ten minutes after, the coast was clear. I took my erring, wronged, yet still more wronged than erring, child unto my bosom, and thanked Heaven that she was saved. The next morning Mr Sutherland arrived.After this night's events I have little to say, or else had rather say but little of what passed during the remainder of the summer. We all travelled to England together, going round by Yorkshire to leave Mr Le Poer's daughters at their own home. This was Mr Sutherland's plan, in order that the two girls should be kept in ignorance of the whole affair, and especially of their father's ill-deeds.  What they suspected I know not; they were merely told that it was the desire of Zillah's guardian to take her and her governess home with him. So we parted at Halifax, and I never saw any of the family again. I had no scruples about thus quitting them, as I found out from Mr Sutherland that I had been engaged solely as governess to his ward, and that he had himself paid my salary in advance, the whole of which, in some way or other, had been intercepted by Mr Le Poer. The money, of course, was gone; but he had written to me with each remittance, and thus

I had lost his letters. That was hard! I also found out, with great joy and comfort, that my Zillah was truly Zillah Le Poer--her father's legitimate heiress. All I had been led to believe was a cruel and wicked lie. The whole history of her father and mother was one of those family tragedies, only too frequent, which, the actors in them being dead, are best forgotten. I shall not revive the tale.In late autumn Mr Sutherland sailed for India. Before he quitted England he made me sole guardian in his stead over Zillah Le Poer, assigning for her a handsome maintenance.  He said he hoped we should all live happily together--she, my mother, and I--until he came back. He spent a short time with us all at his countryseat--a time which, looking back upon, seems in its eight days like eight separate years.I ought to speak of Zillah, the unmoved centre of so many convolving fates. She remained still and silent as ever--dull, grieved, humiliated. I told her gradually and gently the whole truth, and explained from how much she had been saved. She seemed grateful and penitent: her heart had never been touched by love; she was yet a mere child. The only evidence of womanly shame she gave was in keeping entirely out of her guardian's way. Nor did he take much notice of her except in reproaching himself to me with being neglectful of his charge; but he had so thoroughly trusted in the girl's uncle as being her best protector. The only remark he ever made on Zillah's personal self was, that she had beautiful eyes, adding, with a half-sigh, 'that he liked dark Oriental eyes.' One day his mother told me something which explained this. She said he had been engaged to a young lady in India, who on the

eve of their marriage had died. He had never cared much for women's society since, and, his mother thought, would probably never marry. After his departure she told me the whole story. My heart bled over every pang that he had suffered: he was so good and noble a man. And when I knew about his indifference to all women, I felt the more gratefully what trust he showed in me by making me Zillah's guardian in his absence, and wishing me to write to him regularly of her welfare. The last words he said were to ask me to go and see his mother often; and then he bade God bless me, and called me 'his dear friend.' He was very kind always!We had a quiet winter, for my health was not good--I being often delicate in winter-time. My mother and Zillah took care of me, and I was very grateful for their love. I got well at last, as the spring-time began, and went on in my old ways.There are sometimes long pauses in one's life-deep rests or sleeps of years--in which month after month, and season after season, float on, each the same; during which the soul lies either quiet or torpid, as may be. Thus, without any trouble, joy, or change, we lived for several years--my mother, Zillah Le Poer, and I. One morning I found with a curious surprise, but without any of the horror which most women are supposed to feel at that fact, that I was thirty years old! We discovered by the same reckoning that Zillah was just nineteen. I remember she put her laughing face beside mine in the glass. There was a great difference, truly. I do not mean the difference in her from me, for I never compared that, but in her from her former self. She had grown up into a woman, and, as the glass told

her, and my own eyes told me, a very striking woman too. I was little of a judge of beauty myself; still, I knew well that everybody we met thought her handsome, Likewise, she had grown up beautiful in mind as well as in body. I was very proud of my dear child. I well remember this day, when she was nineteen and I thirty. I remember it, I say, because our kind friend in India had remembered it likewise, and sent us each a magnificent shawl; far too magnificent it was for a little body like me, but it became Zillah splendidly. She tucked me under her arm as if I had been a little girl, and walked me up and down the room; for she was of a cheerful, gay temper now--just the one to make an old heart young again, to flash upon a worn spirit with the brightness of its own long-past morning. I recollect thinking this at the time--I wish I had thought so oftener! But it matters little: I only chronicle this day, as being the first when Zillah unconsciously put herself on a level with me, becoming thenceforward my equal--no longer a mere pet and a child.About this time--I may as well just state the fact to comfort other maidens of thirty years' standing-I received an offer of marriage, the first I ever had. He who asked me was a gentleman of my own age, an old acquaintance, though never a very intimate friend. I examined myself well, with great humility and regret, for he was an excellent man; but I found I could not marry him. It was very strange that he should ask me, I thought. My mother, proud and pleased--first, because I had had the honour of a proposal; secondly, that it was refused, and she kept her child still--would have it that the circumstance was not strange at all. She said many women were handsomer and more attractive

at thirty than they had been in their lives. My poor, fond, deluded and deluding mother, in whose sight even I was fair! That night I was foolish enough to look long into the glass, at my quiet little face and my pale, gray-blue eyes--not dark, like Zillah's-foolish enough to count narrowly the white threads. that were coming one by one into my hair. This trouble--I mean that offer of marriage--I did not quite get over for many weeks, even months.The following year of my life there befell me a great pang. Of this--a grief never to be forgotten, a loss never to be restored--I cannot even now say more than is implied in three words--my mother died! After that Zillah and I lived together alone for twelve months or more.There are some scenes in our life--landscape scenes, I mean--that we remember very clearly: one strikes me now. A quiet, soft May-day; the hedges just in their first green, the horse-chestnuts white with flowers; the long, silent country-lanes swept through by a travelling-carriage, in the which two women, equally silent, sat--Zillah Le Poer and I. It was the month before her coming of age, and she was going to meet her guardian, who had just returned from India. Mrs Sutherland had received a letter from Southampton, and immediately sent for us into the country to meet her son, her 'beloved Andrew.' I merely repeat the words as I remember Zillah's doing so, and laughing at the ugly name. I never thought it ugly. When we had really started, however, Zillah ceased laughing, and became grave, probably at the recollection of that humiliating circumstance which first brought her acquainted with her guardian. But, despite this ill-omened beginning, her youth had blossomed into great perfection. As she 

sat there before me, fair in person, well-cultured in mind, and pure and virgin in heart--for I had so kept her out of harm's way that, though nearly twenty-one, I knew she had never been 'in love' with any man--as she sat thus, I felt proud and glad of her, feeling sure that Mr Sutherland would say I had well fulfilled the charge he gave.We drove to the lodge-gates. An English country-house is always fair to see: this was very beautiful. I remembered it seven years ago; only then it was autumn, and now spring. Zillah remembered it likewise; she drew back, and I heard her whisper uneasily, 'Now we shall soon see Mr Sutherland.' I did not answer her a word. We rolled up the avenue under the large chestnut-trees. I saw some one standing at the portico; then I think the motion of the carriage must have made me dizzy, for all grew indistinct, except a firm, kind hand holding me as I stepped down, and the words, 'Take care, my dear Cassia!' It was Mr Sutherland! He scarcely observed Zillah, till in the hall I introduced her to him. He seemed surprised, startled, pleased. Talking of her to me that evening, he said he had not thought she would have grown up thus; and I noticed him look at her at times with a pensive kindness. Mrs Sutherland whispered to me that the lady he had been engaged to was a half-caste like Zillah, which accounted for it. His mother had been right: he had come back as he went out--unmarried.When Zillah went to bed she was full of admiration for her guardian. He was so tall, so stately. Then his thick, curling, fair hair--just like a young man's, with scarcely a shadow of gray. She would not believe that he was over forty--ten years older than myself--until by some pertinacity I had impressed this fact upon her. And then she said it did not signify, as she liked such ' dear old souls' as he

and I much better than any young people. Her fervour of admiration made me smile; but after this night I observed that the expression of it gradually ceased. Though I was not so demonstrative as Zillah, it will not be supposed but that I was truly glad to see my old friend Mr Sutherland. He was very kind, talked to me long of past things, and as he cast a glance on my black dress I saw his lips quiver; he took my hand and pressed it like a brother. God bless him for that! But one thing struck me--a thing I had not calculated on--the alteration seven years had made in us both. When he took me down to dinner I accidentally caught sight of our two figures in the large pier-glass. Age tells so differently on man and woman: I remembered the time when he was a grown man and I a mere girl; now he looked a stately gentleman in the prime of life, and I a middle-aged, old-maidish woman. Perhaps something more than years had done this; yet it was quite natural, only I had never thought of it before. So, when that first meeting was over, with the excitement, pleasurable or otherwise, that it brought as a matter of course to us all--when we had severally bade each other good-night, and Mr Sutherland had said, smiling, that he was glad it was only good-night, not good-bye--when the whole house was quiet and asleep, I, to use the Psalmist's solemn words: 'At night on my bed I communed with my own heart in my chamber, and was still.''Cassia, I want to speak to you particularly,' said Mr Sutherland to me one morning as, after breakfast, he was about to go into his study. Zillah placed herself in the doorway with the pretty obstinacy, half-womanish, half-girlish, that she sometimes used with her guardian-much my surprise. Zillah was on excellent terms with him,

considering their brief acquaintance of three weeks. In that time she had treated him as I in my whole lifetime had never ventured to do--wilfully, jestingly, even crossly; yet he seemed to like it. They were very social and merry, for his disposition had apparently grown more cheerful as he advanced in life. Their relation was scarcely like guardian and ward, but that of perfect equality--pleasant and confidential, which somewhat surprised me, until I recollected what opportunities they had of intercourse, and what strong friendships are sometimes formed even in a single week or fortnight when people are shut up together in a rather lonely country-house. This was the state of things among us all on the morning when Mr Sutherland called me to his study. Zillah wanted to go likewise. 'Not to-day,' he answered her, very gently and smilingly; ' I have business to talk over with Miss Pryor.' (I knew he said 'Miss Pryor' out of respect, yet it hurt me--I had been 'Cassia' with him so many years. Perhaps he thought I was outgrowing my baby-name now.)The business he wished to speak of was about Zillah's coming of age next week, and what was to be done on the occasion. 'Should he, ought he, to give a ball, a dinner, anything of that sort? Would Zillah like it?' This was a great concession, for in old times he always disliked society. I answered that I did not think such display necessary, but I would try to find out Zillah's mind. I did so. It was an innocent, girlish mind, keenly alive to pleasure and new to everything. The consequences were natural--the ball must be. A little she hesitated when I hinted at her guardian's peculiarities, and offered cheerfully to renounce her delight. But he, his eyes beaming with a deeper delight still, would not consent. So the thing was

settled. It was a very brilliant affair, for Mr Sutherland spared no expense. He seemed to take a restless eagerness in providing for his young favourite everything she could desire. Nay, in answer to her wayward entreaties, he even consented to open the ball with her, though saying 'he was sure he would make an old idiot of himself.' That was not likely! I watched them walk down the room together, and heard many people say, with a smile, what a handsome pair they were, notwithstanding the considerable difference of age. It was a very quiet evening to me. Being strange to almost every one there, I sat near old Mrs Sutherland in a corner. Mr Sutherland asked me to dance once, but I did not feel strong, and indeed for the last few years I had almost given up dancing. He laughed, and said merrily, 'It was not fair for him to be beginning life just when I ended it.' A true word spoken in jest. But I only smiled.The ball produced results not unlikely, when it was meant for the introduction into society of a young woman, handsome, attractive, and an heiress. A week or two after Zillah's birthday Mr Sutherland called me once more into his study. I noticed he looked rather paler and less composed than usual. He forgot even to ask me to sit down, and we stood together by the fireplace, which I remember was filled with a great vase of lilacs that Zillah had insisted on placing there. It filled the room with a strong, rich scent, which now I never perceive without its calling back to mind that room and that day. He said, 'I have a letter to-day on which I wish to consult with you before showing it to Miss Le Poer.' I was rather startled by the formal word, since he usually said 'Zillah,' as was natural. 'It is a letter--scarcely surprising--in fact to be expected after what I noticed at the dinner-party yesterday; 

in fact--But you had better read it yourself.' He took the letter from his desk and gave it to me. It was an earnest and apparently sincere application for the hand of his ward. The suitor was of good family and moderate prospects. I had noticed he was very attentive to Zillah at the ball, and on some occasions since; still, I was a good deal surprised, more so even than Mr Sutherland, who had evidently watched her closer than I. I gave him back the letter in silence, and avoided looking at his face.'Well, Cassia,' he said after a pause, and with an appearance of gaiety, 'what is to be done? You women are the best counsellors in these matters.' I smiled, but both he and I very soon became grave once more. 'It is a thing to be expected,' continued he in a voice rather formal and hard. 'With Zillah's personal attractions and fortune she was sure to receive many offers. Still, it is early to begin these affairs.' I reminded him that she was twenty-one. 'True, true. She might, under other circumstances, have been married long before this. Do you think that she'--I suppose he was going to ask me whether she was likely to accept Mr French, or whether she had hitherto formed any attachment. But probably delicacy withheld him, for he suddenly stopped and omitted the question. Soon he went on in the same steady tone: 'I think Zillah ought to be made acquainted with this circumstance. Mr French states that this letter to me is the first confession of his feelings. That was honourable on his part. He is a gentleman of good standing, though far her inferior in fortune. People might say that he wanted her property to patch up the decayed estate at Weston-Brook.' This was spoken bitterly, very bitterly for a man of such kind nature as Andrew Sutherland. He seemed conscious of it, and

added: 'I may wrong him, and if so I regret it. But do you not think, Cassia, that of all things it must be most despicable, most mean, most galling to a man of any pride or honest feeling, the thought of the world's saying that he married his wife for money, as a prop to his falling fortunes, or a shield to his falling honour? I would die a thousand deaths first!'In the passion of the moment the red colour rushed violently to his cheek, and then he became more pallid than ever. I beheld him: my eyes were opened now. I held fast by the marble chimney-piece, so that I could stand quite upright, firm, and quiet. He walked hurriedly to the window and flung it open, saying the scent of the lilacs was too strong. When he came back we were both ready to talk again. I believe I spoke first--to save him the pain of doing so. 'I have no idea,' said I, and I said truly, 'what answer Zillah will give to this letter. Hitherto I have known all her feelings, and am confident that while she stayed with me her heart was untouched.' Here I waited for him to speak, but he did not. I went on: 'Mr French is very agreeable, and she seems to like him; but a girl's heart, if of any value at all, is rarely won in three meetings. I think, however, that Zillah ought to be made acquainted with this letter. Will you tell her, or shall I?''Go you and do it--a woman can best deal with a woman in these cases. And,' he added, rising slowly and looking upon me from his majestic height with that grave and self-possessed smile which was likewise as sweet as any woman's, 'tell Zillah from me, that though I wish her to marry in her own rank and with near equality of fortune, to save her from all those dangers of mercenary offers to which an heiress is so cruelly exposed, still, both now and 

at all times, I leave her to the dictates of her own affections,and her happiness will ever be my chief consideration in life.' He spoke with formal serenity until the latter words, when his voice sank a little. Then he led me to the door, and I went out.Zillah lay on a sofa reading a love-story. Her crisped black hair was tossed about the crimson cushions, and her whole figure was that of rich Eastern luxuriance. She had always rather a fantastic way of dress, and now she looked almost like a princess out of the Arabian Nights. Even though her skin was that of a half-caste, and her little hands were not white but brown, there was no denying that she was a very beautiful woman. I felt it--saw it--knew it! After a minute's pause I went to her side; she jumped up and kissed me, as she was rather fond of doing. Her kisses were very strange to me just then. I came as quickly as possible to my errand, and gave her the letter to read. As she glanced through it her cheeks flushed and her lips began to curl. She threw the letter on my lap, and said abruptly, 'Well, and what of that?' I began a few necessary explanations. Zillah stopped me.'Oh, I heard something of the sort from Mr French last night. I did not believe him, nor do I now. He is only making a jest of me.'I answerer that this was impossible. In my own mind I was surprised at Zillah's having known the matter before, and having kept it so quiet. Mr French's statement about his honourable reticence towards the lady of his devotions must have been untrue. Still, this was not so remarkable as Zillah's own secrecy on the subject. 'Why did you not tell me, my dear?' said I. 'You know your happiness is of the first importance to me as well as to 

your guardian.' And, rather hesitatingly, I repeated word for word, as near as I could, Mr Sutherland's message. Zillah half hid her face within the cushions, and then drew it out burning red.'He thinks I am going to accept the creature, then? He would have me marry a conceited, chattering, mean-looking, foolish boy!' (Now Mr French was certainly twenty-five.) 'One, too, that only wants me for my fortune, and nothing else. It is very wrong and cruel and unkind of him, and you may go and tell him so.''Tell whom?' said I, bewildered by this outburst of indignation and great confusion of personal pronouns. 'Mr Sutherland, of course! Whom else would I tell? Whose opinion else do I care for? Go and say to him--No,' she added abruptly, 'no, you needn't trouble him with anything about such a foolish girl as I. Just say I shall not marry Mr French, and will he be so kind as to give him his answer, and bid him let me alone?' Here, quite exhausted with her wrath, Zillah sank back and took to her book, turning her head from me. But I saw that she did not read one line, that her motionless eyes were fixed and full of a strange deep expression. I began to cease wondering what the future would bring. Very soon afterwards I went back to Mr Sutherland, and told him all that had passed, just the plain facts without any comments of my own. He apparently required none. I found him sitting composedly with some papers before him--he had for the last few days been immersed in business which seemed rather to trouble him. He started a little as I entered, but immediately came forward and listened with a quiet aspect to the message I had to bring. I could not tell

whether it made him happy or the contrary; his countenance could be at times so totally impassive that no friend, dearest or nearest, could ever find out from it anything he did not wish to betray.'The matter is settled, then,' said he gravely; 'I will write to Mr French to-day, and perhaps it would be as well if we never alluded to what has passed. I, at least, shall not do it; tell Zillah so. But, in the future, say I entreat that she will keep no secret back from you. Remember this, my dear Cassia: watch over her as you love her--and you do love her?' continued he, grasping my hand. I answered that I did, and, God knows, even then I told no lie. She was a very dear child to me always! Mr Sutherland seemed quite satisfied and at rest. He bade me a cheerful good-bye, which I knew meant that I should go away, so accordingly I went. Passing the drawing-room door, I saw Zillah lying in her old position on the sofa; so I would not disturb her, but went and walked for an hour under a clump of fir-trees in the garden. They made a shadow dark and grave and still; it was pleasanter than being on the lawn, among the flowers, the sunshine, and the bees. I did not come in until dinner-time. There were only ourselves, just a family party--Mr Sutherland did not join us until we reached the dining-room door. I noticed that Zillah's colour changed as he approached, and that all dinner-time she hardly spoke to him; but he behaved to her as usual. He was rather thoughtful, for, as he told me privately, he had some trifling business anxieties burdening him just then; otherwise he seemed the same. Nevertheless, whether it was his fault or Zillah's, in a few days the fact grew apparent to me that they were not such good friends as heretofore. A

restraint, a discomfort, a shadow scarcely tangible, yet still there, was felt between them. Such a cloud often rises--mist that comes just before the day-dawn; or, as happens sometimes, before the night.For many days--how many I do not recollect, since about this time
all in the house and in the world without seemed to go on so
strangely--for many days afterwards nothing happened of any
consequence, except that one Sunday afternoon I made a faint struggle
of politeness in some remark about 'going home' and 'encroaching on
their hospitality,' which was met with such evident pain and alarm by
all parties that I was silent; so we stayed yet longer. One
morning--it was high summer now--we were sitting at breakfast: we
three only, as Mrs Sutherland never rose early. I was making tea,
Zillah near me, and Mr Sutherland at the foot of the table. He looked
anxious, and did not talk much, though I remember he rose up once to
throw a handful of crumbs to a half-tame thrush who had built on the
lawn--he was always so kind to every living thing. 'There, my fine
bird, take some home to your wife and weans!' said he pleasantly; but
at the words became grave, even sad, once more. He had his letters
beside him, and opened them successively until he came to one --a momentous one, I knew; for, though he never
moved, but read quietly on, every ray of colour went out of his
face. He dropped his head upon his hand, and sat so long in that
attitude that we were both frightened. 'Is anything the matter?' I said gently, for Zillah was dumb. 'Did you speak?' he answered, with a bewildered stare. 'Forgive me; I--I have had bad news'-and he tried

to resume the duties of the meal, but it was impossible; he was evidently crushed, as even the strongest and bravest men will be, for the moment, under some great and unexpected shock. We said to him-I repeat we because, though Zillah spoke not, her look was enough, had he seen it--we said to him those few soothing things that women can, and ought to, say in such a time. 'Ay,' he answered quite unmanned--'ay, you are very kind. I think--if I could speak to some one-Cassia will you come?' He rose slowly, and held out his hand to me. To me! That proof of his confidence, his tenderness, his friendship, I have always remembered, and thought, with thankful heart, that though not made to give him happiness, I have sometimes done him a little good when he was in trouble.We walked together from the room. I heard a low sob behind us, but had no power to stay. Besides, a momentary pang mattered little; the sobs would be hushed ere long. Standing behind the chair where he sat, I heard the story of Mr Sutherland's misfortunes--misfortunes neither strange nor rare in the mercantile world. In one brief word, he was ruined; that is, so far as a man can be considered ruined who has enough left to pay all his creditors and start in the world afresh as a penniless honest man. He told me this--an every day story; nay, it had been my own father's--told it me with great composure, and I listened with the same. I was acquainted with all these kind of business matters of old. It was very strange, but I felt no grief, no pity for his losses; I only felt, on my own account, a burning, avaricious thirst for gold; a frantic envy--a mad longing to have for a single day, a single hour, wealth in millions.'Yes, it must be so,' said he, when, after talking tome a little more, I saw the hard muscles of his face relax, and he grew patient, ready to bear his troubles like a man-like Andrew Sutherland. 'Yes, I must give up this house, and all my pleasant life here; but I can do it, since I shall be alone.' And then he added in a low tone: 'I am glad, Cassia, very glad of two things: my mother's safe settlement, and the winding-up last month of all my affairs with--Miss Le
Poer.''When,' said I, after a pause--'when do you intend to tell Zillah what has happened?' I felt feverishly anxious that she should know all, and that I should learn how she would act. 'Tell Zillah? Ay,' he repeated, 'tell her at once-tell her at once.' And then he sank back into his chair, muttering something about 'its signifying little now.'I left him, and, with my heart nerved as it were to anything, went back to the room where Zillah was. Her eyes met me with a bitter, fierce, jealous look-jealous of me, foolish child!--until I told her what had happened to our friend. Then she wept, but only for a moment, until a light broke upon her. 'What does it signify?' cried she, echoing, curiously enough, his own words. 'I am of age--I can do just what I like; so I will give my guardian all my money. Go back and tell him so!'I hesitated. 'I tell you I will: all I have in the world is not too good for him. Everything belonging to me is his, and' --Here she stopped, and, catching my fixed look, became covered with confusion. Still, the generous heart did not waver. 'And--when he has my fortune, you and I will go and live together, and be governesses.' I felt the girl was in earnest, that she did

not wish to deceive me; and though I let her deceive herself a little longer, it was with joy--ay, with joy, that in the heart I clasped to mine was such unselfishness, such true nobility, not unworthy even of what it was about to win. I went once more through the hall--the long, cool silent hall, which I trod so dizzily, daring not to pause--unto Mr Sutherland's presence. 'Well!' he said, looking up.I told--in what words I cannot remember now, but solemnly, faithfully, as if I were answering my account before Heaven--the truth, and the whole truth. He listened, pressing his hands on his eyes, and then gave vent to one heavy sigh like a woman's sob. At last rose and walked feebly to the door. There he paused as though to account for his going. 'I ought to thank her, you know. It must not be--not by any means. Still, I ought to go and thank her--the--dear--child!' His voice ceased, broken by emotion. Once more he held out his hand. I grasped it and said, 'Go!' At the parlour door he stopped, apparently for me to precede him in entering there; but, as if accidentally, I passed on and let him enter alone. Whether he knew it or not, I knew clear as light what would happen then and there.The door shut--they two being within, and I without. In an hour I came back towards the house. I had been wandering somewhere, I think, under the fir-wood. It was broad noon, but I felt very cold; it was always cold under those trees. I had no way to pass but near the parlour window, and some insane attraction made me look up as I went by. They were standing--they two--close together, as lovers stand. His arm folded her close; his face, all radiant, yet trembling with tenderness, was pressed upon hers--O my God!I am half inclined to blot out the last sentence, as it seems so foolish to dilate on the love-makings of people now twelve years married; and besides, growing older, one feels the more how rarely and how solemnly the Holy Name ought to be mingled with any mere burst of human emotion. But I think the All-Merciful One would pardon it then. Of course no reader will marvel at my showing emotion over the union of these my two objects on earth.From that union I can now truly say I have derived the greatest comforts of my life. They were married quickly, as I urged, Mr Sutherland settling his wife's whole property upon herself. This was the only balm his manly pride could know; and no greater proof could he give of his passionate love for her than that he humbled himself to marry an heiress. As to what the world thought, no one could ever suspect the shadow of mercenary feeling in Andrew Sutherland. All was as it should be--and so best.After Zillah's marriage I took a situation abroad. Mr Sutherland was very angry when he knew; but I told them I longed for the soft Italian air, and could not live an idle life on any account. So they let me go,knowing, as he smilingly said, 'that Cassia could be obstinate when she had a mind--that her will, like her heart, was firm as a rock.' Ah me!When I came back, it was to a calm, contented, and cheerful middle-age; to the home of a dear brother and sister; to the love of a new generation; to a life filled with peace of heart and thankfulness towards God; to--Hey-day! writing at this moment becomes quite impossible; for there peeps a face in at my bedroom

door, and while I live, not for worlds shall my young folk know that Aunt Cassie is an authoress. Therefore good-bye, pen!--And now come in, my namesake, my darling, my fair-haired Cassia, with her mother's smile and her father's eyes and brow--I may kiss both now. Ah, God in heaven bless thee, my dear, dear child!LAST OF THE RUTHVENS.'DAVIE CALDERWOOD! worthy tutor and master!--Davie Calderwood.' The old man made no answer to the call, which he scarce seemed even to hear. He sat not far from the shadow of his college walls, watching the little silvery ripples of the Cam. His doctor's robes hid a common homely dress of gray; his large feet, dangling over the river-bank, were clumsily shod, and his white close-cropped hair gave him a Puritanical look, when compared with the cavalier air of the two youths who stood behind him.'Davie Calderwood--wake up, man! News!--great news!  From Scotland!' added the elder lad in a cautious whisper.It pierced the torpor of the old man; he started up with eagerness.'Eh, my dear bairn!--I mean my lord--my Lord Gowrie!''Hush!' said the youth bitterly; 'let not the birds of the air carry that sound. Was it not crushed out of the earth a year ago? Call me William Ruthven, or else plain William, till with my good sword I win back my title and my father's name.''Willie--Willie!' murmured the younger brother in anxious warning.'He is afraid--wee Patrick!' laughed William Ruthven.' He thinks that walls have ears and rivers tongues, and that every idle word I say will go with speed to the vain withered old hag in London, or to daft King Jamie Edinburgh! He thinks he shall yet see brother Willie's love-locks floating from the top of the Tolbooth beside those of winsome Aleck and Noble John.'The elder youth spoke in that bitter, jesting tone used to hide keenest suffering; but the younger one, a slight, delicate boy of nineteen, clung to his brother's arm and burst into tears.'My lord,' said Master David Calderwood, 'ye suld be mair tender o' the lad--your ae brother--your mother's youngest bairn! Ye speak too lightly o' things awfu' to tell of--awfu' to mind. Master Patrick,' he added, laying his hand gently on the boy's shoulder, 'ye are thinking of ilk puir bodie given to the fowls of the air and to the winds of heaven at Stirling, Edinburgh, and Dundee; but ye forget that whiles man dishonours the poor dust, evermair God keeps the soul. Therefore mind ye thus o' your twa brothers--the bonnie Earl of Gowrie and noble Alexander Ruthven--that are baith now with God.'As he spoke the doctor's voice faltered, for nature had put into his huge, ill-formed frame a gentle, womanly spirit; and though he had fled from his country, and never beheld it since the year when his beloved lord, the first Earl of Gowrie, and father of these youths, perished on the scaffold--still, amidst all the learning and honours gained in his adopted home, David Calderwood carried in his bosom the same true Scottish heart; and perhaps it yearned more over the boy Patrick, in that he was, like his long-dead

Father, a quiet, retiring student, given to all abstruse philosophy; whereas William, the elder, was a youth of bold spirit who chafed under his forced retirement, and longed to tread in the footsteps of his ancestors, even though they led to the same bloody end.'Well, good master,' he said, 'when you have wept enough with Patrick, hear my news.'"Is it from your mother, the puir hunted dove, auld and flying hither and thither about the ruins of her nest?'Lord Gowrie's--let us give him the title for three months borne, then attainted, but which yet fondly lingered on the lips of two faithful friends, David Calderwood and Lettice, his daughter--Lord Gowrie's brow reddened, and instinctively he put his hand to where his sword should have hung.Then he muttered angrily, 'Ah, I forget I am no earl, no Scottish knight, but only a poor Cambridge student. But,' he added, his face kindling, 'though the lightning has fallen on the parent trunk and its two brave branches, and though the rest are trodden under foot of men, still there is life, bold, fresh life, in the old tree. It shall grow up and shelter her yet--my noble, long-enduring mother--the first, the best, the--No; she shall not be the last Lady Gowrie.'While speaking, a flush deeper even than that of youth's enthusiasm burned on the young earl's cheek, and he looked up to the window where Lettice sat--sweet Lettice Calderwood, sweeter even than she was fair! She at a distance dimly saw the look; she met it with a frank smile--the smile a single-hearted, happy girl would cast willingly on all the world.'The news--the news!' murmured old David. 'My bearns, ye talk and ye rave, but ye dinna tell the news.''My mother writes that the cloud seems passing from

our house; for the Queen Anne--she favours us still, despite her lord--the Queen Anne has secretly sent for our sister Beatrice to court.''Beatrice, whom brother Alexander loved more than all the rest,' said Patrick simply. But the elder brother frowned, and rather harshly bade him hold his peace.'Patrick is a child, and knows nothing,' said the young earl; 'but I know all. What care I for this weak queen's folly or remembered sin, if through her means I creep back into my father's honoured seat? Oh! shame that I can only creep; that I must enter Scotland like a thief, and steal in at the court holding on to a woman's robe, when I would fain come with fire and sword, to crush among the ashes of his own palace the murderer of my race!'He spoke with a resolute fierceness, strange in such a youth; his black brows contracted, and his stature seemed to swell and grow. Simple Davie Calderwood looked and trembled.'Ye're a Ruthven, true and bold; but ye're no like the Earl o' Gowrie. I see in your face your father's father--him that rose from his dying-bed to be a shedder of blood--him that slew Rizzio in Holyrood!'And when I stand in Holyrood--whether I creep in there or force my way with my sword--I will kneel down on that bloody spot and pray Heaven to make me too as faithful an avenger,' was the keen, low answer. Then turning off his passionate emotion with a jest, as he often did, Lord Gowrie said gaily to his brother, 'Come, Patrick, look not so pale; tell our good master the rest of the news--that to-night, this very night, thou and I must start for bonnie Scotland!''Who is talking of bonnie Scotland?' said a girl's voice, young indeed, but yet touched with that inexplicable tone

which never comes until life's first lessons have been learned--those lessons, whether of joy or grief, which leave in the child's careless bosom a woman's heart.Lord Gowrie turned quickly and looked at Lettice, smilingly--rapturously, yet bashfully, as a youth looks at his first idol. Then he reheated his intention of departure, though in a tone less joyous than before. Lettice heard, without emotion as it seemed, only that her two thin hands--she was a little creature, pale and slight--were pressed tightly together. There are some faces which, by instinct or by force of will, can hide all emotion, and then it is the hands which tell the tale--the fluttering fingers, the tight clench, the palms rigidly crushed together. But these tokens of suffering no one sees: no one saw them in Lettice Calderwood.'Do ye no grieve, my daughter, over these bairns that go from us? Wae's me! but there's danger in ilka step to baith the lads.'`Are both going? asked Lettice; and her eye wandered towards the younger brother, who had moved a little apart, and stood by the little river, plucking leaves and throwing them down the stream. `It is a long, severe journey, and Master Patrick has been so ill, and is not yet strong,' added the girl, speaking with that grave dignity which, as mistress of the household, she sometimes assumed, and which made her seem far older than her years.`Patrick is a weakly fellow, to be sure,' answered Lord Gowrie, inwardly smiling over his own youthful strength and beauty; `but I will take care of him--he will go with his brother.'`Yes,' said Patrick, overhearing all, as it seemed. But he said no more; the was a youth of few words. Very soon Calderwood and the young lord began to talk over the pro-

jected journey. But Patrick sat down by the river-bank, and began icily plucking and examining the meadow-flowers, just as if his favourite herbal and botanical science were the only interests of life.`Patrick!' whispered Lettice's kind, sisterly voice. She sometimes forgot the difference of rank and blood in her compassion for the young proscribed fugitives who had been sent, in such destitution and misery, to her father's care. `Patrick!'`Yes, Mistress Lettice.'`The evening closes cold; take this!' She had brought a cloak to wrap round him.'You are very kind, very thoughtful--like a sister.' Saying this, he turned quickly and looked at her. Lettice smiled. Whether gladsome or sorry, she could always bend her lips to that pale, grave smile.'Well, then, listen to me, as you always do; I being such a staid, wise old woman'--'Though a year younger than I.'`Still, listen to me. My Lord Gowrie, your brother, is rash and bold; you must he prudent for the sake of both. When you go from us, Patrick, cease dreaming, and use your wisdom. You have indeed the strength and wisdom of a man; it will be needed. Let not William bring you into peril; take care of him and of yourself.'Here the lips that spoke so womanly, grave, and calm began to tremble; and Lettice, hearing her name called, went away.Patrick seemed mechanically to repeat to himself her last words, whether in pleasure, pain, or indifference it was impossible to tell. Then his features relapsed into their usual expression--thoughtful, quiet, and passionless. An old-young face it was--a mingling of the child with the

man of old, but with no sign of youth between--a face such as we see sometimes, and fancy that we read therein the coming history as plainly written as in a book. So while, as the evening passed, Lord Gowrie's fiery spirit busied itself about plots and schemes, the fate of kingdoms and of kings; and David Calderwood, stirred from his learned equipoise, troubled his simple mind with anxiety concerning his two beloved pupils, Lettice hid all her thoughts in her heart, brooding tremblingly over them there. But the young herbalist sat patiently pulling his flowers to pieces and ruminating meanwhile, his eyes fixed on the little rippling stream. He seemed born to be one of those meek philosophers who through life sit still, and let the world roll by with all its tumults, passions, and cares. They are above it; or, as some would deem, below it. But in either case it touches not them.It was the dawn of a September day, gloomy and cold. All things seemed buried in a dull sleep, except the Cam, that went murmuring over its pebbles hour after hour, from night till morn. Lettice heard it under her window, as she stood in the pale light, fastening her head-tire with trembling hands. They were just starting--the two young Scottish cavaliers. Both had cast off the dress of the student, and appeared as befitted their birth. Bold, noble, and handsome looked the young Earl William in his gay doublet, with his sword by his side. As he walked with Lettice to the garden (he had half entreated, half commanded to have a rose given by her hand) his manner seemed less boyish--more courtly and tender withal. His last words, too, as he rode away were a gay compliment and an outburst of youthful hope, alluding to the time when he should come back endowed with the forfeited

honours of his race, and choose, not out of Scottish but of English maidens, a 'Lady Gowrie.'Patrick, stealing after, a little paler, a little more silent than usual, affectionately bade his master adieu; and to the hearty blessing and good-speed only whispered `Amen.' Then he took Lettice's hand; he did not kiss it, as his brother had gracefully and courteously done, but he clasped it with a light, cold clasp, saying gently, `Farewell, Lettice! my kind sister.'She moved a little, as if pained, and then calmly echoed the farewell. But when the sound of the horses' feet died away she went slowly up to her little chamber, shut the door, sat down, and wept. Once only looking at her little hand--holding it as if there still lingered on it a vanished touch--the deep colour rose in her cheek, and over her face there passed a quick, sharp pang.'His sister--always his sister!' She said no more. After a while she dried her tears, wrapped round her heart that veil of ordinary outer life which a woman must always wear, and went down to her father.'Lettice, what are those torn papers that thou art fastening together with thy needle? Are they writings or problems of mine?''Not this time, father,' said Lettice meekly; `they are fragments left by your two pupils.''That is, by Patrick. William did not love to study, except that fantastic learning which all the Ruthvens loved--the occult sciences. Whose papers are these?'`Master Patrick's; he may want them when he returns.''When! Ah! the dear bairn, his puir father's ain son; will I ever see his face again?'There was no answer save that of silence and paleness. Lettice's fingers worked on. But a dull, cold shadow seemed to spread itself over the room--over everywhere she turned her eyes; duller than the gloomy evening, colder than the cold March rain which beat against the narrow college windows, that shadow crept over her heart. She looked like one who for many days and weeks had borne on her spirit, not a heavy load--that is easier to bear--but a restless struggle; sometimes pain, sometimes joy, doubt, fear, expectation, faith, wild longing, followed by blank endurance. It was now a long time since she had learned the whole bitter meaning of those words, the `hope deferred which maketh the heart sick.''My dear lassie,' said the old doctor, rousing himself from a mathematical calculation which had degenerated into a mere every-day reverie, `where hae ye keepit the puir young earl's letter, that said he and Patrick were baith coming back to Cambridge in a week? Can ye no tell how lang it is sin sync?'Lettice could have answered at once--could have told the weeks, days, hours, each passing slow like years--but she did not. She paused as though to reckon, and then said, `It is nigh two months, if I count right.''Twa months! Alas, alas!'Do you think, father,' she said slowly, striving to speak for the first time what had been so long pent up that its utterance made her whole frame tremble--'do you think that any harm has come to the poor young gentlemen?'`I pray God no! Lettice, do you mind what our pair Willie--I canna say "the earl"--tauld us of their great good fortune through the queen; how that he would soon be living in Edinburgh as a grand lord, and his brother

should end his studies at St Andrews; only Patrick said he loved better to come back to Cambridge, and to his auld master? The dear bairn! Do you mind all this, Lettice?''Yes, father.' All! truly poor Lettice did!'Then, my child, we needna fear for them. They are twa young gentlemen o' rank, and maybe they lead a merry life, and that whiles gars them forget auld friends; but they'll aye come back safe in time.'So saying, the old doctor settled himself in his high-backed chair and contentedly went to sleep. His daughter continued her work until the papers were all arranged and it grew too dark to see; then she closed her eyes and pondered.Her thoughts were not what may be called love-thoughts, such as you, young modern maidens, indulge in when you dream of some lover kneeling at your feet or walking by your side--know yourself adored, and exult in the adoration. No such light emotion ruled Lettice's fancy. Her love--if it were love, and she scarce knew it as such--had crept in unwittingly, under the guise of pity, reverence, affection; it had struck its roots deep in her nature; and though it bore no flowers, its life was one with the life of her heart. She never paused to think, 'Do you love?' or 'Am I loved?' but her whole being flowed into that thought, wave after wave, like a stream that insensibly glides into one dry channel, leaving all the rest.Lettice sat and thought mournfully over the many weeks of wearying expectation for him who never came. Flow at first the hours flew winged with restless joy; how she lay down in hope and rose in hope, and said to herself, calmly smiling, 'To-morrow--to-morrow!' How afterwards she strove to make those words into a daily balm to still fear

and pain that would not sleep; how at last she breathed them wildly, hour by hour of each blank day, less believing in them than lifting them up like a cry of despair which must be answered. But it never was answered; and the silence now had grown so black and dull around her that it pressed down all struggles--left her not even strength for fears.She had feared very much at first. The young Earl William, so sanguine, so bold, might have been deceived. The king's seeming lenity might be but assumed, until he could crush the poor remnant of the Ruthven blood. She pondered continually over the awful tale of the Gowrie plot; often at night in her dreams she saw the ensanguined axe, the two heads, so beautiful and young, mouldering away on the Tolbooth. Sometimes beside them she saw another--Horror! she knew it well--the pale, boyish cheek--the thoughtful brow. Then she would wake in shudderings and cries, and falling on her knees, pray that wherever he was--whether or no he might gladden her eyes again--Heaven would keep him safe, and have pity upon her.Again she thought of him in prosperity, living honoured and secure under the glory of the Ruthven line--forgetting old friends, as her father had said. Well, and what right had she to murmur? She did not--save that at times, even against her will, the selfish cry of weak human tenderness would rise up--'Alas, thou hast all things, and I--I perish for want!' But her conscience ever answered, `He neither knows nor sees, so with him there is no wrong.'Night, heavy night, fell down once more. Lettice had learned to long for the dull stupor it brought--a little

peace, a little oblivion mercifully closing each blank clay.'Is it not time for rest, father?' she often asked long ere the usual hour; and she was so glad to creep to her little bower-chamber, and shut out the moonbeams and the starlight, and lie in darkness and utter forgetfulness, until lulled to sleep by the ripple of the stream close by. There had been a time when she either sat up with her father or else lay awake until midnight, listening for steps in the garden--for voices beneath the window--when every summons at the gate made her heart leap wildly. But all this was past now.Lettice put down the lamp, took off her coif, and unbound her hair. Before retiring she opened the window and gazed out into the night, which was cold but very clear. She half leaned forward and stretched out her hands to the north. No words can paint the look her countenance wore. It was yearning, imploring, despairing, like that of a soul longing to depart and follow upwards another soul already gone. In her eyes was an intensity that seemed mighty enough to pierce through all intervening space and fly, dove-winged, to its desire. Then the lids drooped, the burning tears fell, and her whole frame sank collapsed, an image of hopeless, motionless dejection.She was roused by a noise--the dash of oars on the usually deserted river. She shut the window hastily, blushing lest the lamp should have revealed her attitude and her emotion to any stranger without. The sound of oars ceased--there were footsteps up the garden alleys--there was her father's eager voice at the door, mingled with other well-known voices. They were coming!--they were come!In a moment all the days, weeks, months of weary waiting were swept away like clouds. The night of her sorrow was forgotten as though it had never been.'And now that I am returned, thou wilt not give me another flower, Mistress Lettice?' said the young earl, as he followed her up the garden-walks in the fair spring morning. She had risen early, for sleep had been driven away by joy.`There are no flowers now--at least none gay enough to be worth your wearing. Daisies and violets would ill suit that courtly dress,' said the maiden, speaking blithely out of her full-hearted content.Does it displease you, then? Shall I banish my silver-hilted sword, and my rich doublet with three hundred points, and don the poor student's hodden gray? I would do it, fair damsel, and willingly, for thee!' And he smiled with a little conscious pride, as if he knew well that six months passed in the shadow of a court had transformed the bashful youth into an accomplished cavalier--brave, handsome, winning, yet pure and noble at heart, as the young knights were in the golden time of Sidney and of Raleigh.Lettice regarded him in frank admiration. `Truly, my Lord Gowrie, you are changed. Scarce can I dare to give you the name you once honoured me by permitting. How shall I call you and Master Patrick my brothers?'`I wish it not,' said the young man hastily. `As for Patrick--never mind Patrick,' as Lettice's eyes seemed wandering to the river-side, where the younger Ruthven sat in his old seat. 'You see he is quite happy with his herbal and his books of philosophy. Let him stay there; for I would fain have speech with you.' He led her into

a shady path, and began to speak hurriedly. 'Lettice, do you know that I may soon be summoned back to Scotland--not as a captive, but as the reinstated Earl of Gowrie? And, Lettice'--here his voice faltered and his cheek glowed, and he looked no more the bold cavalier, but a timid youth in his first wooing--'dear Lettice, if I might win my heart's desire I would not depart alone.''Not depart alone! Then thou wilt not leave Patrick with us, as was planned?' said the girl, uttering the first thought that rose to her mind, and then blushing for the same.'I spoke not of Patrick--he may do as he wills. I spoke of some one dearer than brother or sister; of her who'--'What! is it come to that?' merrily laughed out the unconscious girl. 'Is our William, at once, without sign or token, about to bring to us, and then perforce to carry away home, a bonnie Lady Gowrie?'The earl seemed startled by a sudden doubt. 'It is strange you should speak thus! Are you mocking me, or is it a womanly device to make me woo in plainer terms? Hear, then, Lettice!--Lettice that I love! It is you I would win, you whom I would carry home in triumph, my beautiful, my wife, my Lady Gowrie!' She stood transfixed, looking at him, not with blushes, not with maiden shame, but in a sort of dull amaze.'Do my words startle you, sweet one? Forgive me, then, for I scarce know what I say. Only I love you--I love you! Come to my heart, my Lettice, my wife that shall be;' and he stretched out his arms to enfold her. But Lettice, uttering a faint cry, glided from his vain clasp and fled into the house.In their deepest affections women rarely judge by out-

ward show. The young earl, gifted with all qualities to charm a lady's eye, had been loved as a brother--nothing more. The dreamy Patrick, in whose apparently passion-less nature lay the mystery wherein such as Lettice ever delight--whose learning awed, while his weakness attracted tender sympathy--he it was who had unconsciously won the treasure which a man giving all his substance could not gain--a woman's first best love.Her wooer evidently dreamed not of the truth. She saw him still walking where she had left him, or passing under her window, looking up rather anxiously, yet smiling. One thought only rose clearly out of the chaos of Lettice's mind--that he must be answered; that she must not let him deceive himself--no, not for an hour. What she should say she mournfully knew--but how to say it? Some small speech she tried to frame; but she had never been used to veil any thought of her innocent heart before him she treated as a brother. It was so hard to feel that all this must be changed now.Lettice was little more than eighteen years old, but the troublous life of a motherless girl had made her self-dependent and firm. Therefore, after a while, courage came unto her again. Strengthened by her one great desire to do right, she descended into the garden, and walked slowly down the alley to meet the earl. His greeting was full of joy.'Did I scare her from me, my bird? And has she flown back of her own accord to her safe nest--her shelter now and evermore?' And once more he extended his arms with a look of proud tenderness, such as a young lover wears when he feels that in wooing his future wife he has cast off the lightsome follies of boyhood and entered on the duties and dignities of a man.Lettice never looked up, or her heart would have smote her--that heart which already, half crushed, had now to crush another's. Would that women felt more how bitter it is to inflict this suffering, and, if wilfully incurred, how heavy is this sin! Even Lettice, with her conscience all clear, felt as though she were half guilty in having won his unsought-for love. Pale and trembling, she began to say the words she had fixed on as best, humblest, kindest: `My Lord Gowrie'--'Nay, sweet Lettice, call me William, as you ever used to do in the dear old times.'At this allusion her set speech failed, and she burst into tears. `O William, why did you not always remain my brother? I should have been happy then!'`And now?''I am very--very miserable.'There was a pause, during which Lord Gowrie's face changed, and he seemed to wrestle with a vague fear. At last he said, `Wherefore?' in a brief, cold tone, which calmed Lettice at once.`Because,' she murmured with a mournful earnestness there was no doubting or gainsaying, 'I am not worthy your love, since in my heart there is no answer--none!'For a moment Lord Gowrie drew himself up with all his ancestral pride. `Mistress Lettice Calderwood, I regret that--that'--He stammered, hesitated, then throwing himself on a wooden seat and bowing his head, he struggled with a young man's first agony--rejected love.Lettice knelt beside him. She took his passive hands, and her tears rained over them; but what hope, what comfort could she give? She thought not of their position as maiden and suitor--Lord Gowrie and humble

Lettice Calderwood--she only saw her old playmate and friend sitting there overwhelmed with anguish, and it was her hand which had dealt the blow.'William,' she said brokenly, `think not hardly of me. I would make you happy if I could, but I cannot! I dare not be your wife, not loving you as a wife ought.''It is quite true, then, you do not love me?' the young earl muttered. But he won no other answer than a sad silence. After a while he broke out again bitterly: 'Either I have madly deceived myself, or you have deceived me. Why did you blush and tremble when we met last night? Why, before we met, did I see you gazing so longingly, so passionately, on the way I should have come? Was that look false too?'Lettice rose up from her knees, her face and neck flushed red. 'My Lord of Gowrie, though you have honoured me, and I am grateful, you have no right'--'I have a right--that of one whose whole life you have withered; whom you have first struck blind, and then driven mad for love! Mistress Calderwood--Lettice'--In speaking her name his anger seemed to disperse and crumble away, even as the light touch shivers the molten glass. When again he said 'Lettice,' it was in a tone so humble, so heart-broken, that, hearing it, she, like a very woman, forgot and forgave all.`I never did you wrong, William; I never dreamed you loved me. In truth I never dreamed of love at all, until'--'Go on.''I cannot--I cannot!'--Again silence, again bitter tears.After a while Lord Gowrie came to her side, so changed that he might have lived years in that brief hour.`Lettice,' he said, `let there be peace and forgiveness between us. I will go away; you shall not be pained by more wooing. Only, ere I depart, tell me is there any hope for me in patience or long waiting, or constant, much-enduring love?'She shook her head mournfully.'Then what was not mine to win is surely already won? Though you love not me, still you love. I read it in your eyes. If so, I think--I think it would be best mercy to tell me. Then I shall indulge in no vain hope; I shall learn to endure, perhaps to conquer at last. Lettice, tell me; one word--no more!'But her quivering lips refused to utter it.`Give some sign--ay, the sign that used to be one of death!--let your kerchief fall!'For one moment her fingers instinctively clutched it tighter, then they slowly unclasped. The kerchief fell!Without one word or look Lord Gowrie turned away. He walked with something of his old proud step to the alley's end, then threw himself down on the cold, damp turf as though he wished it had been an open grave.When the little circle next met it was evident to Lettice that Lord Gowrie had unfolded all to his faithful and loving younger brother. Still, Patrick betrayed not his knowledge, and went on in his old dreamy and listless ways. Once, as, pausing in his reading, he saw Lettice glide from the room, pale and very sad, there was a momentary change in his look. It might be pity, or grief, or reproach, or what none could tell. He contrived so as to exchange no private word with her until the next morning, when, lounging in his old place, idly throwing pebbles into the river, and watching the watery

circles grow, mix, and vanish, there came a low voice in his ear.'Master Patrick Ruthven!'He started to hear his full name uttered by lips once so frank and sisterly, but he took no notice.'Well, what would you, Lettice?''t is early morning; there is no one risen but we two. Come with me to the house, for I must speak with you. And what I say even the air must not carry. Come, Patrick; for the love of Heaven, come!Her face was haggard, her words wild. She dragged rather than led him into the room where the two boys had once used to study with her father. There she began speaking hurriedly.'Did you hear nothing last night?--no footsteps?--no sounds?''No; yet I scarce slept.''Nor I.' And the two young faces drooped, unable to meet each other's eyes. But soon Lettice went on: 'At dawn, as I lay awake, it seemed as if there were voices beneath my window. I did not look; I thought it might be--'It was not Lord Gowrie, for I heard them speak his name. Your hopes from King James were false! O Patrick, there is danger--great danger! I have learned it all!'`How?' And rousing himself, the young man regarded eagerly Lettice's agitated mien.I opened the lattice softly and listened. When they went away I followed stealthily to the water's edge. Patrick, they said that on the night but one after this they will return and seize you in the king's name! Fly--fly! Do not let me lose for ever both my brothers!'

And she caught his hands as in her childhood she had used to do, when beseeching him to do for her sake many things which, from dreamy listlessness, he would never have done for his own.'What must I do, Lettice--I, who know nothing of the world? Why did you not tell all this to William?''I--tell William?' She blushed scarlet, and seemed struggling with deep emotion.`Oh, true--true!' Patrick said, and there seemed a faint working up in his passionless features. `No matter; I will at once go and tell my brother.'Lettice sat down to wait his return. All her murmur was--'O William--poor William!--so truly loving me, whom others love not at all! I turned from thee in thy prosperity, but now shall I save thee and lose myself? shall I sacrifice all to thee?' But instinct rather than wisdom whispered to Lettice, that she who weds, knowing her heart is not with her husband, wilfully sacrifices both. In the sight of Heaven and earth she takes a false vow, which, if requited not by man, will assuredly be avenged by God.Patrick Ruthven came back in much agitation. 'He says he will not fly; that he heeds neither the prison nor the block; that he has no joy in life, and death is best! Lettice, go to him; save him--you only can!''How can I save him?' Lettice cried mournfully.'By urging him to fly. We can take horse and cross the country to Harwich, whence a ship sails for France to-night. I know this, for yesterday I, too, was planning how to depart.''You?''No matter,' said Patrick hurriedly. 'Only go to

William; compel him to save his life: he will do so at your bidding.'He spoke commandingly, as if fraternal love had transformed the gentle, timid youth into a resolute man. Lettice, wondering and bewildered, mechanically obeyed. She came to Lord Gowrie, who, with the disordered aspect of one who has wasted the night in misery, not sleep, lay on the floor of what had been the boys' play-room. To all her entreaties he only turned his face to the wall and answered not. At last his brother beckoned Lettice away.Looking at Patrick, the girl marvelled. All his impassive coldness seemed to have melted from him. His stature appeared to rise into dignity, and there was a nobility in his face that made it beautiful to see. Lettice beheld in him, for the first time, the likeness of what she knew he would one day become--a grand, true man; the man before whom a woman's heart would instinctively bow down in Eve--like submission, murmuring, 'I have found thee, my greater self, my head, my sustainer and guide.'Patrick stood silent a while, sometimes reading her face, sometimes casting his eyes downward, as it were struggling with inward pain. At last he said solemnly, 'Lettice, this is no time for idle scruple. I know all that took place yesterday. I know, too, that there is one only chance, or William is lost. Is your will so firm that it cannot change? Must he die for loving you--my dear, my noble brother, whom I would give my poor life to save? Lettice, in this great strait I entreat you--even I'--and he shuddered visibly--'consider what you do. It is an awful thing to have life and death in your hands. I beseech you, let him love you and be happy.'Lettice listened. As he spoke, slowly--slowly--the young rich blood faded from her face; she became rigid, white, and cold; all the life left was in her eyes, and fixed they were on Patrick, as it were the last look of one dying.'Answer me,' she said with a measured, toneless voice 'answer truly on your soul. Do you desire this of me? Is it your wish that I should become your brother's wife?'`My wish--my wish?' he muttered; and then his reply came clear and distinct, as one says the words which fix the sentence of a lifetime, 'In the sight of God, yes!'Lettice gave him her hand, and he led her again to his brother.'I need not stay,' he whispered; 'you, Lettice, will say all--better say it at once.'She looked at Patrick with a bewildered, uncertain air, and then began to speak:`Lord Gowrie--that is, 'William, I'--She said no more, but fell down at Patrick's feet in a death-like swoon.Lettice lay insensible for many hours. For her there were no farewells--when she awoke the two brothers were gone. She found on her neck a golden chain, and on her finger a ring, the tokens of the last passionate embraces which William had lavished on her, whom he now considered his betrothed, and which she then felt no more than one dead. But when they told her all this she flung away the ring and chain, and prayed Heaven that she might die before ever Lord Gowrie came to claim her vows.Of the younger Ruthven she could learn nothing either from her bewildered father or her old nurse except

that Patrick had forcibly torn his brother away. He had not spoken, save leaving a kind farewell to his sister.In the twilight Lettice rose from her bed. She could not, for any inward misery, neglect her good father. And all her senses had been so stunned that as yet she was scarce alive either to the present or the future. She sat almost as if nothing had happened, listening to the old man's broken talk, or idly watching the graceful smoke-wreaths of the Virginian weed that Sir Walter Raleigh had just introduced, and with which rare luxury the young knight's friendship had provided David Calderwood.Oppressed by the sudden events which had greatly discomposed the tenor of his placid existence, the worthy doctor smoked himself to sleep. When with his slumbers Lettice's duties ceased, her bitter grief rose up. It choked her--it seemed to make the air close and fiery, so that she could not breathe. Dark and cold as the March night was, she fled out. But she kept in the thick alleys of the garden--she dared not go near the river, lest out of its cool, cool depths should rise a demon, smilingly to tempt her there.But at length, when the moon came out from under a black cloud, Lettice thought she would approach and sit in Patrick's old seat by the side of the Cam, where in summer nights they had spent hours--she, with girlish romance, looking up at the stars, and he teaching her all concerning them in his learned fashion, for the boy was a great astronomer.Was it a vision? that he sat there still, in his old attitude, leaning against the willow-tree, the light slanting on his upward brow! Her first thought was that he had met some fearful end, and this was his apparition only. She whispered faintly, 'Patrick;' but he neither spoke nor

moved. Then she was sure she beheld the spirit of her beloved. Her highly-wrought fancy repelled all fear, and made her feel a strange joy in this communication from the unseen world.Once more she called him by his name, adding thereto words tenderer than his living self would ever hear. Then, seeing that the moon cast his shadow on the water, the conviction that it was no spirit, but his own bodily form, made her start and glow with shame. Yet when she approached he lay so still, his eyes were closed, and she could almost have believed him dead. But he was only in a deep sleep of such heavy exhaustion that he hardly seemed to breathe.Lettice crept beside him. Scarce knowing what she did, she took his cold hand and pressed it to her breast. There, suddenly waking, he felt it closely held; and met a gaze so pure and maidenly, yet so full of the wildest devotion--a look such as man rarely beholds, not even in his wife's eyes, for the deepest tenderness is ever the most secret. Scarce had Patrick seen it than it melted into Lettice's ordinary aspect; but he had seen it, and it was enough.`When did you come back?' faintly asked Lettice.`At twilight. A clay's hard riding exhausted me, and I suppose I fell asleep here.'`And wherefore did you return?' Mechanical were the questions and replies, as though both spoke at random.`Why slid I return?'`Yes--to danger. I had forgotten all that. O Patrick, how shall we save you? Why did you not sail with William, if he has sailed?'He has! There was a passage for one only--his life

was most precious--he is my elder brother, so I persuaded him to go on board; and then--I left him.'`Patrick--Patrick!' Unconsciously she looked up at him in her old childish, loving way, and her eyes were full of tears.`Are you glad, Lettice?'`Glad, because you have done a noble thing. But if through this you should be discovered and taken; if I--that is--we all--should lose you--Hush!' That instant her quick ear, sharpened with terror, heard down the river the sound of oars. 'They are coming--those men I saw last night--they will have brought the king's warrant that I heard them speak of. It is too late. Oh, would that you at least had been saved!'`I, and not William?' His words spoke grave reproach, but his looks belied his tone.'I think not of William now. Why did he go and leave you to perish? But I will not leave you; Patrick, I will die with you--I'--'Lettice!' He began to tremble; he took her hand and looked questioningly into her eyes. There seemed a doubt suddenly passing from his mind, so that all was light and day--ay, even though nearer every minute came the distant sounds which warned him of his danger.'Hark! they are close upon us,' said Lettice in an agonised whisper. `They will search the house through. What must be done?''I know not,' said Patrick dreamily.'But I know. Come--come!'She drew him cautiously into a laurel thicket close by, which, lying deep in shadow, furnished a safe hiding-place. Thinking a moment, she took off her black mantle and

wrapped it over him that his light doublet might not be seen through the boughs.`We may escape them,' she said; `we two have hidden here many a time when we were children.''Ah, Lettice!' he sighed, `we were happy then! Even now, if William had not loved you'--`Hush! they are landing; I hear their steps--keep close.' She made him kneel so that her dress might hide him, and, as fearing that his fair floating curls might catch some stray moonbeam, she put her hands upon his hair.Footsteps came nearer and nearer--life or death was in each tread. The terrified voice of David Calderwood was heard declaring that, hours since, the Scottish brothers had fled; and still the only answer was, 'Search--search!In their agony the two young creatures--they were both so young!--drew closer to each other; and Patrick's arms were wrapped round Lettice, as they used to be when she was a child. He whispered, `If I die, Lettice, love me!'She pressed her cold lips upon his forehead, and that was the only vow which passed between them. The officers began to search the garden, David Calderwood following, wringing his feeble hands. `Good friends, gin ye seek till dawn, ye '11 no find ae thing alive, save my puir bairn, if sae be she is in life still. Lettice--Lettice, whir are ye gane?' cried the old man piteously.`Go to your father--go!' murmured Patrick; but she was deaf to all voices save his now.'I'll help you to seek in ilka bush and brake, if only to find my puir lassie; and I pray our sovereign lady Queen Elizabeth'--'Our sovereign lord, King James of England and Scotland; that's the prayer now--so no treason, old man,' said

one of the officers, giving him a buffet which made poor Davie stagger. Patrick Ruthven saw this, and started in his hiding-place.
An owl in the bushes. Hollo there!' shouted the men.Patrick and Lettice scarcely breathed. In her frenzy she clasped her arms passionately round his neck; her eyes, stretched out into the darkness, flashed fire; she felt that, had she only a weapon at hand, she would have committed murder to save him. Vain--vain--all vain!A crash in the bushes, a rough hand on Patrick's breast--`Ho! prisoners in the king's name!'He was taken at last.Whether she wept, or shrieked, or prayed, whether they took any farewell of one another or no, Lettice never remembered. All that remained in her memory after that awful moment was one sight--a boat gliding down the river in the moonlight; and one sound, or words which Patrick had contrived to whisper: `The Tower--remember the Tower!'One day, in midwinter, when Tower Hill, so often reddened with blood, lay white under many inches of snow, a woman might have been seen taking her way over the portcullis into the Tower. She seemed to belong to the middle class; her hood and kirtle were of humble fashion, black and close. She was a small, insignificant-looking woman too, and seemed to be admitted into the awful state prison, or rather to creep in there, attracting from the warders no more notice than a bird flying in at a captive's window, or a little bright-eyed mouse peering at him in the dark.Her errand, she said, was to the governor's lady.

Thither she was brought through gloomy passages that seemed to make her shudder, under narrow-barred silent windows, at which she looked up with a terrified yet eager glance, as if she expected to see appear there the wan face of some wretched prisoner. She reached the governor's apartments. There air and light were not wanting, though it was in the grim old Tower. From it might be seen the shining Thames, with ships of all nations gliding by. There were flowers, too, growing in the heavy embrasures of one window, and in the other was a group of human flowers--a young mother and her beautiful children.The stranger briefly stated her errand. She had heard that the lady desired an attendant for her daughters, and she came to offer her services, bearing credentials from one whom the governor's wife knew.'The name is Scottish: are you from our country?' said the graceful mother, her fair face brightening with kindliness.'My father was, and so were all my nearest ties,' answered the woman in a low voice as she pulled her hood closer over her face.'You say was and were. Are all gone, then?''Yes, madam; I am quite alone.''Poor young thing!''Nay, I am not young; I am thirty-four years old.''And you have never been married?''No''Ah!' sighed the happy young wife of twenty-five, with a sort of dignified compassion. But she was of a kindly nature, and she discerned that the stranger wore a look of great sweetness, and had withal a gentle voice--that truest index of a womanly spirit. She enrolled her in her house-hold at once.`And are you willing, my good--What did you say was your Christian name?''Lettice.'`Are you willing to reside in the Tower? It is at best but a dreary place for us as well as for the poor prisoners; though, thanks to our merciful King James, we have had but few executions here lately.'Lettice faintly shuddered--perhaps it was to hear such gentle lips speak so indifferently of these horrors--but she answered, `I am quite satisfied, madam. Even this prison seems a home to one who has just lost the only home she ever knew, and who has now none in the wide world.'She spoke with great simplicity, and in the calm manner of a woman who has been taught patience by long suffering. Nevertheless, when the governor's lady bade her take off her mantle and hood, and the three little maidens, summoned from the inner room, came gathering round her, and, won by her sweet looks, offered childish kisses, Lettice's self-control failed, and a few tears began to fall from her eyes.'Nay, take heart, my countrywoman,' said the young matron kindly; `we will make you very happy here; and perhaps find you, too, a brave yeoman-warder with a good estate. King James takes care his Scottish subjects shall thrive in merry England.' And, quite satisfied that in a wealthy marriage she had thus promised the chief good of life, the lady departed.That night Lettice saw the stars rise and shine--not on the limpid Cam, not on the quaint old garden where her childish feet had played, and where afterwards--all earlier memories blotted out by those of one terrible night--she had walked patiently, bearing the burden of her sorrow for sixteen years.Sixteen years! It was thus long since Patrick Ruthven had disappeared, and yet no tidings had ever been heard of or from him. She had exerted all energies, exhausted all schemes--so far as she dared without endangering her father's safety--but could gain no clue as to the after-fate of the doomed youth. Whether he still languished in prison, or had been freed by escape or death, all was mystery; her only certainty was, that he had not perished on the scaffold.And so, praying for him day and night, and loving him continually, this faithful woman had lived on. The days and years of her youth had glided from her like the waves of a river, uncounted, for no light of love rested on them. Their onward course she neither watched nor feared.She saw the young men and maidens of her own age pass away into the whirl of life, woo, and marry, and gather round them a third generation, while she remained the same. Wooers she had, for when sorrow comes in early youth, and fails to crush, it sometimes leaves behind a tender charm beyond all beauty, and this made Lettice not unsought. Some women--good women, too--can love, in their simple, easy-hearted fashion, twice, thrice, many times. Others pour out their whole soul in one love, and have no more left to give ever after. Lettice Calderwood was one of these.Her father lingered many years in great bodily weakness, and in an almost fatuous old age. She tended him unweariedly until he died. Then, when she had no kindred tie left in the wide world, no duty to perform, none to love, and none to obey, she formed a resolution over which she had been long brooding with an intensity of persevering will such as few women have, but which none ever has except a woman.That resolution planned, maturely guided, carried through many hindrances, formidable indeed, but which fell like straws before the might of her great love, Lettice found herself at last an inmate of the Tower. If there--as in all human probability he was, unless no longer of this world--she should certainly discover Patrick Ruthven. Further plans she saw not clearly, still doubtful as she was of his very existence. But as she sat by herself in the silent midnight, within a few yards, it might be, of the spot where, if living, he still dragged on his mournful days, or where, if dead, his spirit had parted from the body, there came upon her a conviction which often clings to those whose portion is somewhat like to hers.'He is not dead,' Lettice murmured, `else he would have come to me: he knew I should not have feared. No, he is still living; and if living, I will find and save him.'So, praying for her Patrick with the woman's pale, faded lips, as the girl had prayed sixteen years before--Lettice fell asleep.It was a dangerous thing for the free inhabitants of the Tower to inquire too closely about the prisoners. The days of Guy Fawkes and Sir Thomas Overbury were not so long past but that all who had any interest in the enemies of King James were wisest to keep a silent tongue and close-shut eyes. Lettice Calderwood had dwelt for weeks within the walls where perchance lay her never-forgotten lover, and yet she had never heard or breathed the name of Patrick Ruthven.Her whole time was spent with the governor's children. They--happy little creatures!--played merrily outside the cells wherein was buried misery and despair. Sometimes

they talked about the prisoners with a light unconsciousness, as if speaking of cattle or things inanimate. Poor little ones; how could they understand the meaning of the word?`Do you ever see the--the prisoners?' Lettice ventured to ask of them one day.`Oh yes; a few are allowed to walk on the leads, and then we peep at them from below. We are very good friends with one or two--our father says we may.'`Who are they, my child?' If the little girl could have known the strong convulsion that passed over Lettice's heart while she put this simple question!'We don't call them anything; they are only prisoners. They have been here a great many years, I believe. One lives there, in the Beauchamp Tower--he is always writing; and when we go in to see him--for he likes us to come--he does nothing but puff, puff, puff!' And the laughing child put her finger in her mouth, and began mimicking a smoker to perfection.`Mabel,' said the elder sister, `you should not laugh at him, for our father says he is a good man, and the king is not very angry with him, any more than with the other man who is shut up in the Bell Tower. You should see him, Mistress Lettice; he is my favourite, because he is so gentle. They say he walks on the leads between his room and the Beauchamp Tower, night after night, watching the stars; and he plays with us children, and gets us to bring him quantities of flowers, out of which he makes such wonderful medicines. He cured Mabel of the chincough, and father of the ague, and'--`Hush, Grace; Mistress Lettice is quite tired with your chatter. See how white she looks!''No--go on, my darlings; talk as much as you will,'

murmured Lettice; and rousing herself, she contrived to learn from them what this prisoner was like.A little, bent man--very old the children thought, because his hair was quite gray, except a few locks behind that were just the colour of Grace's. Lettice, holding the child on her knee, had often secretly kissed the soft fair curls; she did so now with passionate tenderness. Yet could it indeed be Patrick--so changed! The thing seemed scarce possible.Next time the children went to see this prisoner she hid herself, where, from below, she could watch the leads on which he was accustomed to walk. There was the figure of a man, moving with the heavy, stooping, lounging gait of long captivity. Could it be that Patrick's youth had been crushed into such a pitiable semblance as this? He came and leaned on the breast-work or boundary of his narrow walk. In the distance the features were indistinct; but something in the wavy falling of the hair reminded her of Patrick. She half uttered a cry of recognition, suppressed it, sank back, and wept. His name--if she could only learn the captive's name! But there was great mystery kept about that. The children said `he had none, he had been in the Tower so many years.' Grace added that she had once asked him, and he answered `that he had almost forgotten it.' Alas, poor soul!One day Lettice, impelled by a wild hope, fastened in Grace's dress a little childish ornament that she herself had used to wear; it had been broken, and the boy Patrick's rude workmanship was on it still. If this man were indeed he, it might catch his eye, and bring back to his dulled memory the days of his youth. He touched the ornament, Grace said; observed that it was pretty; that he thought he had once seen one like it, he could not tell where; and

then his dull mood came over him, and he would not talk any more.Lettice's eager hope sank; but on it she lived yet longer; and day by day she watched tearfully the poor captive, who, if not Patrick, had suffered Patrick's doom.The child Grace fell sick. Lettice grieved, for she loved the little girl; but this trouble seemed helping to work out her one great aim of life. Then, at least, she might hear more of the prisoner whose skill in medicine had won the deep gratitude of both the governor and his lady. But Grace improved, and still of the invisible physician nothing was disclosed. At length one night, when the anxious mother and Lettice were watching the child, together and alone, there arose an emergency.'The potion will be needed at dawn; 'tis near midnight, and I have not sent to--to the Bell Tower,' said the mother. `What must be done? Whom can I trust?' She looked at Lettice, whom she and all the household had already learned to love--'I will trust you.'She explained briefly that the child's physician was a state prisoner, who had acquired his skill during sixteen years' captivity; that his durance was now greatly softened by the king's order; but that still, except the governor's family, he was allowed to see no one, nor to hold any communication with the outer world. 'And,' said the lady, `if I send you to him, you must keep silence on all concerning him, for he and his have been greatly hated by King James; and no marvel. He is Patrick, "the last of the Ruthvens!"'What dizzy, tumultuous joy rushed to the heart of the faithful woman, who, alter long-silent years, again heard

the music of that name! But she stood still and mute, calm, and gave no sign.'Lettice, will you go?''I will;' and she went.There was not a foot heard, not a breath stirring, in the grim old Tower. As, bearing the ponderous keys, she unfastened door after door, the sound of the opening locks was startling and awful. At the foot of the Bell Tower Lettice paused. Sixteen years all swept away; her heart throbbed, and her pale brow of middle age flushed like a young girl's. Would he know her? Would she not appal him, standing suddenly, like a spectre, by his side? She pulled her hood over her face, and resolved to speak in a feigned voice, lest the shock might overpower his strength. Thinking of his emotion, she soon calmed her own, and came with firm step to the outer door. There gleamed a faint ray through some worm-eaten fissure; the governor's wife had told her that he always studied until late in the night. Lettice pictured him as at the old home at Cambridge, as in perpetual youth he dwelt ever in her memory. She saw him, leaning over his books, with his pale boyish features, his fair curls, his dreamy-lidded eyes. She opened the door, and saw--a gray-headed man, withered and bent, quaint and careless in dress, sat writing by lamplight. He momentarily raised his head; the face had a strange, old-world look, mingled with an aspect half of vacancy, half of abstraction. Lettice shrank aghast. It seemed as if the olden Patrick were dead for ever, and this were a phantom risen up to mock her. But when he spoke, it was his own true voice.'Ah, you come for the child Grace's potion?' said he. ''Tis all prepared; wait a moment--listen!'He rose, put the medicine into her hand, and proceeded

to give various directions concerning it. Then he sat down again, and prepared to resume his reading. Lettice stood silent; that he did not recognise her she plainly saw, yet this was what she had desired. Why should she feel pain?She put back her hood and approached him: `Master Patrick Ruthven!'He started, but it could only be to hear the long-unused Christian name; for, looking up at her face, now turned fully on him, his expressed only blank unconsciousness. He did not know her!'Madam, pardon me; I have not seen you before, but I suppose you come from little Grace. If I have omitted anything, or forgotten--One forgets everything here.' Lettice groaned.The poor captive looked disturbed, bewildered; restlessly he moved his papers about, and she saw his hands, long, white, and woman-like, whose delicacy William used to mock and Lettice to admire; the same hands she had clasped and kissed in her last frenzied agony of parting. She did so now.'Patrick--Patrick! have you forgotten me--even me?He looked at her again, and shook his head. `I have seen you somewhere I think, perhaps in the old time before I came hither; but my memory is poor, very poor. What is your name?''Lettice!'A light came into his face for a moment, and faded. 'It is a sweet name. I used to love it once, I believe--some one I knew bore it; but, as I said, I forget so many things now. Lettice--Lettice!' He repeated the name, as if trying to call back images of a long-past life.Lettice's first horror passed. She discerned all now--

she saw what he had become; how, shut up from youth to manhood in that fearful prison, his life had withered there; how, as the slow, vacant years crawled by, passion, affection, feeling of every kind, had grown dull. Wreck as he was--the wreck captivity had made him--her never-dying love encompassed him still.'Patrick,' she said gently, though her tears were flowing fast, `look at me, and try to think of the past. There was my father, who taught you when you were a boy; and I, Lettice Calderwood, who used to be your playfellow. The old house at Cambridge--the river-bank where you liked to sit--the garden and the laurel-trees.'His features began to quiver: 'It is dim, very dim; but I think I do remember all this--ay, and you, Lettice! I am glad to see you once more.'He trembled a good deal, and looked at her many times, as though, in comparing his old recollection of her with her likeness now, the difference puzzled him.Lettice said, faintly smiling, `You know I am old now--one changes much in sixteen years.' But the smile brought back her own old self, and Patrick's mind seemed to grow clearer.`I think,' he said with a mournful simplicity--'I think I must have loved you once. I never forgot you, even here, until'--and he shuddered--'until they put me into that dark, damp cell, where I heard no sound and saw no living face for I know not how long. I forgot everything then.'Lettice's heart was bursting; she pressed his hands to her breast and sobbed aloud. At first he seemed troubled by her emotion, and then, as if unable to resist, his own gray hair drooped on Lettice's shoulder, and the poor prisoner also wept. By slow degrees Patrick's

memory wakened to the things of the past and of the living world; but they seemed to touch him little. He heard of David Calderwood's death with a quiet sigh--all keen sense of human pain seemed to be obliterated from his mind. After a pause he asked, though still half indifferently, 'There was my brother too--tell me something of William.''William acted nobly, and so acting, ceased to be unhappy',' said Lettice in a confused voice.`Unhappy!' repeated the captive vacantly. 'Ah, yes; I had forgotten: we had much sorrow in our youth--he, and you, and I'--'Hush, Patrick! we will not speak of that. I wrote to William, and told him all: he freed me from my promises. Time brought him comfort; he remained abroad, married', and last year--grieve not, Patrick, for, living, he had great happiness--last year he died.''Poor William dead!--my last brother dead!' Patrick said thoughtfully, and sat a long time wistfully gazing in the air, now and then uttering broken words, which showed his mind was recalling incidents of their boyish days. At last he said, `And you, Lettice--what of yourself?''I am as you left me--poor Lettice Calderwood; in nothing changed but years.' She murmured this with her eyes cast down, as if she had need to be ashamed that she had felt a woman's one, pure love; that for it she had given up all sweetnesses of wifehood and motherhood, and stood there in her faded bloom, speaking no word, but letting her whole life's story speak for her: 'See how faithful I have been to thee!'Perhaps, as Patrick looked on her, some sense of the greatness of this love, so strong in its oneness, so patient in its endurance, dawned upon his bewildered and long-

paralysed sense. He stretched out his arms to her, crying, 'I am unworthy--most unworthy! But, Lettice, love me still; help me--take care of me; do not leave me again!'He had forgotten, and she too, all worldly things. Waking, they found that she was only humble Lettice Calderwood, and he a prisoner in the Tower. No matter--one at least had ceased to fear. When a woman once feels that all depends upon the strength of her love--that the power to will and to act of necessity lies in her hands--she gains a courage which nothing can daunt or quell. And as Lettice bade Patrick Ruthven farewell, whispering hope and tenderness which his long-dulled ears would scarce receive, she felt certain that she should set her beloved free; ay, as certain as though she stood at the head of armies to hurling James from his throne.Little Grace recovered; and unto the mother's heart, still trembling with its recent joy, another heart was laid to open itself, with all its burden of many years. One day, when both their spirits were attuned to confidence, Lettice told the governor's wife her whole story. It was a story that would have melted many a one to sympathy: the young Scottish gentlewoman listened even with tears. Ruthven was her countryman, and she had shown him kindness ever since her husband was made governor; he was her child's preserver, and she determined to try all efforts to obtain his liberty. She exerted secret influence at court, at first with hope of success; but that year the bugbear treason was loudly dinned into the pusillanimous monarch's ears, and Tower Hill was again watered with its red rain.One day the little Grace and Mabel loudly lamented that they were forbidden any longer to visit their friend in

the Beauchamp Tower. On the next, Lettice and Patrick, walking on the leads (where she had liberty to visit him now), saw the black procession winding past, and heard distinctly the heavy sound of the axe's fall. Patrick said, 'There dies a just man and a guiltless, and one that Davie Calderwood would have mourned. God receive the soul of Walter Raleigh!'He spoke calmly, as if such sights had ceased to move him; but Lettice crouched down, hiding her face in inexpressible horror. When they re-entered his narrow prison she clasped her arms wildly round her betrothed--for they had plighted their troth to one another, whether it were for life or death; she held him fast. She felt that to have him safe, with freedom to see him, to love and comfort him, was blessedness even here.And so, for a whole year, through fear lest the king's anger should be roused, nothing more was done towards effecting Ruthven's release.When once a generous purpose roots itself in a leal Scottish heart, especially a woman's, it is not easy to up-root it thence. The governor's wife came to Lettice one day, and told her that there was hope, since Queen Anne was dead, and the king would now fear no treason from the Ruthven line. She applied to the court, and answer came that Patrick Ruthven should be set at liberty, if some near friend would solicit his pardon.`A form--a mere form--only desired to soothe King James's pride,' said the plain-speaking Scottish lady. She came from the hold race of Kirkaldy of Grange.But, form as it was, when Lettice told her lover the tidings, he shook his head in his listless way, and said it could never be.I have no friend in the wide world to plead, or to crave my pardon. All my kith and kin have died away; I am left the last of my race. No, Lettice; it is best as it is! Perchance I would have liked to go once more to the meadows by the Cam where the rare flowers grow; and it would have been a sweet and thankful duty to exercise my skill in healing on the poor and needy. But let be--let be! Do not talk of worldly liberty; we will go and look at the free, free stars that roam, night after night, over this prison, and never tire! Come, my faithful Lettice--come!'But Lettice groaned in spirit. He, long used to captivity, scarce felt the chain; she, for his sake, writhed under it like a double weight.`Patrick,' she said, leaning by him, and with him watching the few dull lights that were scattered throughout the black city which lay below, while a yellow mist rising from the river gathered over everything, pale and cold--'my Patrick, would it not be happy to go far away from here into your own clear northern air? look!'-and she pointed to the barren osier-flats through which the "Thames winds seaward--'if instead of that dull line were the mountains you told me of when we were children, the blue hills rising, height after height, like a good man's life, which grows year by year nearer to heaven, until it melts, cloud-like, into heaven itself at last'--The prisoner sighed, and looked on the blank landscape with glistening eyes that saw not it, but some dim view beyond.
Lettice continued: `Ay, and if we were free--both free--if we could hide ourselves in some sweet spot, and live our old child-like life!'He answered restlessly, `Do not talk of this, or else I

shall die of longing; and I had grown so resigned, so content with my books and my herbs. Why did you bring me back to the bitter world?''To save thee, my beloved!' she answered soothingly. 'To take thee out of prison, and bring back to thee the dew of thy youth. Shall it not be so?''How can it, when there is no one who has a right to entreat for my pardon? I have no kindred, no tie in the wide world!''Save one.''Ah, true!--forgive me, my faithful love! But what can you do?'Lettice hid her face on his shoulder. If she blushed, it was not with shame, for she knew her own pure heart, and Heaven knew it too. She rose, and spoke in a quiet, womanly tone, though somewhat trembling the while.'Patrick, we are neither of us young; all love we bear each other is stilled into the affection that lives between two who, having wasted half a lifetime in sorrow, hope to spend the poor remainder together and in peace. You will not misjudge what I am going to say?''No--no,' answered Ruthven in his absent manner.'There is but one way to obtain your freedom. Dearest, long-lost, and found, let your wife go and plead for you before the king!'The young kinswoman of Kirkaldy of Grange had a rebellious yearning, though she was a governor's lady. She liked to thwart King James of his captives when it could be clone with safety. Secretly, in order to avoid all risk to her husband, she introduced a Scottish minister to the dismal chambers of the Bell Tower. There, in that dull prison-house, was celebrated a marriage. Brief it was,

and grave; without smiles, without tears--it could not be said without love, for they did love one another, those two who, as girl and boy, had clung together so wildly in the garden by the Cam. But their love was not like that of youth; it was deep, solemn, still.When the marriage was performed, Patrick, in his dreamy way, said, `Is it all done? Am I thy husband, Lettice?'She answered, `Yes.'`A hard task to fulfil; a weary life to lead! But art thou content?'She answered, `I am content;' and taking his hand, held it fast in that which would now guide him through life.'Nay, have no fear, friends,' cheeringly said the brave Scottish lady who had aided them so much. `King James is feeble-hearted, and he has heard the people's outcry against Raleigh's twelve years' imprisonment, sealed at last with blood. He dare not do the like again. Lettice, take comfort; you will soon have your husband free.'She heard the word--she who had never dreamed of any other life than one of aimless loneliness, over which hung the pale shadow of that early-lost love. Her heart melted under the sense of its great content, and she wept as softly and joyfully as though she had been a young bride.`Will his Majesty appear to-day, my Lord of Buckingham?' said one of the Scottish attendants of the palace at Whitehall, meeting the twin stars of James's court--`Steenie' and `Baby Charles.'`Wherefore, good Ferguson?'`Because, my lord, there is a person here craving

audience who has been recommended to me by a country-woman of my own.'`A woman, is it? My prince, let us see!'The woman rose up and curtsied beneath the gaze of royalty and nobility, but she had nothing in her to retain either. She was pale, little, and of middle age.  'Steenie' gave her a mock salutation; Prince Charles, ever chivalrous to women, acknowledged her lowly reverence with his dignified, half-melancholy Stuart smile, and the two youths passed out.'The king is coming, Mistress Ruthven; now is your time!' whispered young Allan Ferguson.He entered--the poor feeble pedant, to whom had dwindled down the ancient line of Scotland's kings. Surrounding him were the great and noble of the day: Gondomar, the gay Spanish ambassador; the Lord Chancellor Bacon; all the choicest of the English nobility left after the death-sweeping reigns of Mary and Elizabeth; and those of the king's own country whom his conciliatory rule had detached from various factions, to join in fidelity to the one branch of the Stuart family now remaining.`Hech, sirs, wha's here?' James cried in his sharp, quavering voice, through which rang the good humour produced by a satisfactory arrangement with Spain completed that same hour. `Petitioning, my bonnie woman? Awed, then say your say!'Lettice told her story in words so broken that they would scarce have been understood save for the earnestness of her eyes. It was a story touching and interesting even to James and his frivolous court. To them it sounded new and curious to hear of a woman who had loved and suffered, waited and hoped, and gone through all trial for one man's sake, for seventeen years. And it so chanced

that their possible mockery of her long maiden life was prevented by Lettice almost unconsciously saying `my husband,' as the governor's wife had charged her to say, instead of mentioning at once the hated name of Ruthven.James looked discomposed. `My lords, a king maun do as he wills; ye a' ken the chapters in my Basilicon Doron respecting free monarchies, and the right or prerogative of rulers. But I wadna keep an innocent man--mind ye, an innocent man--in prison for sixteen--did she no say sixteen years? Woman, wha may ye he, and why didna ye tell your husband's name?'`It is a name the bearing of which was the only wrong the ever did your Majesty: I am the wife of Patrick Ruthven.'James turned pale, as he ever did at the sound of that dreaded name. He never forgot that it was a Ruthven who acted in that scene of blood which impressed cowardice on the nature of the yet unborn babe; he never forgot the actors in the Gowrie Plot, who, for a brief space, caused him, a king by birth and right, to be tied and bound like a felon.He frowned, and looked round on his courtiers, who kept a discreet silence. Then he said, with a pedantic air, `Woman, I will hear thee again on this matter,' and passed into the audience-chamber.Lettice's heart grew cold. It was a horrible thing to reflect that life or death lay on the fiat of that poor, vain, fickle king. No! On the fiat of a King far higher, whose government was not kingdoms, but worlds. Kneeling where she had knelt to King James, she knelt to Him and prayed.There came, crossing the empty chamber, one of the

nobles who had formed the monarch's train. He was an old man, tall and pale. His demeanour savoured more of the courtly grace of Elizabeth's reign than the foppish gallantry of James's. He announced his name at once.'Mistress Ruthven, I am the Earl of Hertford.'She had heard it in the Tower. It had been long chronicled there as a portion of that mournful story of the Lady Catherine Grey, sister to Queen Jane, who, marrying Hertford without Elizabeth's consent, had been imprisoned until her young life's close.He was an old man now, but something in Lettice's story had touched him with the days of youth. He came to say that he would plead her cause with the king, and that he thought she had good reason to hope.'And you have been parted ever since your marriage--seventeen years?''We are but newly married, my lord; our bridal was in the Tower,' said Lettice, who never said aught but truth.'Ah! no need to tell the king that; yet it makes a sadder tale still. Where abides your husband in the Tower?''In the Bell Tower--a narrow, dreary spot.''I know--I know!' He turned away, perhaps remembering the poor young mother who had there given birth to his two brave sons. He, too, had felt the bitterness of captivity; and as he departed from Lettice, having given her both counsel and cheer, she heard the old noble-man muttering to himself, `Seventeen years!--seventeen years!'Patrick Ruthven sat in his tower poring over his

wealth of books. An August sunbeam, quivering in, rested on a bunch of dried flowers, which the herbalist was examining with great earnestness. He scarce lifted up his head when the light footstep warned him of his wife's entrance.'Lettice,' he said, 'eureka!' (I have found it!) `This plant must be the veritable hemlock of the ancients--the potion which gave Socrates death. Compare the description--see!'He looked at her; she was trembling all over with joy.'My husband,' she said breathlessly, `leave these books; come and gaze out in the clear morning air. How fresh it is; how free--free--free!'She repeated the word, that her tidings might dawn upon him slowly, not too bewilderingly. She drew him out upon the prison-leads, and bade him look northwards, where in the distance the ripening wheat-fields shone wave upon wave like yellow seas.`Think, Patrick, to go thither: to sit down under the sheaves like little children, as we used to do; to hear the trees rustling and see the swallows fly; and then to go home--to a quiet, safe cottage home.O Patrick, my husband, you are free!'`I am free!' He, the prisoner for seventeen years, neither fell down in a swoon of transport, nor wept, nor grew wild with ecstasy. He only uttered the words in a monotonous, incredulous tone--`I am free!' His wife embraced him with passionate joy; he kissed her, stroked her still fair cheek--fairer still since she had once more known peace--and then went slowly back into his dark room.There he sat motionless, while Lettice busied herself

in putting together the books and scientific matters which had gradually accumulated round the captive. Then she brought him attire suitable for a man of middle rank at that period.'You must not wear this out in the world, my Patrick,' said the wife, touching his threadbare robe of a fashion many years back.'Must I not?' and he contemplated the dress, which seemed to him gaudy and strange. 'Lettice,' he murmured, `I am afraid--is the world so changed? Must I give up my old ways?'But she soothed him with quiet words, and made ready for his departure. Ere they quitted the Bell Tower he went into the little closet which had been his bed-chamber, and, kneeling down, thanked God, and prayed for all captives a deliverance like his own. As he rose there peeped at him a bright-eyed mouse.'Poor fellow-prisoner, whom I have fed so many years, who will feed thee now?' and breaking off some food, he called the little creature to his hand and gave it its last meal.Then leaning on his wife's arm--for he trembled, and seemed feeble as a child--Patrick Ruthven left the Tower. He had entered it a youth of nineteen; he quitted it a worn-out, premature old man of thirty-six. The prime and glory of manhood had been wasted in that gloomy prison. Thank God, there is no such doom for innocence now!Far past what then was London's utmost verge Lettice Ruthven led her husband. He walked through the streets like one in a dream; all sounds stunned him; all sights bewildered him. If a chance eye noticed his somewhat

strange aspect, he clung to Lettice with terror, lest he should again be taken. She told him there was no fear; that the king had granted him a free pardon; that Prince Charles, the merciful and warm-hearted, had settled on him a pension for life. All this he heard as if he heard it not. Nothing soothed him but Lettice's calm smile.They came to the place which she had chosen as their first abode. It was a farm-house, planted on one of the hills to the north of London. Above was a great wide heath; below, numberless little undulating valleys, with trees and meadows, harvest-fields and streams. There, after sunset, they took their evening walk. He, long used to the close air of the prison, shivered even at the warm summer wind; and his feeble limbs, accustomed to pace their narrow round, could scarce endure fatigue. But Lettice wrapped him warm, and took him to a soft wooded bank with a stream running below. There he lay, his head on her lap, listening to the ripple of the water.He had never heard that sound since he was a boy sitting beside the Cam, on the night his brother sailed from Harwich. Though his memory was dull yet, and he rarely spoke of the past, perhaps he thought of it now, for the tears crept through his shut eyes, and he whispered, 'Lettice, you are sure, quite sure, that afterwards William was happy?'She told him again and again that it was indeed so. She did not tell him how --though William grew renowned abroad--he never sent for tidings of his imprisoned brother. She would not pain the fraternal love which had kept its faith through life so close and true.`And, Patrick, are you happy?'He answered 'Yes!' softly, like a drowsy child. His wife leant over him, and her hand fell on his hair, once so beautiful, now quite gray. Something of protection was there in her love for him; the mingling of reverence and tender care, due alike to his great mental power and his almost infantile simplicity in worldly things. All he had, she honoured with her whole soul; all he had not, she, possessing, made his own. She was a fit wife for him. And so, in this deep content and peace, the sun set upon Patrick Ruthven's last day of captivity.A house, simple, yet not mean, facing the river-side at Chelsea, its upper storeys tanned by a line of majestic trees. To those of dreamy mood there could be no sweeter spot than Cheyne Walk in the moonlight; the river lying silvery and calm; the tall trees rustling among their branches, telling tales of the quaint old mansions they overshadow. But the house of which we were speaking was of humble appearance. Its occupants had chosen it more for the sake of the trees and the river than for any interior show. They lived retired; and when, as now, the master re-entered his own door, he was not met by a troop of domestics, but by one little, old, gentle-looking woman--his wife.Twenty more years had passed over the head of Lettice Ruthven, yet something of its ancient airiness was in her footstep still; and in her eyes shone the same loving light, for it was kindled at an altar where the fire was never suffered to decay.'You are late to-night, Patrick?' said she.'Ay; I have been all through the meadows at Chiswick, in search of herbs for a poor lad down there who is

stricken with ague. I stayed late gathering them, and there came by a couple of Roundheads, who hooted at me for a wizard hunting for charmed plants in the moon-light. All me! do I look such a weird creature, Lettice?' asked the old man in a piteous, humble tone.He certainly had an out-of-the-world aspect in his long white beard and hair, and his black serge gown, which he wore to indicate his character as physician. And there was a passive gentleness in his voice, which showed how little able he was to assert his own dignity, or to fight his own battles with the hard world. Well for him that neither had been needed; that for twenty years his life had flowed in a quiet stream, he growing continually more absorbed in his favourite studies, and leaving all mundane matters to his faithful helpmate. She did not usually trouble him with any of these latter, but on this day she seemed longing to talk of something else beside the additions he was making to the 'Middlesex Flora,' or the wonderful cures he had wrought with simples until then unknown; or, what he carefully kept for his wife's ears alone, his discoveries in those abstruse and occult sciences, the love of which seemed inherent in the Ruthven blood.'I have found it out,' he said, 'the parchment charm worn by my brother, the Earl John. All these years I have kept it, and never deciphered it until now. It will bring to us and all our children great prosperity.''All our children!' repeated Lettice mournfully. She looked at a corner of the room where hung, each in its never-changed place, a boy's plumed hat, and beside it a heap of well-worn childish books, mementoes of two sons who had come and been taken away, leaving the hearth desolate.'Ah, I forgot!' said the father, with a light sigh. `Bravely did Aleck read his Greek Galen; and as for poor wee Willie, he knew every plant in Battersea Fields. Well might the gossips mock at me, saying, "Physician, heal thyself," or rather thy two better selves. But I could not. I am aye good for little, very little.'His wife took his hand affectionately, and said, smiling through her tears, 'Nay, there is many a one hereabouts who lifts his hat when Dr Ruthven passes by. If the vulgar mock, the learned honour my husband. And, Patrick,' she murmured with her sweet voice of calm, which hid all sorrow from him, `though our two boys are with God, He has left us our Marie. I saw her to-day.''Did she come hither?''No; she cannot easily leave the queen's household, you know. But she bade me meet her at some friend's,' and a faint expression of pain crossed the mother's face. 'Perhaps she was right; I am scarce fit to mingle with court ladies, as Marie does; and Marie is growing as beautiful and as stately as any of them all.''Is she?' said Dr Ruthven absently. He never felt the same affection for his daughter as he had done for his two lost sons. Marie had in early youth been separated from her family, and taken under the care of the wife of the former lieutenant of the Tower--now become a countess, and in high favour in the queen's household. Through her means, the little girl was afterwards adopted by Henrietta Maria, to be educated at court, and raised to the position due to the last daughter of the direct Ruthven line.'She had tidings for me, Patrick--tidings that may well make a mother's heart both tremble and rejoice. The queen wishes to dispose of our daughter in marriage.'Ruthven lifted his eyes, dropped them, and then became intent upon a handful of flowers which he had drawn from the great coarse bag he always carried in his rambles. It was evident he took little interest in the news which had so agitated the mother.`Do you not wish to know who it is that will wed our Marie--ay, and at once, for all is fixed?''I hope it may be some good man. Young women usually do marry--I am glad she should do so; but you know, Lettice, I am a quiet, dreamy, old philosopher; I have forgotten all such things.'So spoke, after nearly forty years, the boyish lover who had sat mournfully by the side of the Cam. But this life is an eternal progression. Young passionate love must of necessity change its forms. Yet what matters that, if its essence remains the same? Lettice, the wife of many years, keeping in her heart still something of its fresh, womanly romance, neither murmured nor felt pain that with her husband the day of love had gradually passed into evening-tide. And as with her, so should it be with all. Never should a maiden give her troth, never should a bride stand at the altar, unless she can look calmly forward to the time when all romance melts into reality; when youth and passion cease, and even long-assured affection, from its very certainty, at times grows tame. Never ought a woman to take the marriage-vow unless she can bear to think fearlessly of the time when she will sit an old wife by her old husband's side, while her only influence over him, her only comfort for herself, lies in the strength of that devotion, which, saying not alone in words but in constant deeds, `I love thee!' desires and exacts no more.This picture was Lettice Ruthven in her old age.She might have sighed to hear Patrick speak so forgetfully of those things which she with great tenderness remembered still--for women cling longer than men to the love-days of their youth--but she never thought of bringing the brightness of that olden dream to contrast painfully with their calm life now. She passed over her husband's words, and kept silence, musing on her daughter's future.'He is a rich man, and one of great renown, this Sir Anthony Vandyck,' she said at last. 'Being the king's painter, he saw our Marie frequently at court; no wonder he thought her beautiful, or that he should learn to adore her, as she says he does. I wonder if she loves him?''Fret not thyself about that, good-wife, but come and tie up this bundle of herbs for me. There, hang it on the wall, and then sit by me with thy knitting-needles, which I like to watch until I go to sleep. I am so weary, Lettice.'She arranged the cushion under his head. He looked quite old now, far more so than she, though they were nearly equal in years. But he never recovered from the long imprisonment which had enfeebled all the springs of life. Lettice watched him as he slept--his pale, withered face, his thin hands--and her undying tenderness enfolded him yet. Dearly she had cherished her children--the two dead boys, the daughter now her sole pride--but this one great love was beyond them all.Ten years more--ten years, during which the kingdom had been torn from its foundations; and the humble physician and his wife still lived on--safe in their obscurity. The storm had touched them, however; for with the overthrow of kingly power had ceased the pension granted

by Charles I. to Patrick Ruthven. They were poor, very poor, and in their poverty there was none to aid for the aged parents were worse than childless. Marie--the young widow of Sir Anthony Vandyck, and soon afterwards the wife of Sir John Pryse--Marie had forsaken them. Still they lived on, needing little; but that little was always supplied. Patrick practised as a wandering physician and herbalist, so far as his declining strength allowed; and now and then they received help from their trusty friend, the leal-hearted Scottish lady who had contrived their marriage in the Tower. Day by day the faithful wife of Patrick Ruthven proved the truth of those truest words: `I have been young, and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.'One day, when the January twilight was fast closing in, Lettice sat waiting for her husband. He had been absent since morning, having journeyed to London with a young boy whose life he had once saved, and who oftentimes faithfully guarded the old physician's failing steps. Lettice waited, and waited, until it grew dark. The slow pulse of age is not easily stirred with the quick fears of youth. Yet she was growing alarmed, when she heard a well-known step, and Patrick Ruthven tottered in.'My husband, what is this?' cried Lettice, for his aspect was wild and disordered. He trembled violently, and kept continually his hand before his eyes. At last he slowly removed it, and looked fearfully around.`I think I shall not see it here; I have seen it all the way home--the axe, the block--even the snow on the hedge-side seemed dyed with blood! O Lettice, Lettice, it was horrible!'She, in her seclusion, knew nothing of what had

happened on that doomed day, which she had spent calmly sitting in her quiet cottage--the 29th of January 1649. She thought her husband's mind was wandering, as it well might, to the horrors of his youth and middle age. She tried to soothe him, but in vain. Some great shock had evidently overwhelmed the old man's feeble powers. As he sat in his arm-chair shudder after shudder came over him. Often he clutched his wife's hand convulsively or muttered broken exclamations. At last he said, speaking somewhat more connectedly, 'I will tell thee all, Lettice. This day I went to London; the streets were crowded with people, thronging as it were, to some great sight. I asked a soldier if it were so. He laughed and said there was indeed at Whitehall a rare show--a royal show. I thought it was the king restored, so I said with gladness, `God bless King Charles!" Then the soldier smote me down. Look, Lettice!' He held up his bruised arm, and his wife turned pale. 'Nay, it is nothing; for the people rescued me soon, and one man cried, "We have blood enough on our heads this day." So the crowd bore me on with them till we came to Whitehall.'Lettice ever changed countenance at the word, which brought back that great crisis in her life--when she came to the palace to plead for her husband's freedom. She said anxiously, `And what didst thou see there, Patrick?'`A black scaffold, an axe, a block--sights I knew well!' he answered, shuddering. His wife came closer to him, but could not calm his rising excitement. 'Yes,' he cried, 'it was indeed a royal show--it was the murder of a king!'There was a dead pause, and then Patrick continued:`He came forth, stepping from his own palace window

to the scaffold. When he appeared women shrieked, even men wept. For me--the strength of my youth seemed restored; I lifted my voice in the crowd, crying out, "I am Patrick Ruthven! That man's father sent my father to the block, slew my two brothers, imprisoned me for seventeen years; yet would I not take life for life. God defend king Charles!" But the people crushed round and silenced me. There was an awful hush; then I saw the axe shining--saw it fall.'The old man gasped, shivered, and was seized with a sort of convulsion. All night he raved of things long past, of the scenes of blood which had marked his child-hood, of those he had witnessed in the Tower. Towards morning these paroxysms ceased, and with ebbing strength there came over him a great calm. He tried to rise, and walked with Lettice's help to their fireside. But he staggered as he moved, and sinking in his arm-chair, said piteously, 'I am so weary--so weary!' Then he fell into a quiet slumber.While he slept there entered the Scottish lady. She was attired in black, her countenance full of grief and horror. She came hastily to say she was going abroad, to join her unhappy mistress. Her heart seemed bursting with its load of indignant sorrow.'Look you,' cried she, 'I never loved the Stuart line: even my husband says that, as a king, the king erred; but I would have given my right hand to save the life of Charles Stuart. And I wish that I may yet see this vile England flow with blood, to atone for his, which rests upon it this day! But, Lettice, you are calm--these horrors touch not you?'And then mournfully Lettice told of what had befallen her husband.The lady stepped quickly and noiselessly to look at Dr Ruthven. He still slept, but over his face had come a great change. The temples had fallen in; there were dark lines round the eyes; yet over all was a sweetness and peace like that of childhood. Lettice almost thought she saw in him the image of the boy Patrick, her play-fellow by the Cam. She said so to her friend, who answered nothing, but stood steadfastly gazing a long time. Then she took Lettice's hand, and looked at her solemnly, even with tears. But she did not speak, nor did Lettice.`I shall come back here to-morrow; my journey may wait a day,' she muttered, and departed.Lettice Ruthven went to her husband's side, and watched him until he awoke. It was with a quiet smile. 'What think you, dear wife, I have been dreaming of the old time at Cambridge. How long is that ago?' She counted, and told him, more than fifty years. 'It seems like a day. How happy we were, Lettice--you, and William, and I! How we used to sit by the river-side on summer nights, and play by moonlight among the laurels! I think, when I gain strength enough, we will go and see the old place once more.'So he talked at intervals all day, referring to incidents which had vanished even from Lettice's memory. For thirty years he had not spoken of these things; and Lettice, while she listened, felt a vague awe stealing over her. Something she remembered to have heard, that at life's close the mind often recurs vividly to childhood, while all the intermediate time grows dim. Could it be so now?At night Patrick did not seem inclined for rest. He said he would rather stay in his arm-chair by the fireside. There, sometimes talking, sometimes falling into slumber,

the old man lay, his wife watching over him continually. Gradually the truth dawned upon her--that on the path they had long trodden together his steps would be the soonest to fail. To the eternal land, now so near unto both, he would be the first to depart.`It is well!' she murmured, thinking not of herself, but only of his helplessness--as a mother thinks of a child whom she would fain place in a safe home rather than leave in the bitter world alone. `All is best thus. It is but for a little while.' And she ceased not to comfort herself with these words--'A little while--a little while!'When Patrick woke his mind had begun to wander. He fancied himself in the old house at Cambridge; he talked to his aged wife as to the girl Lettice whom he had loved. More especially, he seemed to live over again the night when he was taken prisoner.'I will hide here, but I will not see Lettice--William's Lettice! If I suffer, no one shall know. Hark, how the laurels are shaking! We must keep close. I clasp thee, love--I clasp thee! Why should I fear?'Thus he continued to talk, but gradually more brokenly, until, just before dawn, he again slept. It was a winter's morning, pale but clear. There was something heavenly in the whiteness of the snow; Lettice, looking at it, thought of the shining robes--white `such as no fuller on earth can whiten them'--with which the long-enduring shall be clothed upon one day. That day seemed near--very near now.She heard her husband call her. He had awakened once more, and in his right mind. 'Is it morning?' he asked faintly. 'I feel so strangely to-day. Lettice, take care of me.' She came to him, and laid his head on her breast. Patrick looked up, and smiled. 'Dear

wife, my comforter and sustainer! I have been happy all my life--I am happy now.'He closed his eyes, and his features sank into an expression of perfect rest. Once or twice he murmured his wife's name, those of his two boys, and another--unuttered for years--the name of Marie. Then, and not till then, the cruelly-forsaken mother wept.The old man's breathing grew fainter--the solemn hour was nigh. Lettice said softly, 'My husband, let us pray.' She knelt beside him, still holding his hands, and prayed. When she arose his soul was just departing. He whispered, smiling, `Come soon!' And Lettice answered, `Yes, love, yes!' It was all the farewell needed for a parting so peaceful and so brief.Thus Patrick Ruthven died.'You will come abroad with me, my poor Lettice,' said the Scottish lady affectionately. But Lettice refused, saying it was not worth while changing her way of life for such a little time.'Alas, a bitter life yours has been! It seems always the good who suffer!' bitterly said the lady. 'How strange seem the inequalities of this world!'Lettice Ruthven lifted her aged face, solemn yet serene. `Not so. I loved; I have spent my whole life for him I loved; I have been happy, and I thank God for all.' These were the only words that she would say.Patrick Ruthven and his wife have long been forgotten; even their very burial-place is unknown. But there lives not one true heart--surely not one woman's heart--that, in dreaming over their history, would not say, `These two were not unhappy, for they feared God and loved one another.'QUINTIN MATSYS,
THE BLACKSMITH OF ANTWERP.NEARLY four hundred years ago there was, at a short distance from the city of Antwerp, a blacksmith's cottage. It was not much better than a hut--low-roofed, mud-walled, and consisting of only one room. It was situated a little aloof from the high-road, in one of those solitary nooks which are so often found, when least suspected, in the neighbourhood of large cities. Only at times there came through the distance the faint hum of a populous town, and the high spires of the renowned cathedral stood out in bold relief against the sky, which was of that pale bluish gray peculiar to an October evening, when the brilliant autumn sunsets are in some degree gone by.The blacksmith's wife sat spinning by the half open door of her humble dwelling. She was a woman of middle age; her face was of that peculiar Flemish cast which the Dutch painters have made so well known--round, fair, and rosy, with sleepy eyes of pale blue, bearing an expression of quiet content, almost amounting to apathy. A few locks of silky flaxen hair peeped from under her Flemish cap, and were smoothly laid over a rather high forehead, where,

as yet, no wrinkle had intruded. She looked like one on whom the ills of life would fall lightly; who would go on in her own quiet way, only seen by the unobtrusive acts of goodness which she did to others. Such characters are lightly esteemed and little praised, yet what would the world be without them?The good Flemish dame sat at her work undisturbed, occasionally stopping to listen for the noise of her husband's forge, which resounded from the high-road, a little way oft, where the blacksmith had wisely placed it, as well to deaden the noise of the hammering in his little cottage as to attract stray customers. At this distance the unceasing sound of the forge was rather lulling and pleasant than otherwise, and no doubt the wife often thought so as it reached her ears, and told her of the unwearied diligence with which her husband toiled for her and her children. Their cottage had once been alive with many childish voices, but one by one all had dropped off, from sudden disease or inherent delicacy of constitution. Of eight, seven lay in the churchyard not far distant, and one only was left to cheer the blacksmith's cottage--little Quintin, the youngest born. No wonder was it, therefore, that the mother often turned her eyes within, where the child was amusing himself; and at such times the placid, almost dull expression of her face changed into a look of ineffable love, for he was her youngest and her only one.At last the sound of the forge ceased. The blacksmith's wife immediately put by her distaff, and set about preparing the evening meal; for she knew her husband's daily work was over, and that he would soon be home. The sour kraut and the beer were laid on the rudely carved plank which, fitted on trestles, served for a table; and all

was ready when the husband and father entered. He was a short, stout-built man; his broad face shone with good-nature, and his muscular frame showed strength which had not even begun to fail, though some gray locks mingled imperceptibly with his light curly hair. He nodded his head in cheerful thanks when his active wife brought him a large bowl of clear water, in which he washed his dusky face and hands; and then, without wasting words, sat down, like a hungry man as he was, to his meal. The wife, with a quiet smile, watched the eatables and drinkables disappear, interrupting him only to fill his plate or cup in silence, as a good wife ought; asking no questions until the first cravings of nature were satisfied.When the blacksmith had finished his meal, he rested his brawny arms on the table and looked in his wife's face--then for the first time broke silence. `I have had a long day's work, Gretchen; but that is not a bad thing for us, you know. I have shod all the Elector's horses. He was travelling, and said none could do it so well as Alatsys the blacksmith.'`It is a good thing to be spoken well of; but great people do not often notice such folks as we are,' answered the quiet Gretchen.`The Elector need not be ashamed of speaking of or to an honest man, who owes nothing to any one, and whose forge is never seen idle,' said the blacksmith, who was an independent character in his way, though rather phlegmatic, like the rest of his countrymen. `But, by-the-bye, working all day in the heat of that same forge makes one feel cold even here,' continued he, shivering, and glancing towards the half-open door.Gretchen rose up and closed it without saying a word.`You are a good wife, Gretchen,' said the blacksmith, looking at her affectionately; `you always think of your husband.'A pleased smile passed over Gretchen's face. 'You know, Hans, it is near the end of October; we must begin to have larger fires, I think.'`And, thank God, we shall be able to have them, and also warm clothes; for I shall have plenty of work all winter. We will have a merry Christmas dinner, wife; and Quintin shall dance and sing, and have many nice things. But where is little Quintin?' asked the blacksmith, turning round.`Here, father!' answered a sweet child's voice; and a little boy crept from out of a dark corner beside the hearth, where he had remained crouched while Matsys was eating his supper. He was slight, and rather delicate-looking, and dressed in the quaint Dutch fashion, which made him appear much older than he really was; and the uncommon intelligence of his countenance did not belie that impression. 'I am here, father; do you want little Quintin?' said the child, lifting up the long dark lashes from his deep, violet-coloured, and beautiful eyes, which indeed formed the principal charm of a face not otherwise pretty.`I want to know what you have been doing all day,' said Matsys, drawing his son on his knee and kissing him affectionately. The boy returned his father's rough but loving embrace, and then jumped off his knee, saying, 'Wait a little, father, and I will show you.'He ran to a far corner of the room; the mother looked after him, saying, 'Quintin often alarms me; he is always getting near the fire, and working and hammering. When I scold him, he only says that he is doing like his father.'The blacksmith burst into a loud, cheerful laugh, that rang through the little cottage, in the midst of which Quintin appeared, bringing with him two armlets, as he called them, ingeniously worked in iron. The father took one of them from his son's tiny wrist and put it on his own great thumb, laughing more than ever. 'How did you make this clever little article?' asked he.'Pray, do not be angry, father,' timidly answered the child; `but I found an old horse-shoe in the forge, and brought it home; and then I made it red-hot, and hammered it into shape with the poker.'`And how did you contrive to make this pretty little hand that fastens the bracelet?''I made it in clay, and then took the shape and moulded it in iron.''Clever boy! clever boy!' cried the blacksmith, raising his hands and eyes in astonishment; then, recollecting himself, he said in a loud whisper to his wife, `Quintin will be a genius some day--a wonderful man; but we must not tell him so, lest it should make him vain.'The mother shook her head, smiling all the while; and little Quintin, who doubtless heard every word, grew red and pale by turns as he stood by his father's knee, proud and happy at the admiration his work excited.'I'll tell you what, my boy,' cried Matsys; 'you shall come to the forge with me to-morrow: "Like father, like son." I had no idea you had watched me to such good purpose. Let me see; how old are you? I forget exactly.''Quintin will be ten years old at Christmas,' said Gretchen; adding, with moistened eyes, 'You know, Hans, he was born just two years after Lisa--poor little Lisa--and she would have been twelve now.'The father looked grave for a few minutes, but soon recovered his cheerfulness when the eager upturned face of his pet Quintin met his. This one darling atoned for all his departed children; he had soon become reconciled to their loss, like most fathers: it is only in mothers' hearts that the memory of babes vanished to heaven lingers until death.Matsys twisted his coarse brown fingers in Quintin's fair curls, and said thoughtfully, 'Well, ten years old is not too soon to begin; I was a year younger myself when my father made me work. To be sure, I was stronger than Quintin, and was the eldest of a dozen boys and girls. But then Quintin shall do no hard work, and it will keep him out of mischief, and make him learn diligence betimes--always a good thing for a labouring lad. Not but what I shall have some gold Horns to put by for him in time; but bad things happen sometimes, God only knows! However,' continued the blacksmith, ending his long soliloquy, and speaking louder, `if you like, Quintin, to-morrow you shall begin to learn how to be as good a blacksmith as your father.''And may I make plenty of bracelets like these?' inquired the boy.His father laughed merrily. 'You would take a long time to get rich if you never did anything but these little fanciful things. You must learn how to forge tools, and horse-shoes, and nails. But,' continued he, noticing that the boy's countenance fell at this information, 'don't be unhappy; you shall make bracelets now and then if you like, and rings too, if you are clever enough. And now go and ask your mother what she says to this plan.''I am quite willing, Hans,' said his wife; 'you know best. But I shall often be very lonely without the child.

However, you must send him over to see me sometimes in the day.''Very well, wife. And now, all being settled, put out the fire, and let us go to rest, for it is long after sunset, and little Quintin will soon be half asleep here on my lap.'Gretchen kissed her little son, heard him repeat his prayers, then undressed him, and laid him in his straw bed. In another hour the quiet of night was over the cottage, and the little household it contained had all sunk into that deep slumber which is the sweet reward of labour.`Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth!' is a wise saying, and of mournful import. The holy man who wrote it knew its truth; and many a fearful heart, shrinking from the future, as well as many a one stricken to the earth when most confident of bliss, have acknowledged the same. They are words never written or spoken without an indefinable dread; for no one living is so happy, or so confident in happiness, that he has nothing to fear.Christmas drew nigh merrily. In the blacksmith's little family there was nothing but hopeful anticipation. The clear biting frost of a Dutch winter had set in, and all was gaiety; for this is an important adjunct of mirth in a country where all festivities are carried on by means of the frozen waters. Gretchen had bought her furs and her gay ribbons; all the Christmas gifts were ready, and the Christmas dinner provided. The blacksmith's wife had finished all her preparations, had brought out the great silver cup, a family heirloom, the only vestige of riches, and had set out, ready for the morrow, one or two bottles of Rhenish wine, as a crowning treat for the Christmas

festivities. Lastly she brought out the eight carved wooden cups which had been added at the birth of each child, each bearing the initial letter of their names. It was the fancy of an old relative, a clever workman, who had thus enriched the stores of the blacksmith. Gretchen brought them out one by one, dusted them as carefully as if they were to be used, and as she did so let fall a few quiet tears on each memorial of her little ones. Mechanically she arranged them in order, and then, sighing deeply, put them all aside, leaving only Quintin's. She then dried her tears with her apron, glanced round the cottage to see that all was right, and wrapping her warm mantle over her head, went outside the door to watch for her husband and child, for the loneliness of the cottage was too much for her.It was a fine day for winter; there was no sunshine, but the white snow made everything light and cheerful. The frosty weather caused the bells of the cathedral to sound louder and nearer; their merry peal rang out as if to drive away all care and melancholy thoughts; and while Gretchen listened to them, the mists of despondency which had gathered over her soul were, unconsciously to herself, swept away by their influence. The Dutch wife had little or no sentiment in her composition, yet she could not help giving way at this moment to fancies which mother-love alone could have roused in her placid mind. She thought no longer of the children lost on earth, but of the angels gained to heaven.Gretchen's reflections then turned towards those left to her--her husband and Quintin. She thought of Hans, his diligence and industry, and how he had gone through all the struggles of their younger days, until comparative riches, the fruit of his labour, were beginning to flow in

upon them. Their cottage was as small as ever, to be sure, but still it boasted many little comforts which it had not when they first began life; and all was through Hans--good, steady Hans! Gretchen never thought how much her own careful economy had contributed to keep safe and spend rightly her husband's earnings. Then she looked forward to the future, calculated how long it would be before Hans might leave off work, and Quintin succeed him in the forge. And the mother then pictured Quintin grown to manhood, and smiled as she thought of his taking a wife, and making Hans and herself grow young again on playing with a troop of grandchildren.The blacksmith's wife was in the midst of these reflections and anticipations when the sound of her husband's forge ceased. It was earlier than usual; but Gretchen was not surprised, as it was holiday-time, and she thought that Matsys had got through his work quicker than ordinary, that he might be at home on Christmas Eve. So she went into the cottage to await his return, and warm her chilled hands at the fire, which she took care to heap up in readiness for the cold and weary labourers, for Quintin was now indefatigable at his father's trade. She waited longer than usual, but neither came; the short twilight had passed away, and it was nearly dark. Still she feared nothing, but sat quietly by the fire.At last the latched door was burst open, and little Quintin rushed in. He hid his pale face in his mother's bosom, sobbing bitterly.`What is the matter? Who has vexed my little Quintin?' said the mother, soothing him.`No one, mother--no one!' cried the child anew; `but they told me not to tell you. Father'--'Where is your father? Is he coming home?'`Yes, he is coming home--they are bringing him; but he will not speak, and he looks like sister Lisa. That is what frightened me.'At this moment some neighbours entered; they were carrying Hans. His wife rushed to him, and flung her arms round him with wild exclamations; but he made no answer, and she could not see him clearly for the darkness. They drew Gretchen away, and laid him on the bed. A bright blaze sprang up in the fire, and showed to the horror-stricken wife the face of the dead.Death, sudden and fearful death, had come upon the strong man in the flower of his vigour and hope. The blacksmith had been engaged on his usual labours, when the horse that he was shoeing gave him a violent kick on the forehead; he sank to the ground, and rose up no more a living man.It was a mournful Christmas in the home of the widow and the fatherless. Until the day of the funeral Gretchen, passive in her affliction, sat by the body of her husband, holding in her arms her sole treasure, her only child. She seemed calm, almost passionless; but her countenance, before so peaceful, was seamed with wrinkles that might have been the work of years, and her hair had grown gray in a single night. She kept her eyes fixed upon the corner where the dim outline of a human form was seen through the white covering, never moving them except to follow, with intense anxiety, every motion of little Quintin. To the child the scene was not new; he had seen death before, and had not feared to behold, and even to touch, the white marble fingers of his brothers and sisters who had died since his infancy; but now he felt a strange awe, which kept him away from his father.'Those to whose hearths death comes slowly, preceded by long sickness, pain, and the anguish of suspense, can little imagine what it is when the work of the destroyer is done in a moment; when one hour makes the home desolate, the place vacant, the heart full of despair. And when, added to the deep sorrow within, comes the fear for the future without, the worldly thoughts and worldly cares that will intrude even in the bitterest and most sacred grief, when the loss brings inevitably with it the evils of poverty--then how doubly intense is the sense of anguish!Thus, when the remains of poor Hans Matsys had been laid beside those of his children, and the widow returned to her desolate cottage, it was no wonder that her strength and courage failed her. She burst into a flood of passionate grief, to which her quiet and subdued character had hitherto been a stranger, rocking herself to and fro in her chair, unconscious, or else heedless, of Quintin's attempts to console her.'My child! my child! we have no hope. God has forsaken us!' she cried at last.'You did not use to say that, mother, when Lisa died. You told me to be good, and then God would never forsake me.''I did, I did,' cried the stricken woman; 'but it is different now! O Hans, Hans! why did you go away and leave me alone, all alone?''Not quite alone, mother,' said Quintin, raising himself, and standing upright before her with a serious firmness foreign to his years; 'you have me--Quintin. I will take care of you.' And he stretched out his arms to his mother, his face beaming with intense affection, and his eyes glowing with thoughts and resolves which even she could not fathom. However, there was something in the child's

countenance which inspired her with hope; she felt that Quintin would one day or other be her stay and comfort.'But,' said she, after she and her son had sealed their mutual love and confidence in a long embrace, 'how are we to live? Your poor father worked too hard to save money, except for the last year; and how are we to find food, now that he is no longer here to work for us? You are too young, my poor Quintin, to keep on the forge; it must go into other hands. There is no hope for us; we must starve!'`We shall not starve!' cried the boy, his slight form dilating with the earnestness of his manner as he drew himself up to his full height. 'Mother, we shall not starve! I shall be a man soon; but until then we must be content with little. I can work well even now; whoever takes the forge will have me to help, I know. You can spin, mother, until I grow stronger and older, so as to be able to get money enough. You told me once, when I was trying to do something difficult, "Where there is a will, there is a way." Now, mother, I have a will, a courageous one; and never fear but I shall make a way.'New comfort dawned on the widow's heart; she was no longer hopeless as before. The boy who, a few days before, had clung to her knees in child-like helplessness, looking to her for direction, advice, and assistance, now seemed to give her the counsel and strength of which she stood in such sore need. It is often so with those who are afterwards to be great among their fellow-men; in a few days, by some incident or sudden blow of misfortune, they seem to step at once from childhood to the threshold of premature manhood. With Quintin this change was not surprising; because his thoughts had ever been beyond his years, partly from the superiority of his mind

even in childhood, and partly because he had lived entirely with his parents, and from various causes had never associated with those of his age. These circumstances had given a maturity to his judgment and a strength to his feelings which made him, in the foregoing conversation with his mother, assume that unwonted energy and resolution which was afterwards the prominent feature of his character, and which even then was sufficient to make the forlorn widow experience a feeling almost approaching to hope, as she read courage and firmness on every feature of the face of her only son.From that time Quintin was no more a child. He seemed to think it incumbent on him to fill the place of his dead father; he went regularly to work at the forge, which had been taken by a kind-hearted neighbour, and Quintin's skill and dexterity atoned so much for his want of muscular strength that he received good wages for a boy. These he regularly brought home; and no merchant ever told over the gains of his Indian vessels with more delight than did Quintin count over the few pieces of silver into his mother's lap. There is a sweetness in the gains of labour which no gifts, however rich, can bestow and Quintin often thought that the bread which was bought by his hard-earned money tasted better than any other. It might be that his mother thought so too; and when he stood beside her--Quintin now considered himself too old and manly to sit on his mother's knee--the smile returned to her face as she noticed his sturdy hands and cheek embrowned by labour, and said he was growing so like his father. No other eve would have traced the very faint resemblance between the honest but coarse features of the poor blacksmith and the intellectual countenance of his son.Quintin, after his father's death, occupied his leisure hours no more with the toys and trifles of his own manufacturing, in which he had before so much delighted. He would not waste a moment; and as soon as he returned from the forge he always set himself to assist his mother in her household duties, suffering her to do nothing that he thought was too much for her strength, which had been much enfeebled by grief. Quintin was become a very girl in gentleness and in domestic skill, for he thought nothing beneath him which could lighten his mother's duties. He even learned to spin; and during the summer evenings Gretchen and her son sat together at their work, often until long after the inhabitants of the few scattered cottages around them had gone to rest. But Quintin and his mother feared the long, bitter winter, and worked early and late to put by enough to keep them from poverty during the biting frost of their climate. Still, while they feared and took these precautions, they did not despair; for they knew how sorely such a feeling cramps the energies of even a strong mind, and thereby induces the very evils which are dreaded. So Quintin's hopeful spirit encouraged his mother, and they worked on, patiently waiting until better times should come.It was on a cold, dreary February day that a boy came through the churchyard, where the poor, who had no storied epitaphs nor white marble shrines, awaited in peace their resurrection from day. The boy was thinly and poorly clad, and his face and bare hands were blue with cold. He walked slowly, in spite of the chilliness around him; for his spirit was very heavy, and his steps refused to move as those of one who carries a light heart in his bosom.It was Quintin Matsys, who was coming from his daily labour to a sorrowful home; for the unusual severity of the winter had drained their little store, and Quintin knew now, for the first time, what poverty and hunger were. He thought, in his simplicity, that the would come round by his father's grave, and say his prayers there, hoping that God would hear them and send comfort. Quintin crept rather than walked; for his poor little feet were frozen, and sharp pieces of ice every now and then pierced through his worn shoes. He was thankful to have been all day in the warm shelter of the forge; but that made him now feel more keenly the bitterness of the cold without. He came at last to the little green hillock which had been watered with so many tears. It was not green now, but covered with frozen snow; not soft, but hard and sharp.The mist of a coming storm was gathering over the churchyard before Quintin had finished his orisons. The boy could hardly distinguish the gate at which he had entered, and was about to depart, when there rose up from a grave which he had not before noticed a white figure. It was slender and small; and Quintin's first thought was that an angel had been sent to answer his prayer. He was not alarmed, but knelt down again with folded hands, waiting to receive the heavenly messenger. But another glance told him that it was no angel that he saw, but a little girl wrapped in white fur, who came timidly to meet him.'Will you tell me who you are?' asked she, putting out from her mantle a warm little hand, which shrank from the touch of Quintin's chilly fingers.'My name is Quintin Matsys,' answered the surprised boy.'You are very cold, poor Quintin, if that is your name. Give me your hands to warm them under my furs.'Quintin did so in silence.'Where is your father?''Here!' said Quintin sadly, pointing to the grave. 'My father has been dead a year.''They tell me that my mother is dead too, because I never see her now. I sometimes come here to think of her. When my father is angry I steal out of the house and come here, as I have done to-day. No one minds little Lisa.''Lisa!--is your name Lisa?' cried Quintin eagerly. 'I had a sister Lisa once; but she was much older than you.' And the boy looked earnestly in the beautiful childish face of his new friend, as if to trace some slight resemblance to the sister he had lost, but remembered so well.`I will be your sister Lisa!' exclaimed the little girl. `I like you--you look good.' And she sprang up with a sudden impulse, put her arms round his neck, and kissed him. Quintin returned her affectionate embrace, and then asked her more about her father. He was a painter at Antwerp, and had been living near the village for several months--ever since his wife's death.'And now,' said Quintin, 'I must go home. My mother is ill, and I have stayed too long already; but I will not leave you here alone, Sister Lisa;' and the word Lisa lingered on the boy's lips with the fondness with which we pronounce a beloved name, even when owned by a stranger.'Why did you not tell me your mother was ill? I live close by; we will go away together directly.' And she took hold of his hand and set out.The two young friends had not gone many steps when Quintin turned pale and sank on a grave.'What ails you, Brother Quintin?' asked the frightened child.'I do not know,' said Quintin faintly.The little girl tried to encourage him; and then, with child-like reasoning, thought that something good would be the best resource. Shy, drew from her pocket a sweetmeat, which she put in Quintin's mouth. He devoured it eagerly, and then, looking wistfully at her, he cried, 'Have you another?' But immediately a crimson blush overspread his face. 'I was wrong,' said he, 'to ask; but I am so hungry. I have tasted nothing since yesterday.''Not eaten since yesterday!' exclaimed his compassionate little friend. 'Poor Quintin! no wonder you are tired! And your mother--has she nothing to eat?''I fear not indeed--unless some charitable neighbour has given her some dinner.'Lisa felt again in her pocket, and produced a biscuit, which she made Quintin eat; and then, as soon as he was able to go forward, she pulled him on. 'I will go home with you, Quintin,' said she. 'Here is a fine gold piece that my father gave me; we will go and buy some supper, and take it together to your mother. I am very hungry too, and I will sup with you,' she added with instinctive delicacy of feeling, wonderful in a child.Quintin yielded to her gentle arguments; and, laden with good things, he and Lisa entered his mother's cottage. She was sitting, exhausted, beside the fireless and cheerless hearth; a small rush-candle in one corner just showed the desolation of the cottage, for they had been obliged to part with one thing after another to preserve life. The two children entered hand-in-hand. Gretchen looked surprised, but, from feebleness, did not speak.`Mother, clear mother,' cried Quintin, `I have brought you a good angel, who has come to save us from dying of hunger.'The child stepped forward and took her hand. 'Here is plenty of supper; let me stay and share it. I am Lisa--little Lisa.'The similarity of name struck on Gretchen's ear; her mind was weakened by illness and want; she snatched the child to her bosom, crying out, 'Lisa--my Lisa! are you come back to me again?'The little girl, startled, uttered a cry. Gretchen set her down and looked at her. 'No, no--it is not my Lisa!' she said sorrowfully.'I am not your own Lisa, but I will try to be,' answered Quintin's friend, while the boy himself came forward and explained the whole. His mother was full of grateful joy. Without more words Quintin lighted the fire, while little Lisa, active and skilful as a grown woman, arranged the supper--not, however, before she had carefully administered some wine and bread to the thankful widow. All three sat down to a cheerful meal, Lisa holding one of Quintin's hands in hers the whole time, and watching him eat with an earnest pleasure which prevented her thinking of her own supper, and effectually contradicted her assertion that she was very hungry.'You will not faint again, Quintin,' she said at last.The mother looked alarmed. 'What has been the matter with you, Quintin? Have you indeed fainted from hunger? My poor boy! I thought you told me they were to give you dinner at the forge, and therefore you would not eat that piece of bread this morning?''Yes, mother; but--but--' said Quintin, stammering, 'they forgot all about it. I was not so very hungry,

so I thought I would not come home until after dinner-time, that'--'That your mother might have it all! My own boy--my dear Quintin, God bless you! You are husband, and son, and everything to me,' cried the widow, folding him in a close embrace.Lisa looked on, almost tearfully. 'I wish my mother were here to kiss me as you do Quintin,' she said.'Have you lost your mother, poor child?' asked Gretchen, turning towards her. `Then come to me--you shall be my own little Lisa.'`I am Quintin's sister already, so we shall all be happy together,' cried the pleased child, who would have willingly stayed, had not the thoughtful Gretchen told Quintin to take her in safety to her own home. The children parted affectionately, and Quintin felt that Lisa's loving and hopeful spirit had left a good influence behind upon his own. He went home with less gloomy thoughts for the future; his mother, too, had a happy look on her careworn face, which cheered the affectionate boy. He listened to her praises of the sweet Lisa, and bade her good-night with a lightened heart. Both mother and son felt the day's events had shown them that there is no night of sorrow so dark that there will not come, sooner or later, a bright and happy morning.Two years passed lightly over Quintin's head, bringing with them much happiness and little care. It seemed as if the meeting with Lisa had been the turning of their fortunes. From that time friends sprang up for the widow; and Johann Mandyn himself, the father of Lisa, helped Quintin to obtain work with the influence he possessed. But he was poor, and had little sympathy beyond his art,

in which he placed his sole delight. Quintin and Lisa were inseparable in their childish friendship; the artist's daughter felt no scorn for the blacksmith's son, for she was too young to think of difference of station. Quintin worked at the forge, where he was invaluable, and his mother spun; so that the week's earnings were sufficient for the week's need, and poverty was no longer dreaded in the widow's now cheerful home. Gretchen became once more the stout, rosy, and good-humoured Flemish dame; for time heals all griefs, even the bitterest; and it is well that it should be so. A long-indulged sorrow for the dead, or for any other hopeless loss, would deaden our sympathies for those still left, and thus make a sinful apathy steal over the soul, absorbing all its powers and causing the many blessings of life to be felt as curses. As the bosom of earth blooms again and again, having buried out of sight the dead leaves of autumn and loosed the frosty bands of winter, so does the heart, in spite of all that melancholy poets write, feel many renewed springs and summers. It is a beautiful and a blessed world we live in, and, whilst that life lasts, to lose the enjoyment of it is sin.Gretchen's restoration to peace after her heavy trials was in a great measure owing to the influence of Lisa. This child was one of those sweet creatures who steal into our hearts like a gleam of sunshine. Why this was so it was impossible to tell. She was not clever above her years, nor fascinating through her beauty, which then was not conspicuous; but there seemed an atmosphere of love around her which pervaded everything and every one with its influence. It was impossible not to love Lisa.A good man once said to his daughter, `Why is it that every one loves you?' `I do not know,' answered the

child, `except that it is because I love everybody.' This was the secret of Lisa's power of winning universal affection. Her little heart seemed brimming over with kind words and good deeds. She was never seen gloomy or unhappy, because her whole delight consisted in indulging her love of bestowing pleasure on others, and therefore she never knew what it was to be sad. People may talk as they will, but it is in ourselves alone that the materials of happiness are to be found. Even love--we mean house-hold, family love--need not always be reciprocal at first. A gentle and a loving spirit, though it may seem for a long time fruitless, will at last win love in return. It is useless to say, 'I would be kind and affectionate if he or she would be so in return.' Let us begin by showing love, and a requital will not fail us in the end.Quintin's character matured rapidly. If his manly and resolute mind had wanted anything, it was the charm of gentleness, and this he learned from Lisa. They continued to call one another by the sweet names of brother and sister, and certainly no tie of kindred could be stronger than theirs. Lisa taught Quintin much that the misfortunes of his youth had prevented him from learning, so that he no longer lamented his ignorance of reading and writing--acquirements very uncommon in his present sphere, but which his ardent mind had always eagerly longed after. His bodily frame grew with his mental powers, and at thirteen Quintin was a tall and active youth, though never very strong. To say he loved the occupation which he pursued so steadily, and in which he was so successful, would not be true; and here it was that the quiet heroism of his character appeared. Quintin's heart was not in the forge, and the more learning he acquired, the more he felt this distaste increase. But he

never told his mother, for he knew that it would detract from her happiness, and he manfully struggled against his own regrets.When Quintin had attained his fourteenth year a change took place in his fortunes. The young blacksmith, with the native taste which was inherent in him, had worked a number of iron rails with such ingenious ornaments that the purchaser, a rich burgher of Antwerp, sent to inquire whose hand had made them. Quintin's master informed him; and the answer was, that the young workman should immediately go to the burgher, who had found him employment in the city.A grand event was this in the boy's life. He had never seen Antwerp, but he and Lisa had often sat together on summer evenings watching the beautiful spires of the cathedral, while the little girl told him of all the wonders it contained; for Lisa inherited all her father's love of art. Now Quintin was about to realise these wonderful sights; and when he got home he could hardly find words to tell his mother and Lisa the joyful news. Quintin was too happy to notice that, while his mother congratulated him on his good fortune, a tear stood in her eye, and that little Lisa--she still kept the pet name, which suited her low stature and child-like manners, though she was, in truth, but little younger than Quintin--looked very sad immediately after the first surprise had passed away.'Will you be long away, Brother Quintin?' asked she, laying her hand on his arm.`Only two or three months; perhaps not that.'`Three months seem a long time when you have never left your mother before in your whole life,' said Gretchen mournfully.Quintin then felt that his joy was almost unkind towards

these clear ones, who would miss him so much. And yet it was such a good thing for him to find work at Antwerp; he would be well paid, and it was the sort of labour which he liked much better than his hard and uninteresting work at the forge. He urged all these arguments, except the last, to his mother and Lisa, and was successful in quieting their alarms and in lulling their grief at losing him for a time. He was to leave the next morning, for there must be no delay, and the necessary preparations in some degree distracted Gretchen's thoughts from the approaching parting. Lisa assisted too, but her little fingers trembled while she tied up the small bundle in which Quintin's worldly wealth was deposited. He, good thoughtful boy, though his own heart sank after the first burst of delight, did not fail to cheer them both with merry speeches, telling Lisa that he would need a wagon and horses to bring home his goods, instead of the handkerchief in which they were taken thence, and such-like cheerful sayings --with little humour but much good-natured cheerfulness.Nevertheless, when all was ended and the three sat down to their last meal together, for some time Gretchen's courage failed. She looked at her son; the thought struck her how soon his place would be vacant, and she burst into tears. Quintin consoled her. He felt almost ready to cry himself; but a boy of fourteen must not yield to such weakness, so he forcibly drove the tears back to their source. Lisa did not speak, but she changed colour, and several large bright drops slid silently down her cheek and fell on her empty plate.'Come, mother dear,' said Quintin at last, 'we really must not all look so very melancholy; I shall be quite too full of importance if you cry over me so much. And I

shall be so rich when I come home. This will be the best winter we have had yet. You shall not spin any more, mother; indeed, there will be no need, I shall be so independent. And three months will soon pass; Lisa will be near you; and, mother,' he added gravely and affectionately, `you can trust me to be good, to remember all you have taught me, and to love you as much as ever, though a few miles away from you.'With such words did Quintin cheer the little party until the time came for Lisa to go home. Her father, absorbed in his studies, though loving her sincerely, noticed her but little, and was content to leave her often for whole days with the blacksmith's widow, provided that Quintin brought her home at dusk. It was now summer-time, and the children went along the oft-trodden way together hand-in-hand. At length the moment for parting arrived, and how sad it was need not be particularly described.'Do not forget Sister Lisa,' were the last words Quintin heard from the child; and when the door of her father's house closed, and he saw her no more, Quintin felt more sorrowful than he had done since he beheld the cold earth thrown over his father.It was a dull and dreary morning when Quintin set out on his journey. He was to proceed on foot to Antwerp; for in those days the poor and middle classes had to look to themselves alone for those powers of locomotion which are now open to every one. In the fifteenth century carriages were almost unknown; the sole mode of conveyance was on horseback; but the very wealthy, when aged or sick, indulged themselves with litters, or with rude wagons, drawn by horses. But none of these

appliances of luxury were for Quintin Matsys; so he set forth on foot, carrying his bundle, tied to a stick, over his shoulder.With the night had faded many of Quintin's brilliant anticipations of pleasure. When he awoke in the morning, and saw that the long drought had melted into rain, and that the dull mist rose up from the fields, shutting out from his view the city of his hopes, he would almost have been glad not to set out. At the last moment, when anticipation has vanished into certainty, it is seldom that we really feel happy in some pleasure long hoped for, at last attained. So Quintin felt; and when he had indeed parted from his weeping mother--when he had lost sight of the cottage, passed the forge, and was out in the high-road, he thought that, if this was the first-fruits of good fortune, he had almost rather stay at home all his life.But the boy had not gone far when the mist--it was only a summer's mist, like his own sadness--cleared away; the sun rose brightly, and the cathedral spires were bathed in its golden radiance. They seemed a beacon of future hope to Quintin's now cheerful heart. To a fanciful and enthusiastic spirit like his, a mere trifle--the passing of a cloud, the bursting of a sunbeam, the sudden carol of a bird--will drive away care, until we wonder why we were so heavy-hearted before; and this sudden susceptibility to pleasure, unless blunted by very sore afflictions, is indeed a great blessing. So it was with Quintin. Encouraged by the sunshine around him, he went hopefully on his way, and before sunset reached Antwerp.The first view of a great and populous city is always striking. But the young blacksmith's mind was naturally

of too high a tone to feel that stupid wonder with which such a sight would impress a country peasant who had less intellect than himself. Quintin walked through Antwerp, feeling himself elevated, not made lower, by the grandeur around him. Thus, when he came into the presence of his future patron, no false shame or self-abasement made him show to disadvantage the talents he possessed. The wealthy Herr Schmidt was pleased with him, and Quintin was at once placed with a clever iron-worker in the city.The country youth now began a new life, which required all his energies. Left almost entirely to his own guidance, he acted as became the good boy he had always been, when his mother's eye was upon him and her precepts were in his ears. But he had so long been accustomed to judge for himself and for her that this complete independence was scarcely new to him. His sole regret was when, after his day's work, he returned to his lonely room in a narrow street, and missed the kind face and smile of welcome; when he had to prepare his frugal meal himself, and to eat it alone, without those almost invisible cares which a mother, sister, or wife's hand bestows, and which, though often unperceived and unacknowledged, yet sweeten the food. Then Quintin missed also the fragrant breath of country air coming in at his window; and while he grew taller and his mind increased in strength and acquirements, his brown cheek became paler and his frame more slender through his city life. But Quintin had one grand object--he wanted to grow rich, that his mother's closing days might know all the comforts of wealth. Another impulse, too, which he scarce acknowledged to himself, spurred him on. He had grown wiser, painfully wiser, since he had come to Antwerp. He then found out, for the first time,

the difference the world shows between an artist's slaughter and a poor blacksmith's son; that he and Lisa, when they grew up, could never call one another brother and sister. Other feelings than fraternal ones never entered into Quintin's simple mind; but he could not bear the thought of losing his sister Lisa; and the idea of raising his position in the world, so as to be able still to keep up the association with her, mingled in his ideas of gaining wealth for his mother to enjoy.Quintin was not entirely without troubles, even in his good fortune. His fellow-workmen envied his skill in fancy-working in iron, and many a plan was laid to injure the youth in his master's estimation. They stole from him his tools, complained of his overbearing conceit, and accused him of giving a false statement of his age, and representing himself as much younger than he really was, to gain his master's favour and approbation. This accusation Quintin's high spirit could ill brook. The principal weakness of his character was a want of gentleness, not surprising in one of his resolute temper, for the two qualities are seldom combined. He was more tried than ever he had been at home, where his sole troubles came from without: he had none from within, for in the little household all was peace. This last allegation roused him to anger.'I a liar!--I tell a lie!' cried the indignant boy; 'I would not do it for the king himself. How dare you say so to my face?' and his eyes flashed with the violence of his feelings. His companions saw they had goaded him on too far; they said no more that day. Quintin went home, his spirit still chafing under the insult he had received, and there was no gentle Lisa to cast oil on the angry billows of his soul. The poor boy felt how lonely

he was, and when the had shut the door his anger melted into sorrow; he threw himself on his little bed and covered his face, while hot tears of vexation, mingled with grief, burst through his fingers. His spirit was strong; but still Quintin was only a boy--not fifteen.Next morning he rose, and went courageously to his work. He was making the iron cover to a well, wrought tastefully in a manner which he alone could do; therefore his master had entrusted him with it, and thus caused so much jealousy among the rest. When Quintin came to look for his tools, lo! hammer and file were gone. He inquired, first gently, then indignantly, for them; but his companions could not, or would not, give him a satisfactory answer. His anger kindled; but they only taunted him the more.`How will you make your fine well-cover without hammer or file?' cried one.`Here is a pretty plight for the first workman in Antwerp to be in!' said another.`The young genius will never finish his work!' exclaimed a third, bursting into a loud laugh.`I will finish it, though!' said Quintin, resolutely folding his arms and standing before them with a determined air, though his face was very pale. `I will finish it, in spite of you all.'He turned away, took up the rest of his tools, locked up himself and his work in another part of the establishment, took no heed of the daily taunts which he met with, until the given time expired. The master came, and asked for the well-cover. It was done! Quintin had finished it, as he said the would, without hammer or file. How he accomplished it no one could tell; but the workmanship was inimitable; and this testimony to

the genius and determination of the young blacksmith may be seen to this day over a well near the cathedral of Antwerp.Lisa's fears proved true: Quintin did not come home for several months--not until midwinter; and when he did return, his adopted sister was not there to welcome him. Lisa, the affectionate Lisa, had departed with her father for Italy some time before. When Quintin returned, all that he found was a sisterly message left with his mother for him, and a lock of hair--one curl of the bright golden tresses which he had so many times twisted round his fingers in play. Quintin had indeed lost his sister Lisa.This was not his only disappointment. He had ever been a delicate boy, and his constant work while at Antwerp, together with the confined air of the city, had injured his health. It was long before he would confess this to himself, for he could not bear to slacken his exertions; so he still remained where he had abundance of work, sending the fruit of his earnings to his mother, and keeping but little for himself. At last his master, a kind-hearted man, saw the sad change in the boy, who, listless and feeble, went about his work mechanically, without a smile or a hope. He sent Quintin home on his own horse, for the boy was now too feeble to walk, as he had done on his first entrance into Antwerp. And thus weakened in health, Quintin Matsys came home to his mother.He had not known of Lisa's departure, and the closed-up, uninhabited dwelling, as he passed it, gave him a sudden alarm. When he learned the truth it was a bitter disappointment to him, for his gentle little playmate had become entwined with every fibre of Quintin's heart. However, his mother's fond caresses were very sweet to

the boy, who had been so long without them. Illness made him feel doubly how precious is a mother's love.It was well that Quintin returned home in time; for the had not been there long before a slow fever, the result of his anxious toil for so many months, seized him, and he was for many weeks unable to move from the bed on which he lay. When he recovered a little he was as feeble as a child. Gretchen watched and nursed him as in the days of his infancy; only too thankful to be spared the one absorbing dread of losing him for ever, she did not think of the future. But when Quintin began to feel better, he pined over the good prospects his illness had blighted, and thought sadly how long a time must elapse before the would be able to follow his trade. This idea retarded his gaining strength, and gave a painful cast of anxiety to his thin and sharpened features, for which his mother could not account. She, thinking of nothing but him, had not noticed how gradually the earnings of the year had dwindled away; but Quintin often thought of this.One day Gretchen had propped up her son with pillows in his chair, and placed him in the warm noon by the open window. He looked so worn to a shadow, with his long hair, grown thin and straggling, as the hair does in continued illness, falling over his attenuated face, and his large full eyes fixed with a melancholy gaze on the sky, that his mother could not refrain from tears. She turned away, lest Quintin should see them, and busied herself with arranging her household affairs. She dusted the table and shelves, and then, in her search for more occupation, came to the silver cup where she kept her money. Many an anxious gaze had she often cast on that little cup; and now she uncovered it, by an irresistible curiosity, to see how much it contained, for she had not looked in it lately.

There was but a single silver piece! Gretchen stood with it in her hand for some minutes, looking dolefully at the poor remnant of her treasure. Quintin turned his head feebly round.'What are you doing there so long, mother?' he asked.His mother closed the cup, but not before he had seen what she was doing. 'How much money have you left, dear mother?' he said again. 'Not much, I fear.'To conceal it would have distressed him more; so Gretchen showed her son the remaining coin.Quintin's countenance fell. 'Oh, how unfortunate I am,' he cried, `to have been ill here instead of gaining money! But I know I am nearly well--I am sure I can walk now.' And he rose, but before he had moved three steps he fell exhausted on the floor. Gretchen ran fearfully, and raised him; but all her consolations failed to reassure him. Quintin--the brave-hearted Quintin--for the first time in his life sank into despair. He had still courage enough to conceal his feelings from his mother; but he could not speak, and she laid him in his bed, and sang him to sleep, as she had done when he was a little boy--not knowing how deep was the poor boy's misery and hopelessness.But this feeling could not last long in one of such energy as Quintin Matsys. Morning brought with it strength and hope, for in the long wakeful hours of night he had thought of a good plan.'Mother,' said Quintin when she brought him his plain breakfast of milk and meal, and sat beside him, encouraging the slight appetite of the sick boy by all those persuasive words which loving hearts so well know how to use--`mother, I have been thinking of a way to gain money.''Eat your breakfast, and tell me afterwards, my dear

boy,' said the anxious Gretchen. Quintin did so, and then began again to talk.'You know, mother, when I was a child, I used to make all sorts of fanciful things in iron. Now, when I was at Antwerp I saw that, in the grand religious processions, there were quantities of metal figures of saints used, and sold about the streets. I am sure I could make the same if I were to try; and the people buy such numbers, and give so high a price for them, you cannot think!' And Quintin, half raising himself, rested his elbow on the pillow and looked anxiously in his mother's face.Gretchen smiled cheerfully to encourage him. `I think it is an excellent plan,' said she; `but you must make haste and get strong, so as to be able to make these figures; and do not be too anxious, or you will be longer in recovering.''I will promise everything,' answered Quintin; and his face grew brighter, so that his mother wondered to see how much better he looked.Hope is the best physician in the world. Now that Quintin had something to look forward to, it was surprising how fast he improved. He was soon able to move about the room, and in a little time began to make the figures. His youthful skill returned, together with his childish pleasure in the work. Sickness brings us back to the enjoyment of simple and infantile pleasures; it takes away all the false gloss of the world, and restores our souls, in some measure, to their early freshness; we feel again like children--childlike in our feebleness, childlike in our enjoyment of things that seem trifles to others.Thus Quintin would sit for hours, contentedly forming the figures in clay with his thin white fingers, that were, alas! incapable of harder work. Then he took moulds of

them, into which his mother poured the molten metal, as Ouintin had clone in his first essay many years before. At last a number of graceful little figures were made, at which his proud mother lifted up her hands and eyes in admiration. She took them to a kind and honest neighbour, who was going to the grand festival at Antwerp; he sold them all, and faithfully brought back the money--a sum sufficiently large to maintain, until Quintin's complete restoration, the widow and her diligent boy.It is an old and trite saying, how rapidly Time urges on his flight: sometimes as a relentless, unsparing destroyer, but oftener as a swift-winged and beautiful angel, changing, yet not taking away, this world's blessings, making our past sorrows look dim in the distance, opening many flowers of pleasure on our way, and gradually ripening our souls for the great and glorious harvest of eternity.Five years from the last epoch of our story, a young man sat all alone in a large, cheerful room in the good city of Antwerp. The house was in one of the second-rate but respectable streets, and through the open windows might be distinguished the continuous trampling of feet and the mingled sounds that rise up from a busy thorough-fare. The room where the young man sat was simply but comfortably furnished: carved chairs, coarse but full hangings to the windows, and abundance of clean rushes strewed over the floor showed that the occupier stood in no fear of poverty. His dress, too, though that of a plain burgher, was of good material, carefully made, and well arranged. The young man himself was thin, almost spare, in figure, and, as far as could be judged from the bending posture of one thinking deeply, appeared

to be above the common height. His face was not handsome; but that very want of beauty added to its charm, because the eye, at first dissatisfied, was ever and anon discovering some new expression which gave unexpected delight. One becomes wearied of a handsome face over which no change flits; it is far better to find out new beauties daily than gradually to lose sight of those which fascinated at the first look. But Quintin Matsys--for it was indeed he of whom we speak--had one perfection so rarely seen, that great index of the mind and disposition--a beautiful mouth and chin. A Greek sculptor would have revelled in its exquisite curves--sharp, decided; the round but not full lips, set close together, showing great firmness and steadiness of character, mingled with almost womanly sweetness. And when he raised his head, the dark-blue eyes were just the same as in the boy Quintin of old, though now full of grave, almost mournful thought.A great change had come over Quintin in five years. He had risen from the blacksmith's low mud-walled cottage to comparative riches. He was now the best iron-worker in Antwerp. He lived in a good house, had workmen under him, and his smooth, soft hands showed that he now had no need to handle the hammer. He walked through the streets of Antwerp a prosperous and respected man, though still so young; receiving salutations from the wealthy tradesmen and burghers of the place, and knowing that his present position was the result of his own diligence. But Quintin had had one great sorrow--he had lost his mother.The unlearned, meek-spirited, but true-hearted Gretchen now slept in the lowly churchyard beside her husband and children. She had died not many months before,

having seen and enjoyed her son's prosperity, knowing that it was the work of his own dutiful hands, aided by that blessing of Heaven which ever falls, sooner or later, upon patient industry exercised for a holy purpose. Therefore Quintin felt no violent grief at her peaceful death; but when all was over, and her place was vacant in the house where all needful comforts had surrounded her in her later years, every hour in the day did Quintin miss his mother.Often, in the leisure hours which his raised condition in life afforded him, the young master of the house gazed discontentedly around on his comfortable dwelling, to which something was evidently wanting. He sat down almost cheerlessly to his plentiful meals, at which he felt so lonely. Quintin sighed for his mother, or else for some kind sisterly face to smile opposite to him; and then he thought of Lisa.Since the hour of their parting he had never seen or heard of his childish friend. Johann Mandyn had never returned from Italy; and in those days, to be in a foreign country was as complete a severance as death itself could occasion. Quintin heard no tidings of Lisa; even her existence was unknown to him; and his memory of her had become like an indistinct but pleasant dream. Five years at Quintin's time of life make such changes in the whole character that we hardly recognise one of the thoughts and feelings of the past as being like those of the present.Quintin had grown up to manhood, with the good dualities which his youth promised ripened into maturity, while adversity had taken away many of those feelings from which no one is free. He was now a high-principled, right-feeling young man, guided, but not led away, by

the impulses of an affectionate heart. Many of the finer qualities of his soul were as yet undeveloped, though his natural refinement of mind had kept pace with his fortunes. Quintin had not yet felt the influence of love, though, as was natural, several youthful fancies had pleased his imagination for a time; but he always discovered something wanting, and his ideal of perfection was as yet unfulfilled. He had, in reality, never felt a stronger love than his devoted attachment to his mother and his brotherly affection for Lisa, which now existed only in remembrance. Yet the influence of these two had assisted in making Quintin what he was. There is nothing so salutary to a young man as the unseen but magic power of a good mother or sister. It is a shield and safeguard to him, on his entrance into the world, to look back upon a home where he found, and might still find, a nearer approach to his ideal of goodness than elsewhere. Otherwise he is driven abroad to seek for what he cannot have at home, and his heart often makes its resting-place in some fancied perfection, which soon proves delusive.Thus Quintin, in all his likings, invariably instituted comparisons with what he remembered of Lisa--what she was, or would be now; and his early association with a character like hers made his heart grow purer and better, and this high standard of excellence prevented his imagination from being led away. Thus was Quintin at the age of twenty.One evening, as Quintin was returning from a chapel in an obscure part of the town, to which he had gone for the performance of his religious duties, an unforeseen adventure occurred. As the small crowd of worshippers

passed along, one of them, a female, stumbled and fell. The young girl's foot had slipped from a stone; and there she lay, unable to move, and her old nurse was lamenting over her and chafing one of the delicate ankles.'Is she much hurt?' inquired Quintin, bending over the stranger, so as to throw the light of his lantern on her face. It was very beautiful; fair, though colourless, and full of womanly sweetness, like one of Guido's Madonnas. We cannot otherwise describe it. The voice which answered, too, was soft and musical, and thrilled in Quintin's heart like a tone heard long ago.'It is nothing, thank you,' were the few words she said. The old woman kept exclaiming loudly in a foreign tongue, of which the words, `Lisa--Signora mia Lisa!' struck Quintin's ear.`Lisa! Is your name Lisa?' asked Quintin in the same words he had used so long ago.'Yes, it is Lisa!' answered the wondering girl.'But are you my Lisa, my sister Lisa?' cried, the young man, forgetting himself in his eagerness.`I am indeed!' she cried, bending forward and looking fixedly at him; `if you are Quintin--Quintin Matsys.'Quintin's first joyous impulse was to press his adopted sister to his breast, as in old times; but he restrained himself, and only took the two hands which were stretched out to him, holding them in his and kissing them many times.'You have not quite forgotten Quintin?''Nor you sister Lisa?' were the first questions that passed between them; and then a strange silence fell upon the two, who, had they thought of such a meeting an hour before, would have fancied their subjects of conversation inexhaustible.`And your mother, Quintin?' asked Lisa at last.He did not answer; but the light fell on his sad face, and the girl guessed the truth.'I had not thought of that,' she cried, bursting into tears and affectionately taking Quintin's hand. Another silence ensued, and then they spoke of changes.`Things are strangely altered, when I did not know you, Lisa, as you passed me to-night.''Nor I you; but that was no wonder, you are so changed,' said the girl, looking at him intently.'Were you thinking of the poor blacksmith?' asked the young man, almost mortified.'No, indeed,' cried Lisa, blushing deeply at what she thought had pained him--'no, indeed; I only thought of my brother Quintin.''And are you not changed, Lisa? Are you indeed the same?' And with a sudden thought he took her left hand: there was no ring there. Quintin felt relieved; but Lisa had not noticed his movement, and answered him frankly and earnestly:
'Indeed, Quintin, I am not; I have never forgotten. old times; you will always be the same to your sister.'A dearer word than sister just flitted across the young man's thought, but he said nothing. The surprised Italian nurse now drew near, and a few words from Lisa explained the meeting. The young girl rose to go home to her father's house, which was not far distant; but her steps were feeble, and she was obliged to trust much to Quintin for support. Their young hearts were full of happiness as they walked together through the desolate streets, talking of olden clays, of their united childhood, of all that had happened to them since, of her who had been

as a mother to both. They spoke of the dead with loving regrets and gentle sadness, which rather spread a holy calm over their present joy than took away from it. And so they went to Lisa's home together, in the sweet reunion of their childish affection; and the quiet stars looked down upon them, as if rejoicing in their happiness.A few weeks passed, during which Quintin and Lisa constantly met. They could not break through old ties--why should they? So they visited together their parents' graves in the old churchyard, and talked over their first meeting; then went to look at the poor cottage, and retrod the path from thence to Lisa's former home, the last walk they had taken together; and then their common faith was a bond of union. In short, love--first, deep, and true love--stole into the hearts of Quintin and Lisa before they were aware. It was but the sudden ripening of the strong affection of their youth. They ceased to call one another 'brother' and 'sister,' or, when they did, it was with a shrinking consciousness that these names, dear and tender as they were, were not those that lingered in their hearts, though unacknowledged.How the discovery was effected each to the other they probably could hardly tell themselves. Their yet unrevealed love was like a well-tuned harp, of which the lightest breath or touch would awaken its harmonious chords. And that breath, that touch, did come at last, and they were made happy by the sure and certain knowledge of each other's true affection. Lisa's nature was too frank and generous idly to sport with Quintin's love, or to deny her own for one of whom she felt a just pride; and when Quintin Matsys asked if he might one day call her,

not his sister, but his wife, his own beloved and true-hearted wife, she did not say him nay.And now the young man had to ask boldly for the hand of his beloved. This required all his courage; for Johann Mandyn was known to be a harsh and irritable man; and even Lisa, who was the sole object which divided his affection with his art, had little influence over him. He was not a man of great genius; his talents were just sufficient to make him perceive this deficiency, and probably his temper was embittered by this cause. Yet his beautiful and soothing art had a charming influence over his wildest moods; it acted upon him like a spell, and to it he owed all the better and more refined qualities of his nature. He lived within and for his pictures; everything in the world outside he reckoned as nothing. His greeting of Quintin had been cold, though not unkind: he congratulated him on his changed fortunes in a manner which showed how little he thought about either the young man or his destinies.Quintin had need of all his love and all his remembrance of Lisa to warm his heart when he sat waiting for the painter in his studio. It was a large old-fashioned room, and the light from above gave it a mysterious cast. Opposite to the young man hung a dark-looking painting, from which gleamed out the wild, fierce head--it was that of a fallen angel, and the fixed eyes followed hint round the room, as he fancied, with a threatening aspect. He closed his eyes, and pictured Lisa's sweet face, but still the dark image pursued him. At last Mandyn entered the room. He was a little man, with sharp, thin features, and bright black eyes gleaming from under bushy eye-brows. He wore a dark velvet cap, which he was accustomed, in the energy of his solitary thoughts, or in earnest

conversation, to twist in all directions upon his bald head, giving a wild and sometimes ludicrous air to his countenance.At his entrance Matsys rose. The old man came and stood opposite him, with his hands folded behind his back.'You are an unusual visitor here,' said he. 'Have you been admiring my pictures? But I forgot; you do not care about such things.'Quintin muttered some vague compliments. At another time he would better have expressed the warm feelings with which he regarded art, as every higher mind must do; but now he thought only of his errand, and with hesitation explained the reason why he came--his hopes, his love, and his worldly prospects.The old painter listened in silence; but a convulsive twitching of his thin lips showed that he was not insensible to the young man's words.`Does my daughter love you?' he asked at length in a suppressed tone.'Yes,' said Quintin simply and truthfully.'She has told you so?' cried the father in a passionate voice; `then she must learn to forget her love, for she shall never become your wife.'Quintin turned pale. 'Why not? Have you anything to urge against me? You can lay no crime to my charge. I am honest: I am not poor.''Do you taunt me with my poverty?' exclaimed the angry painter. 'Nevertheless, though I am poor, no daughter of mine shall ever wed a worker in vile metals.'The unfortunate young man compressed his lips together in strong emotion. It was a sore struggle between pride, anger, and love; but he repressed his passion, and answered calmly, `Is that your sole reason?'`It is,' answered Mandyn, his wrath a little appeased, and surprised at Quintin's firmness and command of temper. `I have nothing to complain of in your position, your prospects, or your character; but you are, in fact, only a blacksmith--an iron-worker; and my Lisa, my beautiful Lisa, is an artist's daughter--worthy to be an artist's wife, and such she shall be.'A pang shot through young Matsys' heart at the idea, and then his features relaxed into a less troubled expression. `She is so young still,' he said; `you will not marry her to any one against her will? If I have no hope, do not make Lisa miserable by such a union.'`I will not,' answered the father. `I love her too well; she shall have free choice. I am sorry for you,' he continued, and his softened feelings made him take the young man's hand kindly. 'I like you--I always did; but you are not a painter, and my child shall never marry any but an artist.'Quintin wrung his hand and went out. As he threaded the passages of the house with lingering steps, his eyes glanced round in search of his beloved. He was not disappointed; a door opened suddenly, and Lisa appeared. She looked anxiously and blushingly up to him, but Quintin could not speak. He held fast the hand she laid on his, and turned his face away. They stood thus for some minutes, until Lisa said, `I knew it. My father is angry; we have no hope!'`Do not say so, Lisa--my own Lisa! If we are certain of one another's love, we can never be hopeless.'Lisa shook her head. Poor girl! she knew her father better than Quintin did.`You do not know how strong love is,' passionately urged the young man. `Love can bear anything--can

do anything! O Lisa, Lisa! only say you will not give me up, and then you will see we are not without hope!'`I will not give you up, Quintin; you know I love you,' said the simple-hearted girl, her truthful soul beaming in her eyes; `but I will never disobey my father, who has always been kind to me until now.''I do not ask you; I would not! There is no happiness in such unions. Only say you will not marry another--not yet--and I am content.'Quintin's hopeful courage communicated itself to his companion. Her confidence rose, she knew not why; and the lovers parted, not in despair, but in patient expectation of better things.'I dare not see you often,' said Lisa as she bade him farewell; `but you know I shall not change.''I know it,' Quintin answered, 'and I do not fear. Lisa, dear, you will--you shall be mine yet! Patience and hope. There is nothing impossible to love like ours.'Quintin had spoken truly. This last and sorest disappointment had roused in him a firm determination, which few would have undertaken, but which was not surprising in a character like his. He would not relinquish his beloved Lisa, the friend of his childish days, the sister of his early affections, the object of his manhood's strong and ardent love. They clung together as those do who are left alone in the world without near ties, and parting was not to be thought of by them. Still, there was but one chance for their union, and this Quintin determined, come what would, to accomplish.Johann Mandyn had said that his daughter should wed an artist, and an artist Quintin resolved to be. His

mother, for whom alone he had sought the comforts of riches, stood in need of them no longer, and they were valueless in gaining Lisa for his bride. Quintin determined to relinquish everything for Lisa--his home, his profitable trade, his comforts--and to qualify himself, by patient and arduous study, to be a rival to Johann Mandyn himself. He sold his shop, his house, his furniture--everything that he could convert into money, to maintain himself during his studies; left Antwerp, and went to Haarlem, keeping his destination and intention secret from every one but Lisa. The old painter heard of his departure; wondered, pitied him, almost relented; but then his eye fell on the pictures with which his room was hung, and he doubted no longer.`It is a glorious thing to be an artist!' cried the enthusiastic old man. `None but a painter is worthy of my Lisa!'Meanwhile Quintin established himself at Haarlem as pupil to an artist there, and diligently began his studies. His progress was rapid; for love lightened his task, and, though the knew it not then, he was following the bent of his own mind. His soul was that of a painter: this predilection had shone forth throughout his whole life, when, through a sense of duty, he worked at a trade which he did not like. His genius only wanted some strong motive or happy incident to call it forth in fortunate exercise, and his disappointed love effected this. Still, the early path towards art is toilsome and difficult, and Quintin was often discouraged; but love, like faith, can remove mountains, and there are no obstacles invincible to a strong and loving heart.As he advanced in his studies the young man's whole soul became absorbed in his art; not that he loved or thought of Lisa less, but the awakened powers of his own

mind and his newly-kindled perceptions of the beautiful gave him intense pleasure. He was like a man who had found a treasure in what he thought was a desert to be passed through. He now loved art for its own sake as well as for Lisa's, and almost forgave her harsh father for his unconquerable will.It was with a delicious sensation of conscious power and patient conquest over difficulties that Quintin Matsys viewed his first picture. Many talk of the vanity of genius, self-sufficient, thinking itself above everything. But it is not so. Without a certain consciousness of innate talent, a man would be unequal to any great attempt; his very soul would sink within him, thinking of his weakness and inferiority. As well might a lovely woman look daily in her mirror, yet not be aware of her beauty, as a great soul be unconscious of the powers with which Heaven has gifted him; not so much for himself, as to enlighten others--a messenger from God Himself, with a high and holy mission to perform. Woe unto him who abuses that mission!Quintin Matsys was not vain, but he felt a noble satisfaction in himself and his work. His whole life had been a lofty struggle against difficulties. The last and greatest he was now surmounting; but he had yet to wait. He was too proud to come before Johann Mandyn's eye anything but a superior artist; so during a long season of unwearied perseverance did Quintin toil. Now and then he secretly visited Antwerp, and received the sweet assurances of Lisa's affection and encouragement. Her woman's heart swelled with delicious pride in him who possessed its deepest feelings, and every new triumph of his was sweeter to her than, perchance, even to Quintin himself.At last the young man had become a painter, and a

great one. He returned to Antwerp, and went openly and boldly to Mandyn's house with his last and best picture in his hand. The artist was out; but Lisa came, surprised and doubtfully, to meet the stranger, and was greeted by her lover, who, with his countenance full of joy and hope, showed her his work. It was a household group; simple, life-like, and painted with that minute fidelity to nature and magic light and shadow for which Matsys' pictures are remarkable.Lisa looked at it long and fixedly, and then turned her bright face, radiant with happy pride, to her lover. 'Quintin, my dear Quintin, you are indeed a painter!' was all she said; but it was the sweetest praise to him.And now they thought of the discovery to her father--how it should be effected. Their happiness was almost like that of children, and in the exuberance of their mirth they imagined a playful trick. The old painter had left on the easel his darling picture of the fallen angels, the same which had struck Quintin's excited imagination in the last momentous interview which had influenced so strongly his whole life. The young artist now took a brush, and painted on the outstretched limb of his former imaged tormentor a bee, with such skill and fidelity that Lisa's joyous laughter, as she stood by Quintin's side, was irrepressible.'He will surely be deceived,' said she as they both departed from the studio, leaving Quintin's picture there, out of sight.Mandyn came, and Lisa was right.`How came the insect on my picture?' cried he, trying to brush it away; then discovering the clever delusion, he hastily called his daughter. `Who has done this?' said the old man.A bright colour rose on the girl's cheek and a happy smile flitted about her mouth as she answered, 'It was an artist, father, who has brought that picture for you.'Mandyn looked at it, and could not conceal, his unfeigned admiration. `It is a noble picture--a beautiful picture!' he cried. 'Where is the artist?--what is his name?''Quintin Matsys!' answered the young man himself, entering at the door and standing modestly before the father of Lisa.'You--you!' exclaimed Johann Mandyn; 'have you become a painter? Where have you studied? Is this your work?''It is indeed; I painted it at Haarlem.'The old man's piercing eyes searched his countenance; but there was no room for doubt in the young man's ingenuous though self-possessed look. He gazed at Quintin, then at his daughter; and then went up to the former and seized both his hands. With eyes full of tears, and in a broken voice, the old painter cried, `Quintin Matsys, you are indeed a great artist--greater than I. You are worthy to marry my Lisa; take her, and God bless you!'And Johann Mandyn went out of the studio without saying another word.Quintin and Lisa were married, though not immediately; for the young painter loved his betrothed too well to suffer her to share the necessary difficulties of the struggle which must always be endured before fame and prosperity crown the toils of the seeker after such. But this struggle was not of long duration with Quintin Matsys. His evident talent, his unwearied perseverance, and, it might be, the little romance mingled with his story, soon won for him

friends and patrons. As soon as Quintin felt that he need not dread the future, and that the present was free from difficulty, he wedded his beloved Lisa, and brought her to a cheerful home; not luxurious, indeed, but far removed from poverty. And Lisa's gentle spirit needed no more to constitute her happiness. To be the patient, devoted wife, looking up to her husband as the model of all that was high and noble; keeping his household in order that nothing might trouble him; surrounding him and all about him with a mantle of perfect love, which hid from every other eye, almost from her own, any slight failing which might obscure his character, or hastiness produced by his intercourse with a world not always smooth--this was Lisa's daily life.It is needless to say theirs was a blessed home; not perfect--for what on earth is perfect?--but still as near to heaven and as complete in happiness as an earthly home can be. Perhaps, too, the sorrows of Quintin's youth made him feel more deeply the quiet happiness of his mature age. To one who has been long travelling through a desert region, how sweet is every little flower that he finds on his path! Quintin and Lisa had not married in the first bloom of youth and hope, expecting to find earth a paradise and wedded love a thornless rose. Their hearts were matured even beyond their years, and therefore they grew old together, daily loving one another the more, with a deep, earnest, household love, far stronger than in their earlier youth they could have conceived or pictured. Children sprang up around them; and Johann, their eldest son, his grandfather's darling, bade fair to be a worthy follower in the art which both his immediate progenitors had delighted in.The life of Quintin Matsys as a painter is well known.

He was one of the most extraordinary men of his time, when art was in its infancy, and when the stars of Michael Angelo and Raphael had yet scarcely risen. Matsys' style was peculiarly his own--he followed no school, imitated no master. Nature and his own mind were his sole guides. In general, he did not follow the higher style of art, but contented himself with depicting simple nature as she showed herself to his loving eye. Quintin never left his native city, nor visited Rome, nor studied the antique. Had he done this, several judges have declared that he would have become the noblest painter that his country ever produced, so great were his natural powers. His pictures are little known in England, with the exception of one at Windsor, 'The Misers,' which is universally esteemed and lauded. In his later days Quintin painted an altar-piece for the noble cathedral of Antwerp, which still remains there as a testimony of the powers of his genius. Our own Reynolds visited it, and was struck beyond measure with this work of the blacksmith of Antwerp. The cold, cautious Sir Joshua, who seldom gave way to admiration or enthusiasm for any but his grand idol, Michael Angelo, was heard to declare that this `Descent from the Cross,' by Quintin Matsys, was a wonderful picture at that early age of art, and that some of the heads were executed in a manner worthy of Raphael himself. Higher praise could scarcely have been given by any one.Quintin and Lisa descended the vale of life together, slowly and peacefully. Johann Mandyn died, having gained his wish in seeing his Lisa an artist's wife, as she had been an artist's daughter, though this wish had been accomplished in a manner contrary to all his expectations. Quintin's origin cast no shade over 
smith's son had nobly and successfully fought against ill-fortune; and it was no shame, but a glory to him, to have once been poor. Johann Mandyn himself acknowledged this; and Quintin and his wife never passed by the lowly home of his youth--the cottage and the forge--without a thrill, not of discontent, but of pleasure. Many and many a day, when they saw their children playing about the two graves--now, alas! three--in the churchyard which had witnessed their first meeting, did Quintin tell over again to the attentive little ones that old story, and Lisa pressed closer to her husband's arm, as she felt how justly proud she was of the noble and brave heart which had lived through all--triumphed over all.We have now traced Quintin Matsys through the trials of his youth and the cares of his manhood to the settled calm of his middle age. As after a stormy morning there often comes a season of peace and stillness and sunshine, so in many instances do the sorrows of early life lead to a happy old age. May it be so to all those who have struggled, and do struggle, often with a weary and a fainting heart! But the reward, though it seem long delayed, must come at last. There is no storm so great that a true, courageous, and loving heart cannot live through, and, it may be, prove conqueror at last. Let this be the moral of Quintin's simple history; let it encourage the feeble, bring hope to the hopeless, and excite to energy the despairing. The most helped of Providence is he who helps himself; and he who shrinks from disaster in coward fear or sinks in listless apathy is not worthy to go through, but must fail in the ordeal. To all on earth should this watchword be precious: Despair not; endure all things; for to him who fears God, and loves his brother man, life can never be without hope.ANTONIO MELIDORI:
A CHAPTER FROM THE HISTORY OF THE
GREEK REVOLUTION.OF all the islands and shores of the Mediterranean--the regions where gods and heroes once trod--whence sprang the lovely and poetical myths of Greek theogony--where the world's childhood grew into fresh, powerful, glowing youth--there is no spot where the spirit of ancient Greece lingers as in the island of Candia. The woody valleys of Crete, where Jove was nursed of old, are changed only in name. The mountain Psiloriti, with the olive groves at its feet, the oak woods clown its sloping sides, is yet the same Ida where the Corybantes are fabled to have lulled the babe-thunderer to sleep with their songs. And even the very people seem unchanged. The mountaineers of Candia are in appearance as noble as the warriors whom Idomeneus led from the same hills to the siege of Troy. The young Sphakiotes have universally the classic Greek head, with its low broad brow, its curved lips, and exquisitely modelled chin, such as Phidias has made immortal. They have the same free step and bearing; and their primitive mountain life, while it has caused them to retain the Greek form, has kept alive in them much of the ancient Greek spirit. The

Sphakiotes are bold, determined, and generous-hearted; they despise luxury; and a certain natural chivalry shows them to be worthy descendants of the men of old who made their land the queen of nations.It was at the time when Greece was beginning to move in her slumbers, and the Turkish yoke was already about to fall like green withes before her strong hands. The giant was awakening throughout the land; the names of Ipsilanti and Marco Bozzaris were whispered far and wide, and men began to look at one another--Turks and Greeks--with threatening and suspicious eyes. As yet the dawning of this new spirit had not been felt in Candia. The Sphakiotes lived at peace in their mountains. The olives were gathered, the vines were pressed, and the sound of the distant war came more like a murmur heard in dreams than a waking reality. Now and then a few of the youngest and most daring of the Sphakiotes might be seen talking earnestly together, and anxiously seeking for news from the mainland, where the strife was going on. But the flames of Tripolitza and Corinth did not reach to the peaceful shores of Candia.Near the top of Mount Psiloriti a young girl stood, laden with a basket of olives. She carried it on her head, and the attitude gave to her figure all the free and unrestrained grace of ancient sculpture. Her face, too, was purely Greek, modelled after the form which approaches nearest to our conceptions of ideal beauty. The Sphakiote girl might have stood for one of the olive-bearing priestesses in the processions of Ceres. As she waited, her eyes rested on the summit of the hill, following the motions of a young mountaineer who came

leaping down. It was the old tale, as old as the time of Helen of Troy. Foolish, shy maiden, who would not move to hasten that so-longed-for meeting, but stood there with her beaming eyes, her brightened cheek, waiting for her lover!'Antonio! Antonio!' she murmured long before he could hear her; and her stature dilated and a look of pride mingled with her gladness as she watched him descend the mountain-side, as active and graceful as a young deer.The admiration of personal beauty seems to be inherent in the Greek nature. In ancient times it was a positive worship; and the most perfect in form of both youths and maidens had crowns and honours bestowed on them, even as the poets and warriors. In other lands this feeling might be degraded into materialism or sensuality, but with the imaginative Greeks it was the worship of the ideal--the image of a dim and indistinct divinity, which to their mind could only be shadowed forth and embodied in the most perfect human loveliness. They united the idea of the good and the beautiful, believing one could not exist without the other. Thus, while their gods were the types of the most divine beauty, the noblest and most beautiful of their men were elevated into gods. And even now this old worship lingers in the land, which has truly been described by the poet as a body whence the spirit is departed. There are no people more beautiful, or more susceptible in their perceptions of external beauty, than the modern Greeks.Thus, while the young Sphakiote watched her lover, and noticed how magnificent was his manly beauty, her heart thrilled with pride that the noblest of the mountain youths was her own.'Philota! dear Philota!' sounded the pleasant voice of Antonio; and he stood beside her. A classic eye, to see them, would have thought of Paris and Enone on the Trojan mountain which bore the same name as this Cretan hill--`Many-fountained Ida.'`I have waited for thee long, Antonio,' murmured the girl.`Forgive me, Philota. I lay dreaming on the hill-top, and forgot thee--no, not forgot; that I could never do; but my thoughts were busy. Come, let me take the olive-basket, and we will go to the place which made my thoughts wander.'A sigh, so faint as to be almost inaudible, moved Philota's lips. He thought of many things, she of him only. It was the difference between man's love and woman's.They ascended the mountain, and stood on its summit hand-in-hand. The whole island was before them, like a pictured scene; it lay at their feet sleeping in loveliness.`How beautiful--how calm it is!' whispered Philota. 'O Antonio, if we could live for ever in this still happiness, thou and I!'A restless movement in her lover made the girl look in his face; it was clouded. `The holy saints forbid!' he muttered between his teeth. She did not hear him; it was well she did not, for the words would have pierced her heart like a thorn. And yet he loved her better than all things on earth, except one, and that was ambition.`Thou dost not enjoy this scene as I do, Antonio. Something has troubled thee to-day. Tell me what it is.' Antonio turned away before those soft, loving eyes;

there was something in his heart which he could not lay open at once to their gaze. 'How well thou readest my face, Philota!' He laughed, or tried to laugh.`Then there is something?' the girl pursued.'I had not meant to tell thee; but I must. My dearest, it is not worth that anxious look of thine. It is only that I have been to-day on the mountain with Rousso and Anagnosti, and they told me that the war is coming nearer--even to our shores.''Antonio! and thine eyes brighten--thy frame dilates with joy, whilst I shudder,' said Philota.'All, there will be no more idle staying at home!' the young man continued, as if he had not heard her.'No more gathering honey, treading olives, keeping goats, while one's arm is strong--strong to fight. Look, Philota, far down in the bay there is a flash; they are already trying the guns with which our new governor has armed the harbour. Listen! the noble governor, Affendouli, is already forming troops in the mountains, and Rousso and Anagnosti have joined them. Rousso will be made Captain of Sphakia. Dost hear, Philota?'She stood, no longer sustained by his entwining arms, which, in the energy of his declamation, Antonio had removed; her face was bent, her eyes fixed on the sea; there was in them a mournful meaning, but he saw it not. Without waiting for her answer, the young Sphakiote continued: 'Rousso was so proud with his new arms--the poor mean boy whom I taught to use a gun!--how he sneered at mine, with its rusty lock! And he is to be captain of a band, and will become a hero, while I'--Philota turned slowly round, and her pale face net her lover's, which was flushed with anger and excitement.

'Dost thou wish to go too? Is this what thou hast to tell me?'He had been all along preparing himself to reveal to her his desire; yet now, when she guessed it of her own accord, and his scarcely formed thoughts were uttered plainly by her, he could not answer a word, but played confusedly with the silver chain of his belt.'Antonio, I have seen thou hast not been happy of late. There is more in thy heart than I can satisfy. I am only a poor weak girl, and thou a noble man, full of great thoughts and aspirings. Hush! do not say nay. It was ever so. Love is all to me; but thou needest something greater. What is it?'He looked at her in surprise, for her voice, though sad, was calm, and there was no anger in its tone. 'Philota, I love thee--none but thee. I swear it! This fool Rousso has taunted me; he said I chose to stay and toil in the mountains when all our Sphakiotes were going to fight against the Turks. I would have proved him a liar--I would have joined the governor at once--but for'--'But for Philota: is it not so? I love thee; but my love should be a garland of flowers to adorn thee, not an iron chain to fetter thee,' said the girl, using the metaphorical language of her clime. `Antonio, thou shalt go.'There was a deep silence between them. At last the young man broke it: 'Hast thou thought of all that must follow this, Philota? Thou wilt be left alone, and there will be no bridal feast with the olive harvest. Antonio Melidori is not so mean as to wed thee and leave thee. Philota, thou art nobler than I. I will not go.'Philota threw her arms about his neck. The heroism of a Greek maiden lay deep in her soul; but it was yet sleeping. She was still a girl--a timid girl. She wept tears of joy when her lover said he would not go to the wars.'It would have killed me to part with thee, Antonio, even though I told thee to go. Ay, and I would never have prayed thee otherwise had it been against thy will. But war is so terrible a thing. Thou seest only its glory; I think of its miseries. I fancy thee pursued, wounded--slain; and then I would die too.'`Foolish girl,' whispered the lover, while his fingers played tenderly with the shower of black hair that lay on his shoulder; `thou forgettest all the honour that would have been thine when I came back a general. Think how our maidens envy the fortune of the wife of Ipsilanti--how glorious is the destiny of the wives of the heroes in the Morea.''I have heard of only one, who saw husband and son slain; and then fought in their room--the Lady Bobolina. Had I been she, I would have lain down and died with them.'Melidori's eyes were fixed on the bay. 'There it flashes again; it is a signal to gather the troops. Anagnosti said so. Why must I stay behind like a coward?'He muttered these words indistinctly; but they fell on the girl's ear like a funeral knell. She saw the chafing of the proud and ambitious spirit; she knew that she held no longer the first place in Antonio's heart--that a stronger power than love had sprung up there, and ruled triumphant. The knowledge broke her girlish dream for ever.Philota looked at her lover as he stood, almost unconscious of her presence; his fingers clenched tightly on the silver-mounted pistol which every Greek carries in his belt; his beautiful lips compressed until their rosy curves became almost white. His thoughts were far away from her; and Philota saw it. One moment her hand was pressed on her heart; her lips opened, as if to give vent to the terrible cry of anguish that wrung her soul; but it came not. The struggle passed, and her resolution was taken.`Antonio!'--she laid her hand on his arm, and he started as if it had been the touch of death instead of her soft, warm fingers--'Antonio, I have changed my mind. Thou shalt not stay at home, but go and fight for Greece with the rest, and come back covered with the glory thou desirest so much!'The young Sphakiote's countenance became radiant with joy. `Thou sayest this from thy heart, Philota?''I do.'`And thou art happy--quite happy?'`Yes; if it makes thee so.'True woman's heart! Self-denying heroism of love--your strength is more than the strength of armies!A few days more, and Philota was alone. There was no hand to aid her in her daily journey up the mountain, or to relieve her of the olive-basket which she carried to the honey-gatherers. Antonio Melidori was gone to the wars.In that stirring time, when every day the sound of battle grew nearer, and every heart learned to beat with the fierce excitement of war, Philota alone was calm; no enthusiasm brightened her check when she saw her lover

depart--the noblest of the band of young Sphakiotes which he led with him to the govenor Affendouli. Even the cry of patriotism was to her an empty sound. Her imagination was never dazzled by that watchword, which is too often only another name for ambition.It was strange that at such a crisis, and in such a land, this one Greek maiden should have thought thus. But in her childhood she had been brought up by her mother's brother, a priest in the Greek Church--that Church which so long held fast the peaceful doctrines and pure worship of the primitive Christians. Then it was that Philota learned to look upon war as odious; and as her clear and earnest mind matured into womanhood all the tinsel of fame fell from the idol, and left it in its own naked hideousness. The fair image of glory which blinded the eyes of Antonio was to Philota nothing but a loathsome skeleton.Month after month the girl followed her lowly occupation on Mount Psiloriti, while her lover fought under the banners of Affendouli. Tidings reached her of his bravery and his high favour with the general. 'I am a captain now,' Antonio sent word; `higher than Rousso.' When she heard it Philota smiled; but it was a faint, sad smile, for she. feared the stain of a gnawing ambition was already creeping over his spirit. `Antonio--my Antonio!' she wept in secret, 'I can love thee, I can pray for thee; why is it that I alone dare not glory in thee now?'Before the autumn waned Melidori came home. Again Philota and he walked together along the woody slopes of Ida; but there was a change. Antonio talked now not of her or of his love, but of conflicts which he had sustained,

of honours which he had won--won through the midst of horrors of which the relation made the gentle girl shudder. He looked at them as merely common things, laughed gaily at her cowardice, and said how brave a soldier's wife ought to be. Alas! even that dear name brought no bright smile to Philota's lips; and as she leaned against her lover, the steel-covered breast of the soldier of fortune seemed cold and repulsive compared with the shepherd's garment of old. Philota felt it was an omen.They came to the place whence the whole island could be seen. `Look, Philota; there lies my band in that little dell. Do not you see their flags flying above the trees? There is one banner that I bore myself--how torn and blood-stained it is! Oh! that was a glorious victory of ours!'Philota sighed heavily.'What! art thou not glad? I thought thou wouldst be so proud of my fortune--even of me;' and a shade of vexation darkened the young soldier's cheek.The girl looked up in his face. 'I am proud of my Antonio; more than of the captain of Affendouli.'`Well, well--as thou wilt. Women are so fanciful,' added Melidori to himself.Antonio, darker and darker was the stain creeping over thy soul--shutting out affection, and trusting faith, and true devotion; and in their stead was already stealing selfish ambition! Fool! who would rather be loved for the poor tawdry robe of popular greatness, in which thou wouldst fain be clothed, than for thyself.`I see thou carest little for my honours, Philota,' he continued. `Perhaps thou wouldst rather I had remained a poor drivelling peasant on the mountains? I thought

all girls took pride in their lovers' glory; but it seems not so with thee.'`Antonio, dost thou remember the day when there was an olive-feast?--when, one after the other, our young men arose and sang songs that the impulse of the moment produced? Thou, too, didst pour out thy heart in a chant so glorious, so beautiful--it was of the old times which are dimly remembered in our traditions--that old men wept, and young men's eyes flashed, and a shout of applause greeted thee that echoed to the mountain-top. Did I not glory in thee then, my Antonio?''It was a poor triumph: a puling song, fit for girls only,' answered Melidori scornfully. 'Deeds, noble deeds alone can make the man.''Well, then, dost thou remember that stormy night when the old Armenian ascended the mountain, and there was no one to follow him in the darkness and fearful tempest--no one but thee; how thou didst save him, and bring him back to the village, and wouldst not take one piastre from the rich man's offered gold? Who was so proud of thee then as thine own Philota?''But all others said I was mad; and if I had perished on the mountain, where would have been my glory? Who would have remembered the name of the poor shepherd boy?''God!' said Philota solemnly. 'The glory of this one deed is worth all thy warlike renown.'He looked at her, and saw how her stature dilated and her countenance shone with a brightness almost saint-like. He understood her not, and yet was he struck mute by her earnestness. There was in that meek woman--she was no longer a girl now--who had lived all her life on the mountains, a nobleness of soul that silenced

even the bold chief whose name was regarded as a tower of strength by his soldiers, and honoured by the general himself.'Come, we will talk no more of this, dear Philota,' said Melidori gently, almost humbly. 'Let us descend the mountain.'The following day Antonio departed; for the Turks had attacked Sphakia, and the war had entered the island itself. The next tidings that reached Philota were that her lover had been wounded, though slightly. He had been left in a cottage on the outskirts of the town, his band having fled: single-handed he cut his way through the Turks, and escaped with a trifling wound.'The cowards!' he wrote to Philota; `that there should be cowards even in my band; that they should leave their leader to be slaughtered in cold blood! It was one man's doing; I suspect who; but I will be revenged one day. Yes, when I have conquered, and the enemy is driven from Candia, then I will be revenged.'Philota sank, crushed to the earth with pain. Revenge, not love, was then the goal of his hopes now! Moreover, she guessed better than Antonio the insidious tongue which had whispered revolt to Melidori's troop. It was Rousso's--Rousso, who had tempted him to the war--Rousso, over whom he had risen in command--Rousso, who had wooed, and been scorned by, Antonio's betrothed. The quick-sighted girl at once comprehended the whole, and she trembled for her lover.The history of the Greek revolution in Candia records the glory of Antonio Melidori; how he became regarded as a mountain chieftain, whose deeds emulated the fame of the ancient warriors of Greece; how mothers prayed that their children might be like him; how maidens

delighted to praise his beauty of person, his many acts of generosity, his unequalled bravery; how there was not a child in the island who could not lisp the name of Melidori.And all this while, far among the mountains, to whose fastnesses many of the Sphakiotes were compelled to retreat, throbbed the poor heart to whom this burst of glory had only brought desolation--the only heart that truly loved the young chieftain whose fame was on all lips. There, alone, almost forgotten, yet never forgetting, lived Philota.It is not our purpose to chronicle the career of Antonio Melidori in its outward sense, and as the world beheld it. The world is growing wiser now, and no longer is haunted by the phantom of military glory, a monster at which its own creator shudders. Yet if there could be a cause for which men might justly fight, it was surely that of Grecian liberty. In Candia, the Sphakiotes were battling not so much for renown as for the preservation of their lives and freedom. Men fought for their own homes, and by their very hearths; and what began in the ambition of a few was now with all a struggle for life and death. Wise men have said that such things must be; that from the foundation of the world liberty has only been bought with blood; yet it is indeed terrible. The world has passed through its childhood of innocence, when kings were shepherds and rulers held the plough; its youth of strife, when men fought, not through meditated revenge, but in haste of blood; its middle age of stratagem, cunning and ambitious warfare, when thousands were sacrificed to the caprice of one. Soon will come its peaceful and majestic age, when wisdom shall be the only true strength, and men shall rule, not by animal

force, but by the might of all-powerful mind. May that glorious time hasten fast--fast!Gradually--so gradually that Antonio scarcely felt it--the ties became loosened between him and Philota. The commander, the patriot, had no room in his heart for love. Whenever a brief space of repose enabled the lovers to meet, his thoughts were all of advancement, honours, successful conflicts; there was no talk of the bridal feast that was to come after the olive harvest; and when some of the maiden's early companions jested with her, and others envied her the glorious destiny that would await Melidori's bride when the war was over, Philota only smiled mournfully, for she knew that day would never come.At last the war grew so near that many of the mountaineers took refuge in the town of Sphakia. There, day by day, Philota could see her betrothed sallying forth with his band. What a gulf there was between the successful chieftain and the humble peasant girl who plied her needle for bread watching over him from a distance, with unknown and unacknowledged love! Not one of Antonio's friends would have dreamed that these two had once plighted their vows to each other in the quiet woods of Ida. Yet still he gathered honours every day, and amidst all the warfare he seemed to bear a charmed life. Who knows but that it was because the shield of woman's prayers was ever over him--the orisons of one whose love had grown so dim, so shadowy, so hopeless, that its only utterance had become a prayer--nay, even less a prayer than a mournful dirge?At the close of a night-skirmish with the Turks, the cry was raised that the captain, Melidori, was missing. The band re-entered Sphakia in lamentation. Rousso was at

their head, and his countenance had an expression of evil triumph. The women, who soon gathered in the streets, eyed him with dislike and indignation; for Antonio, with his manly beauty and generous spirit, was their idol.'Melidori is slain--the noble Antonio is slain! It is an evil day for us,' they lamented aloud.'He is not slain; he has deserted to the enemy. I saw him steal off from the field with mine own eyes,' said a voice; it was that of Rousso. 'Twice during the skirmish I watched him creep from the Turkish outposts. Melidori has deserted.''Melidori is here!' cried a deep, sonorous voice, which caused the soldiers to give a universal shout; and Antonio appeared. He held aloft in his arms a little Turkish child.'Soldiers! He who says I deserted deserves to be hanged form the nearest tree. I lingered behind to save this poor innocent, whose mother I saw murdered in her tent.''It is true, then, Sphakiotes, how well your captain loves the Turks, since you see he risks a battle to save their children,' sneered some one in the crowd. The voice seemed feigned, and in the darkness of the early morning its owner was unrecognised.Melidori drew up his lofty stature proudly. 'Sphakiotes, it is a lie! Which could only come from the wretch who murdered this babe's mother--the cowardly woman-slayer. I scorn to answer it.'The easily moved crowd broke out into acclamation, the women especially. When they ceased Antonio said, 'A soldier is scarcely a fit guardian for infancy. Is there none among the wives, mothers, or kind-hearted maidens of Sphakia who will take this poor babe?''Spear the puling brat of an infidel!' cried the same malicious voice from the midst. `How dares the captain ask any Sphakiote woman to nurse a viper until its fangs are grown?'Melidori's countenance glowed with rage; the more so as, governed by the insidious voice, all the crowd seemed to shrink away, eyeing the young soldier and his burden with distrust.`Many a Greek babe has fallen under the scimitar of a Turk!' 'The child of murderers should not live!' were mutterings that reached the ear of Antonio. The obstinacy and pride of his temper were roused, and, even with more than his natural generosity, they urged him to withstand the popular cry.`Sphakiotes, I defy you all! This young Turk shall not perish. I will rear it as my own. If I fall, it shall be brought up as a Greek, and taught to avenge me, as none of these coward brethren of mine would do. Now, women of Sphakia, is there none among you who will take charge of the adopted child of Antonio Melidori?''I will!' answered a low voice, and a woman stepped forth from the crowd.The young commander gave the child into her extended arms. As he looked in her face he started.'Philota--thou here!' he whispered hurriedly. 'I thought thou wert still in the mountains?''There was no longer safety there.''Why didst thou not tell me? How livest thou? This peasant's dress'--'Is most fitted for me. I live by the labour of my hands. Was it meet that a poor peasant girl should claim as her betrothed the commander of Sphakia?''Philota--generous Philota! But these people must

not hear thee. Take the babe. I will meet thee: let it be at dusk, under the city wall.'O thou faithful woman! was it come to this?Philota hushed the wailing babe on her bosom, and said aloud in a calm, distinct voice, 'Noble Captain Melidori, I am a Sphakiote maiden; I have no husband, nor ever shall have; therefore I will devote myself to this babe, and bring it up as the adopted of the greatest of our Greek heroes. People of Sphakia, you all are witnesses of this vow.'The crowd of women closed round her as Philota departed with her charge. When she was gone a deep sigh of relief burst from Melidori. Rousso came up to him and said gaily, 'Thou art lucky, Antonio, in finding so ready a nurse for thy young adopted.' Melidori's cheek reddened. 'Some old damsel who wants a plaything, I suppose?''He has not seen her, thank Heaven--he has not seen her!' muttered Antonio. 'Very likely,' he answered aloud. 'Well, we soldiers have our whims. I will make this young Turk fight against his own people yet. Come, Rousso, the general awaits us.'At dusk Melidori wrapped himself in the cloak of one of his men and went to the place of meeting. Philota was already there.`This is kind--like thyself, my dearest,' he said, pressing her in his arms; but the embrace and the words seemed more from duty than feeling. Philota suffered both in silence, and then she drew herself away, and stood beside him.'What hast thou to say to me, Antonio?' she uttered, not harshly, but in a tone of calmness that went to the heart of him whose warm love had not yet quite departed.'Why art thou so cold? Am I not thy betrothed, Philota?''Dost thou wish me to call thee so now? I thought that dream was over, and by thy desire.''I never said so.''No; but it was in thy heart. All is changed with us; we can never be again as in those happy days on Mount Psiloriti. Thou art a great man; thou canst not wed a poor maiden like me. I do not ask it. My love only burdens thee; therefore we will speak of it no more. Antonio, I would give my life for thee: shall I not, then, gladly relinquish this hope for thy glory's sake? I know thou didst love me once. I shall see thy fame, and I shall be content.'Melidori listened to her first in astonishment, then in shame. 'Philota,' he said hoarsely, 'I am not worthy to kiss thy feet, and yet I dare not say nay to thy words. I am more wretched than thou: forgive me.'It might have been that a lingering hope had fluttered in the girl's heart, but as Antonio spoke it was stilled for ever. She leaned against the wall, pale, breathless, speechless.The young soldier went on: `Thou dost not know what a life I lead--how full of danger and anxious thought; it would be death to thee to share it.'The vain excuse unsealed Philota's lips: 'Not so; be not deceived, Antonio. It is not for myself that I speak. God and my own heart know what I would have been to thee; how I would have shared thy fortune; have followed thee, if it must be, through seas of blood and warfare; have strengthened thee; have suffered no woman's tear to unnerve thy arm; have striven to make myself worthy to mount step by step with thee, that in thy coming glory no

man might say Antonio Melidori blushed for his wife. This is what might have been: it is too late. Let us part while thou yet lovest me a little.''And thou--and thou'--'I will live at peace in my humility, knowing that love for no other maiden stole thine from me. Be content; I feel thou hast never been thus faithless.''No, no, no!' groaned the young soldier, burying his face in his hands. 'Thou judgest me kindly. I never loved woman save thee. I never shall.''Then do not grieve,' said the girl as she bent over him in holy pity and took his burning hands in hers. 'I forgive thee; thou hast done me no wrong. I will rear this child; it will love me; and I can call it by thy name, and teach it how noble was that act of thine which saved it from death. Believe me, I shall be very happy, my Antonio.' Loving was the falsehood that came from those trembling lips--a falsehood more holy than truth.`Be it so, Philota,' said Melidori. `I am too unworthy even to bless thee; but thou wilt be blest.''And thou too, I pray the Virgin: And now that we are friends--only friends--but tried and true ones, I must tell thee what tidings I have heard. Rousso is thine enemy; how made such is partly known to thee, much more so to me. Rememberest thou how, when he and his band pillaged an old man's house, thou didst compel him to restore the spoil? From that time he has vowed thy death. It was his feigned voice that goaded the people against thee this morning. And afterwards, when I was threading my way through the town, I heard two men whispering thy name, and one said, "His tomb is open." Now, Antonio, beware. I am too lowly to be

heeded. I will watch: it may be that the dove can warn the eagle from the snare.''And thy own safety, thy life?''Is thine, and spent for thee. It is best so. And now hearken--thy name is shouted below. We must part here.' She gave him her hand.'We used not to part thus, Philota. Let me feel that I have been thy betrothed; let me kiss thy lips once more--it is the last time.'Philota fell upon his neck, and their lips met. It was less the kiss of love than of death; the last token between those who sever for eternity. Then she drew herself from those beloved arms and fled.The career of Melidori seemed a succession of triumphs. Every scheme contrived by the designing malice of Rousso failed. It was as though a good angel ever watched over Antonio. Affendouli, the Cretan governor, whose clearest friend and counsellor the young Sphakiote was, told him so. Melidori answered in a tone half bitter, half solemn, 'I know it; I believe it!' He spoke the truth.No one but Affendouli knew how deep was the cause of suspicion which made Antonio shrink from his former companion, Rousso, until a coldness very like positive enmity grew up between them. The governor himself saw through various manœuvres which Rousso had practised to turn his own favour from Melidori and dispossess the latter of the command; but at last there seemed to come a change, and Rousso, after a long absence, sent to Sphakia a message of peace, declaring the resolution of both himself and his brother-in-law, Anagnosti, to end all petty feuds and serve under Melidori. Affendouli gladly accepted this overture, for he saw the

evil that private animosities did to the one great cause. Rousso had invited Melidori to a solemn feast of unity, in which they might end all differences, and Affendouli urged him to go.'We must have peace among ourselves. All private feelings should be sacrificed to public good. Thou wilt go, Melidori?' entreated the old man; and Antonio consented.Richly mounted, and attended by a few of his own band, the Sphakiote commander set out to the place where Rousso and his handful of followers had bivouacked. Ere the cavalcade was out of sight of Sphakia, a peasant woman came to the young captain's abode and asked to see him.'There is the dust-cloud his horses leave behind,' was the answer. 'Go after him; it is only three leagues. You mountaineers are swift-footed. You will reach him by the time he has feasted with Captain Rousso.'The woman clasped her hands above her head with a terrible cry and fell to the ground.All the lavishness and revelry of a soldier's banquet signalised the feast of Rousso and Anagnosti; wine flowed in streams, and riotous music and laughter went up from the tents towards the still stars overhead. Melidori gave himself up to the enjoyment of the moment in perfect faith.`A gay life is a soldier's!' Anagnosti cried. 'Melidori, this is better than the olden olive-feasts on Mount Psiloriti.'A shadow came over the young captain's face. Rousso noticed it.'Perhaps Antonio regrets having left that quiet, easy life on the mountains for such a one as this?' he said, with a

smile that bordered on a sneer. On Rousso's face it was almost impossible to distinguish between the two.Melidori was not easily provoked. 'No, no,' answered he gaily; 'I would be the last to regret these old times--all very well in their way; but glory--patriotism.''Both fine-sounding words; though we who fight, fight for other things more substantial.''I do not understand you,' said Melidori rather coldly.'Oh, we all know the honours that await our young commander when the war is over: plenty of spoil--riches--a bride, for Affendouli's daughter is fair, and her father generous. But, perchance, there is some trifling impediment to that. A long time ago, on the mountains, people talked of a little damsel named Philota.''Rousso,' said Antonio hurriedly, `this Cyprus wine is glorious. I pledge thee.''With all my heart; and, as I was saying, there was to have been a wedding with the olive-feast.''Ha--ha--ha!' laughed Melidori. 'Thy thoughts run on fair damsels and wedding-feasts instead of warfare. Let us talk on something more soldier-like.''Presently; when I have drunk to thy health and that of Affendouli's daughter.''Not with mine,' said Antonio gravely. 'I do not choose jesting.''Then there is some truth in the tale about the little Sphakiote girl after all? Well, well, Antonio, thou art a happy man; for I saw the other day, near here, a pretty face, that put me strongly in mind of one I knew on Psiloriti. Is it so?'Melidori's lips quivered with passion, but he restrained himself. 'Rousso,' he whispered hoarsely, 'jest as thou wilt in private--not here.''What! conscience-stricken? Is Philota'--'Utter that name again with thy cowardly tongue, and'--Rousso rose up from the table and drew his short dagger. 'Wilt thou fight? Then so will I.' In a moment Melidori saw through the intent of all the torturing words which had come from that wily tongue. His anger cooled at once, and he resolved to thwart the purpose of his enemy.'None shall say that Antonio Melidori came to a friendly banquet, and there fought with his host,' he answered calmly. 'Soldiers, and you my fellow-guests, bear witness that for this reason, and this only, I will not fight. What would our enemies say of this petty brawling over cups? It is unworthy of Greeks. I will end it.'So saying, Antonio gave the signal of departure to his suite, and prepared to mount his horse. Anagnosti followed him.'Noble captain,' he said obsequiously, `do not let this feast of unity end in division. Rousso is so hasty; but he repents him now. I pray you return, and let all these differences be reconciled.'Melidori answered courteously and frankly, as was his nature: `There is none who would rejoice in peace more than I; it was for this only that I came hither.'`Then let us seal our peace by a brotherly embrace,' said Rousso, coming forward. His eyes flashed--Antonio thought it was with wine--and his step was unsteady. The young Sphakiote felt an unaccountable repugnance; but he thought of Affendouli, and the earnest entreaties of the good old man that all private enmity might be forgotten for the sake of Greece.'Be it so,' answered Antonio, extending his arms.

Rousso slid the same. There was a moment of stillness, and the assassin's dagger was plunged into that noble and generous breast.A cry, the terrible death-cry, burst forth. It was answered by another from without--a woman's; and Philota fell on her knees beside Antonio!She had followed him, league after league, with a speed and strength almost superhuman; so that, as she passed desolate houses and solitary travellers, they thought it was a spirit. And now she had come too late.In the confusion the murderer and his accomplice fled. Antonio's few soldiers carried their dying leader from the tent, and no one opposed them. There, on the road-side, beneath the peaceful stars, the young commander breathed his life away. It was not a sad ending, for his pillow was the breast of the faithful woman whose love had been the joy and brightness of his youth. Clouds had come over that brightness, but death swept them all away. From his few vague words, Philota knew that his thoughts were not of war, not of the false glory which had dazzled him, but of that old peaceful time when love was all in all. In the wanderings of his brain, the dying soldier fancied himself again on Mount Psiloriti, and murmured of Philota, of the olive-feast and the bridal.'We will stay here,' he whispered. 'I had a dream. It haunts me yet; but it is over. We will never leave our own mountain, Philota; never, never!' His head sank on her shoulder; the dream of which he spoke--the troubled dream of life--was over, for eternity.The governor, Affendouli, lamented with the sincerity of a worthy heart over his lost friend. He would have

honoured the dead by magnificent obsequies, and with that intent he called together his officers and the chief men of Sphakia; but in the midst of the assembly a woman appeared, and claimed the body of Antonio Melidori. The governor questioned her right, since he knew that Antonio had no surviving kindred.'It cannot shame the dead,' the woman murmured; and then said aloud: 'Antonio Melidori was my plighted husband: here is the betrothal ring. Give me his body, that I may bury him in the peaceful mountains where he was born. He would not rest with your guns booming over his grave. You possessed him, soul and body, in life; he is now mine only. Give me my husband, and let me go.''Poor wretch!' murmured the compassionate governor, as he looked on the wild gestures and frenzied air of the Sphakiote woman. 'O Greece, thy liberty is dearly bought!'On the summit of Mount Ida, on the very spot where the whole island lies stretched below, there is a cross of white stone, with the name, 'Antonio Melidori.' The soldier rests where no murmur of battle can ever reach his grave. The island is at peace; there is no warfare now. The mountaineers have their honey-gatherings, their olive-harvests, their vine-feasts; and no one remembers the dark days of old. For a time many a soldier came to say his prayers beside the white cross, and talk of the young patriot who had died for his country's sake; but as war-time ceased this far shrine was forgotten; and now it is rarely visited, except by two, who live together on the mountain-side--a woman of middle age and a youth, a neophite in the Greek Church. He calls her mother; and she is indeed a mother to him, though not his own. These

two are the only pilgrims who pray by the tomb of the victorious commander whose name once rang through Candia like a trumpet-sound. It has died away now, as all such glory dies, and will ever die. Love only can survive the grave.THE ITALIAN'S DAUGHTER:
A STORY OF THE ENGLISH POOR.`Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days.'IN one of the midland counties of England there is a district the name of which we shall not give, but merely allude to its characteristics, by which it may easily be discovered. It has risen up within the last century, until, from a few clusters of poor cottages, the seat of a manufacture of trifling importance, it has become one of the wealthiest, most populous, and most intelligent communities within the three kingdoms. The five or six small hamlets have grown into towns, whose boundaries, meeting, have all merged into one mass of habitations; so that, but for the diversity of name which each portion still preserves, it might be considered as one large city of manufactures, such as Manchester or Birmingham. But, like most newly-risen places, this region still presents anomalous mixture of town and country: for instance, between two colonies where the manufacture is carried on, a few green meadows, yet unbuilt upon, will intervene; and the tall chimney of 'the works' sometimes casts its smoke upon a puny corn-field or a blackberry hedge. Alternately the eye views

green wooded undulations and hills covered with red brick houses, as if town and country were struggling together for the mastery. But as soon as the habitations are left behind, the ruralities of the place triumph, and the naturally beautiful face of the country is seen in all its luxuriousness.On a little hill up which the road wound, just without the town, was a row of cottages inhabited by working-people. But it is with one only that we have to do. Its inmates sat or lolled outside the door, enjoying the cool summer evening. They were a mother and some half-dozen children, of all sizes and ages. Mrs Sutton was a comfortable-looking, middle-aged woman, clad with tolerable neatness. Whether she ever had been pretty was a matter entirely traditional. Probably she had, for the place to which she belonged is remarkable for the good looks of its damsels in early youth; but the wear-and-tear of eight-and-thirty years had entirely obliterated Mrs Sutton's beauty, if she ever had any. She stood tossing her youngest hope, a babe of three months, and watching the two eldest playing at marbles. They were sturdy boys, save that their faces had the paleness which was the result of their work during the day; a circumstance which never fails to strike a visitant to this earthenware region, where the work-people all acquire the same pallid hue. Yet it is not unhealthy; and it imparts to the young girls a delicate beauty, which, though fleeting, is still very attractive while it lasts. Mrs Sutton's little maidens were an evidence of this fact: two fairer and more delicate blossoms never grew up in a labourer's home than did the twins, Edna and Keziah.And here--to account for such extraordinary appellations--we must premise that Scripture names of the most out-

of-the-way character are at a premium in the neighbourhood of which we write--the boys being all Enochs, Calebs, or Obadiahs; the girls all Miriams, Jemimahs, or Naomis, with a sprinkling of such ultra-romantic and half-sacred cognomens as 'Thyrza, Zillah, or Kosonna. And having our pet theory of nomenclature, we cannot but observe how these things mark the character of the early inhabitants of a region which was once the stronghold of Wesley and his followers; how the descendants of these saintly-named children have gradually advanced with the tide, until their ultra-piety has left no vestige save in a Christian name.But we are wandering from Mrs Sutton. She, good soul, was wandering too; at least her eyes were, for she was watching up the hill a couple who seemed both weary and waysore. They were a young woman, and a man who might have been any age from twenty to forty, for he had the hard, sallow features which never show the progress of time. Still less would years be marked on his low and ungainly figure, which was stunted and almost deformed, forming a strong contrast to the tall and upright form of his companion. This ill-matched pair came near Mrs Sutton's door, and then the man, after whispering to his fellow-traveller, addressed the good dame in broken English, which she could not understand. She looked inquiringly at the other.'My husband'--Mrs Sutton could not help a slight start, and glance of surprise at the man, as the young woman said this--'My husband means that we are very tired, and would be glad of a lodging for the night, if you can give us one, or direct us elsewhere. We can pay you,' she added, with a half-smile, seeing the doubtful expression of Mrs Sutton's face. But, to do the latter

justice, we must say that it was caused as much by her surprise at hearing the young wife speak in good English, mingled with a natural feminine curiosity to know the reason that any Englishwoman could marry such a man.Perhaps this latter quality, added to her good nature, made her assent to their request, at all events partially.'You can sit down and rest,' she said, 'and I'll get you some supper; but I can't promise more till my "master" comes home'--'master' being the ---shire equivalent for husband or guidman; and, alas! sometimes the title is only too true. But in this case it was a mere form of speech, as every one knew that Mrs Sutton was both master and mistress herself in her own house.So the two wanderers sat down, and soon the cottage-hearth was blazing with a friendly brightness, which is at the will of the poorest labourer in this plentiful land of coal. Oh, there are no such fires out of ---shire! The foreigner bent over his supper in hungry taciturnity, occasionally darting glances from his large, bright, black eyes, that seemed the more piercing from the dark, bushy eyebrows under which they gleamed, and, in conjunction with the long, matted hair and the yellow skin, made Mrs Sutton feel rather uncomfortable. All true-born Britons hate foreigners. But her motherly and womanly sympathy was excited by the weary and sickly look of the young wife, who had all an Englishwoman's claims to compassion; and Mrs Sutton resolved that, whatever her 'master' said, the strange wayfarers should have a night's shelter under her roof.They did remain; and before noon on the following day, Pietro Ponti--that was his name, he said--had so ingratiated himself in the favour of the children as to win a few kindly opinions from the mother herself; while his

gentle wife was liked so much that Mrs Sutton almost felt it a relief when, after paying for their lodging, they requested to occupy it for another day or so.'She is such a mild, soft-spoken young creature,' was Mrs Sutton's confidential observation to her husband John, after the first day passed with their inmates; 'she seems almost a lady. I wonder what on earth could have made her marry that ugly little fellow!'And probably the good dame's curiosity would have led her on to direct questionings instead of vague wonderment, had she not been withheld by a certain reserve and refinement which marked the young woman's deportment, and caused the labourer's wife to treat her with unconscious deference. Yet she was not proud, for she always helped Mrs Sutton in her domestic duties without any reluctance or awkwardness.At last Pietro spoke of proceeding onwards; and then the anxious looks of his wife loosened Mrs Sutton's tongue. She boldly asked whither they intended going.'I--I hardly know,' said the wife timidly; when Ponti, in his broken English, explained that he was an Italian, who gained his living by catching bullfinches and larks, and teaching them to sing, in the hope of meeting purchasers.'A pretty way of making a fortune!' thought Mrs Sutton; and then she said, 'Well, master, if such is your trade, you may as well follow it here as anywhere. You will find plenty of birds in the fields hereabouts; and as your wife seems comfortable, why, suppose you were to stay with us?'This proposal caused a consultation between the husband and wife, if a consultation it could be called, where Pietro had all the talk to himself and his helpmate meekly

acquiesced. It ended in an assent to the offer, and the Italian and his wife were fairly established in the Sutton family.'I am really glad you are not going, Mrs Ponti,' was the hearty exclamation of the kindly hostess to her young friend the first time they happened to be alone. 'I wonder your husband could think of dragging you up and down the country.''He never thought about it, I believe,' was the deprecatory reply. 'But,' added the wife, while her cheek flushed and her head drooped, 'I am glad to stay here for the present. I would not like going among strangers now.''All no, no, poor girl!' quickly answered Mrs Sutton. But have you no mother--no aunt?' She repented of her words ere they were well uttered; for the girl burst into a fit of weeping so violent that all the consolatory endearments that women of all ranks instinctively use to one another in time of affliction were employed by Mrs Sutton in vain. At last the wife of the Italian grew calmer, and said, without tears, though in an accent of the deepest sorrow, 'I have no relatives, no friends in the wide world, except my husband.''Poor thing--poor thing! But you know, my dear, a good husband is something, and he seems very fond of you.' Mrs Sutton tried hard to say this as if she really believed the fact.'Yes--yes, Pietro is very kind,' answered the young woman, faintly smiling. 'I thought so, or I would not have married him. Shall I tell you how it was?'Now this was the climax of all Mrs Sutton's wishes; but she had self-denial enough to say, 'Not if it troubles you, Mrs Ponti.''I wish you would call me Anne,' said the girl, taking her hand; 'you are the first woman who has seemed to love me since my mother died.' And here she began to weep afresh, but soon recovered herself so as to tell her story: how that she came from York; that she was an only child, and fatherless; and had been left utterly friendless and helpless on her mother's death.'It was during her illness,' Anne continued, 'that Pietro Ponti, who lived in the same house, showed us much kindness. He was so much older than I, he treated me as a father would a child, and helped me out of all my troubles. When I was quite broken-hearted, I heard that he was going away on his usual rounds, and I went to him to ask his advice as to how I could support myself. My poor mother had been a dressmaker; but I was too young to take her business, for I was only seventeen. I felt that I must starve or beg, for I had no money. Then Pietro talked to me quietly and seriously, and told me that there was but one way in which he could maintain me, and save me from poverty--if I would marry him. He said this doubtingly, almost afraid that I would be angry; but I was not for I saw tears in his eyes when he spoke of my youth and beauty being thrown away on a poor deformed creature like himself. I knew it was all his kindness; and I told him how grateful I was, and that, if he would let me think of it for a week, I would indeed be his wife. Pietro asked me if I had any other love--any one I preferred to him; as then he would never make me wretched. But I said no; there was no one who seemed to me so good and kind as he. And so, at the end of the week, I married him; and he has ever been a good husband to me. I fear I hardly love him as he deserves, but indeed I try; and I do obey him in all things.'To this long story Mrs Sutton had listened without a word. As Anne ended, the good woman pressed her hand, bade 'God bless her!' in rather a husky voice, and, muttering a hope that she would stay long with them and be very happy, went about her household business. But all that day Mrs Sutton's voice--at times raised sharply enough--sounded softer than usual; and when Pietro Ponti came in to supper, the best portion of the meal and the warmest corner of the fireplace were kindly, though abruptly, pointed out as his own to the little, deformed Italian.Two or three months passed, and Ponti and his wife became like members of the family. The bird-catcher pursued his trade successfully, being taken to the woodland haunts for miles round by the younger Suttons, with whom he was an especial favourite. They Anglicised his name, and christened him Peter, which appellation was soon given him by the whole family. And ten times better than even Peter did they all love the pretty Anne, who seemed so young that she was almost a playmate for the children. But a continual shadow of pensiveness darkened her face, though not detracting from its mild beauty. Her husband was always kind, yet still there was a perpetual yearning, a restless void in the girl's heart. How could it be otherwise? She never uttered a word of complaint, or even of sadness; but often, when she sat preparing for the little being that was soon to give her new ties of love, Anne would let the work fall from her hands, while her dark-blue eyes, so dreamy in their depths, were fixed on vacancy, as if looking wistfully into the dim future. Good, plain Mrs Sutton could not understand these fancies, and sometimes wished that Anne would think less and talk more--it would be much better for her.Birth and death came hand-in-hand together. The babe lived--the mother died! Kind-hearted Mrs Sutton closed the eyes of the poor young creature who had so twined round her honest heart. She had tended her with a mother's care until the last; when she saw how peaceful and beautiful the dead face looked, the good woman dried her tears.'Poor thing--poor thing! she has nothing to trouble her now! Perhaps it is as well--God knows best!'And then Mrs Sutton heard the wail of the little motherless babe, and thought not of the dead, but of the living. With motherly care she took the helpless child to her bosom and nourished it as her own.'Charley is six months old now,' she said to her husband. 'He is strong and healthy; I shall now devote myself to this poor little creature, who wants me most.'And so she nursed the babe, and became a mother to it in the stead of her who had now no need of the comfort of a child to love. Many a time, when the little one grew older, and began to laugh and crow in her arms, Mrs Sutton would think of its dead mother; how her heart would have leaped to feel the bliss of maternal love--the tiny twining fingers--the kiss of the little, soft lips. And then she would remember that a child's love is not all-sufficient, and that, perhaps, it was well for poor Anne that she lived no longer.Whether the widower grieved much for the loss of his sweet young wife it was impossible to tell. The Italian was always of a reserved disposition; and when the first shock was over, he seemed to return to his old habits much as if nothing had happened. His taciturnity rather increased and sometimes, after spending the day out in the fields, he came home, silently took his place in his

own warm corner, and tittered not a syllable until it was time to go to rest. He rarely noticed his child, except that, when Mrs Sutton began to talk to him about the name of the babe, hinting that, as a matter of course, the little one should be christened Anne, Pietro shrank from her with an expression of acute pain, and at once said it should not be so--that the child should be called Ginevra.'Jenny what?' cried Mrs Sutton, aghast at this foreign appellation.'Ginevra!' said the Italian, lingering on the melodious syllables with seeming fondness, as if it were a name long unuttered, but most dear, and saying it over and over again, coupled with the tender and musical diminutives of his own language. All this was incomprehensible to the worthy woman, and she tried again to protest against 'so un-Christian and heathenish a name.' But the only answer she gained was the distinct repetition of the name, in a tone so firm that she saw it was useless to dispute the father's will. As a contest of words between herself and the foreigner would have been highly unprofitable to both, Mrs Sutton wisely yielded her point, probably for the first time in her life. So the babe was christened Ginevra; but Mrs Sutton, as if determined to make the baptismal name void, gave to her nursling the pet diminutive of Jenny; and Jenny she was called evermore by the household.The child grew up as a younger sister in the family: no one seemed to look upon her in any other light. She learned to call her nurse 'mother,' and John Sutton 'father;' while the appellation she gave to her own was 'Peter,' like the rest of the children. Nor did the Italian seem to care for the abolition of the paternal ties; he

treated his own daughter as he did the little Suttons, with neither more nor less regard than he had ever shown to them; only that he always called her Ginevra, sometimes adding to it sweet diminutives, such as Ginevretta; but these seemed not meant for the child, but as tokens of loving remembrances awakened by the name she bore.In truth, as the little girl grew older no one could have guessed her Italian descent. She looked, spoke, and was in all respects an English child, with her soft blue eyes and brown hair, like her mother's--her true mother--now so utterly forgotten, whose very existence was unknown to the child whose life had been her death. Once or twice Mrs Sutton tried to explain the truth to Jenny; but the mystery was too great for the little girl's mind. And, besides, Mrs Sutton loved her nursling so much, it was as pain to remember she was not her own child; so at last she let the matter rest.Time passed on, and Jenny became of an age to go to school; and to school she was accordingly sent, with her foster-brother Charley; her father never interfering in the matter at all. Indeed, from the child's birth he had seemed to give her up entirely to the Suttons. She was clothed and fed by the honest labourer with his own children; and not a murmur did worthy John Sutton and his equally worthy helpmate utter with regard to the little one thus quartered on them and dependent on their bounty. In everything she was to them as their own. Oh, there are noble hearts in the dwellings of the English poor! and good deeds, of which the greatest philanthropist might be proud, are often concealed under thatched roofs and highways and hedges, unknown and unchronicled; but they will be chronicled one day, we trust.When Jenny was ten years old her father died. They found him one morning lying dead in his bed, in the little room where he slept, and where he taught his birds; for they had often heard him at daybreak whistling and talking to them in his own tongue. The little birds were now warbling joyously, carolling in the sunshine over the pillow of the dead man. Poor Pietro! in life they had been his only companions, and they were the only witnesses of his death. The same kind hands which had laid the wife in her grave now laid her husband beside her; but there was little mourning for him. He came a stranger, and was a stranger to the last. For some time Pietro's trade had not prospered, and he had owed subsistence to the charity of those whose inmate he had been so long. Now, but for John Sutton, the Italian might have found a parish grave.The only treasures left by Pietro Ponti were his birds, a silver crucifix, and a little Italian book, in which was written the name he had given his daughter--Ginevra. It might have been his mother's, a sister's, perhaps some early memory still dearer; for the human heart is the same all over the world, and the deformed bird-catcher might have loved as well as the noble and fair, perhaps more truly. But nothing more was ever known of the father of Ginevra Ponti. After a time Mrs Sutton explained to her adopted child as much as she knew herself, and then, clasping Jenny in her arms, told her she need think of it no more, for that she was henceforth her own daughter.Two years or more passed away; the sons and daughters of Mrs Sutton grew up; one girl married; two boys went away; another turned out ill, and gave many a gnawing care to his parents. It was a hard time for trade, and anxieties came heavily upon John Sutton; yet he never complained of the additional burden which he had in his

adopted child; the idea never crossed his mind, or his wife's either. They seemed to think that Jenny was always to live with them; to send her away would be like parting with her own. That any one should claim her seemed equally improbable; but strange things happen sometimes.One day a visitor, who was not exactly a lady, but very well dressed, came to inquire for Mrs Sutton.'I wanted to speak to you,' she said abruptly. 'My name is Mrs Dalton.' Mrs Sutton started; for it was that of the Italian's wife. 'You seem to know my name?''I have heard it before,' answered Mrs Sutton.'I don't belong to these parts,' said Mrs Dalton, in a tone that, if not exactly refined, sounded honest and straightforward; 'but in crossing the churchyard I saw a stone with the name of Anne Meredith Ponti. Now I have been long looking for my brother's child, of whom I only know her name was Anne Meredith Dalton, and that she married a wandering Italian called Ponti. The sexton sent me to you for information.'A little incensed at the imperative tone of her visitor, Mrs Sutton related all she knew.'It must have been my niece,' said Mrs Dalton musingly. Mrs Sutton began to speak of poor Anne--what she was like in person; but the latter stopped her quickly--'You need not describe her, as I never saw her; but let me look at the child.'Jenny came, was admired--for she was indeed a beautiful child--and at last acknowledged by Mrs Dalton as her grandniece, in favour of her mouth and nose, which were, she said, exactly those of a Dalton. The lady, who bore the epithet of Mrs by courtesy--for she was an old maid--finally declared her intention of taking away her niece to

educate, and adopt her as her own. Mrs Sutton was perfectly overwhelmed. To part with Jenny, her darling Jenny, was a thing dreadful to imagine. She burst into tears, snatched the child to her bosom, and ran away with her out of the house.But with calm reflection came the thought of the injury she might be doing to Jenny's interests in thus keeping her to share the poverty which was coming darkly on, when she might be made a lady of by one to whom she was bound by ties of kindred. The simple-hearted but upright woman thought of all this, until she was well-nigh bewildered; and then she had to convince her husband too. The end of it was, that the adopted parents of the little Jenny consented to Mrs Dalton's proposition.'If she should come to any harm,' cried the poor woman, folding her darling to her heart in the agony of a parting which Jenny could hardly comprehend--'if you do not teach her what is right, and be kind to her, I shall never forgive myself.'Mrs Dalton promised, with an earnestness and sincerity which was proved by her moistened eyes and softened voice, that she would try to be as good a mother to the orphan as the excellent woman who had nurtured Jenny for so many years. And then she gently took the child away the very same week, for she would hear of no delay; and Jenny's sweet face was seen no more among those of her adopted brothers and sisters. From the far-distant and luxurious home to which she was taken came her childish letters, every line of which was wept fondly over. But year by year they grew less frequent; and at last they ceased. A neighbour, once passing by the place, told how he had seen a young girl whom he thought was like what little Jenny used to be; and though the relation brought a

few tears to Mrs Sutton's eyes and a pain to her heart, at the thought of her darling having forgotten her, still both soon passed away. The poor have no time for much sentiment, and Mrs Sutton was engrossed by her own thickly-gathering cares.It is all very well for political economists and theoretical philanthropists to talk about the wisdom of laying up for old age and providing against the evil day; but for a labouring man, whose weekly earnings only suffice to provide weekly food for the many little mouths that must be filled, the matter is extremely difficult. Many and many an honest man who has brought up a large family, which has not requited his care, is thrown upon parish charity in his old age. It was not quite so bad as this with John Sutton; but still, when all their young nestlings were fledged, and had gone out into the wide world--some for good and some for evil--the old parents were left solitary and poor.'Ah, if Keziah had but stayed!' lamented the poor old mother when the prettiest of the twins went away one fine morning and secretly married a worthless young man, leaving her parents deprived of the few comforts which her earnings, as the last of the flock, had brought them.'Children always turn out so,' angrily said John Sutton. 'And we that were fools enough to bring up another man's child, too: much good we have of it.''Don't say that, John,' answered Mrs Sutton, and her voice was gentler than it had once been: trouble softens much sometimes. 'I will never believe it was poor Jenny's fault; and, anyhow, we did what was right, and that ought to be a comfort to us.'It was years since the name of the Italian's daughter had been mentioned by the Suttons. The wounded feel-

ings of the old man had brought the subject up now, and his wife could not drive it from her mind. Her own daughter's unkindness made her think of the little gentle creature whom she had loved so much, and who had ever been willing and dutiful--far more so than her own wild troop of children. As the old woman knelt before her hearth, kneading the dough for the tiny loaf which was sufficient now for their weekly need, her thoughts went back twenty years, wandering by a course of ideas which, if not romantic, was at all events natural, to the pile of bread she used to bake when the cottage was alive with merry children, now scattered far and wide. Then, in her fancy, she saw little Jenny standing by her side, burying her round rosy arms in the dough, as she was so fond of doing, until the good woman stopped to wipe her eyes, which these old memories made dim.'Poor Jenny, if she could but come back, and be as she used to be. But that's quite impossible,' thought Mrs Sutton, with a heavy sigh.Life is more full of strange coincidences than we are aware. How often, on meeting unexpectedly some clear, long-lost friend, do we remember that our thoughts had, only the day before, with a curious wilfulness, persisted in bringing up the very face we were so soon to see, and we laugh, and say what an odd chance it was! Wise mortals, as if there were such a thing as chance in this world!Little did Mrs Sutton think that when she and her good man went to rest that night, it would be with the happy knowledge that the dear lost Jenny was once more sleeping under their roof. While they sat at their homely tea the latch was lifted, a young girl's face appeared, and a sweet voice said, 'May I cone in, mother?' It was not

the erring Keziah; it was not the other twin, Edna--her home was beyond the Atlantic; but it was the child of their adoption, the long-lost Jenny.The old couple forgot all in the delight of welcoming her. They were never weary of looking at her and admiring her, now grown a tall and graceful woman, like what her mother had been. But the sadness that had darkened the face of poor Anne was not found in her daughter's. Content beamed in the looks of sweet Jenny.After the first joy was past Mrs Sutton said mournfully, 'But we shall not have you long; maybe you will not stay with us, Jenny; you are a rich lady now, I suppose?'Jenny put her arm round the neck of her old nurse, and whispered, 'Dear mother, I am not rich, indeed; and I will never go away from you again, if you will let me stay.'And then she told at length, what we must relate in a few words, that her aunt, a dressmaker in a large city, had educated her, though she was not kind, and, as Jenny grew a woman, made her cease all communication with her old friends, whom the girl thought were dead, until accident brought to her the news of their troubles.'Then,' said the young girl, deeply blushing, 'I thought how wicked and ungrateful I must seem to you; and I asked my aunt to let me come and see you, and help you, if I could, for I was able to earn a good deal; but she refused. I could not rest. I was very miserable; and when I heard that Keziah had gone away, and you had no child left, I asked again to be allowed to come; and so,' added Jenny, while her tears began to flow, 'my aunt turned me away, and I came here.''And how did you come--all alone, poor child? cried the mother.'I walked almost all the way, for I had hardly any money. O mother, I am so happy! And you will let me be your child, and work for you, and live as we used to do? I have never forgotten you; indeed I have not.'And the beautiful, refined, but still simple-hearted young woman embraced again and again her adopted parents, and moved about their poor and homely dwelling as cheerfully as if she had never seen a richer one. But the cottage did not long remain thus poor; Jenny's skilful and patient industry soon gained plenty of work in her own business; and though, as she said truly, she did not come back a rich lady, but a penniless girl, and could requite her benefactors, not with showers of gold and silver, but with the labour of her hands, the young girl brought a blessing with her. Their own children had left John Sutton and his wife desolate in their old age; but the adopted one was to them in the stead of all the rest. The good deed of these humble but most noble hearts had brought its reward at last fourfold.THE SCULPTOR OF BRUGES.ABOUT the middle of the sixteenth century there was not an artist in the Netherlands whose fame had spread wider than that of Messer Andrea, the sculptor of Bruges. His father had come from Italy, and settled in Flanders, where he lived and struggled, an ardent and enthusiastic artist, whose genius cast just sufficient light to show him his own defects. This love of the beautiful was the sole inheritance he left his son. But Andrea's northern birth and education had, to a certain extent, qualified his Italian descent, so that to his father's ardent nature he added a steady perseverance, without which all the genius in the world is but as a meteor of a moment.The branch of art that Andrea followed was wood-sculpture, in which, by his wonderful skill, he surpassed all his contemporaries. In our day it is impossible, from the few relics that remain, to know the perfection to which our ancestors of the Middle Ages carried this beautiful style of art; when Gothic saints and Madonnas looked down from their niches in cathedrals, though the names of the unknown artists who carved these beautiful heads and graceful draperies were forgotten, even before the frail material in which they worked had lost its freshness.The sculptor of Bruges was one of these now-forgotten artists; and yet an artist he was, in the highest sense of the word. He lived and moved among beautiful forms and ideas; they influenced his character and refined his mind, yet did not make him unfit for association with the world. Riches and honour came with his fame, until he stood high in the regard of his fellow-citizens; and the son of the poor Italian student was at last deemed worthy to wed one who had long been the object of an almost hopeless love, a daughter of one of the highest families in Bruges. This union could not but be a happy one; and Andrea and his wife slowly advanced towards middle age, feeling that their present bliss had not belied the promise of their youth. Still, there were a few bitter drops in their cup: the husband and wife saw several of their children drop off one by one, until all that remained were two boys and a daughter--the lovely little fair-haired Gertrude, who was her father's darling. Nevertheless, these were sufficient to make the sculptor's home cheerful, and the lost brothers and sisters were hardly missed.At the time when our story begins Andrea had finished his latest work. It was a group of angels, carved in wood, to adorn the church of Bruges. The burghers crowded to gaze upon and admire the work of their fellow-citizen, of whom they were so justly proud. It was indeed a beautiful specimen of the ancient Gothic style, such as one meets with sometimes even now in old churches, where the hand of innovation has not reached. Three angels formed the group, one kneeling with raised eyes and humbly-folded hands, while the other's stretched-out arms were lifted upward in rapturous adoration; and the third, looking down on the worshippers

below, pointed towards heaven. The perfect beauty of expression, the grand yet simple masses of drapery, falling in broad folds, which are the characteristics of this style, won universal praise. The artist stood by, in pleasure, not unmingled with honest pride, when many a hand shook his own in friendly congratulation, and many an eye, made humbler by rank and distance, looked at him admiringly.In all the pleased assembly there was but one dissentient voice, and that was from a brother artist and rival of Andrea. Melchior Kunst was one of those dark and unquiet spirits who seem to cast a shadow wherever they go. He was a man of great talent, noble to look at, and at times most fascinating in manner, and yet no one loved him. There appeared to be an atmosphere of gloom and distrust about him, which made his fellow-men shrink from him. Even now all instinctively made way for him, and Melchior strode on until he stood opposite the group. He folded his arms, and looked at it fixedly from under his dark brows. Then he addressed the artist, who stood at a little distance.'doubtless you think this very fine, Messer Andrea?''It is not what I think of it, but the judgment which the world puts on my work, that is of consequence,' answered Andrea calmly.'And you never saw this design before?''Certainly not; it is my own.''Indeed!' said Melchior, with that quiet sneer which is so galling sitting on his curved lips--the handsomest feature of his very handsome face. 'Indeed! And so you never go into another's studio, and copy limbs, and attitude, and design, as you have here stolen from me?''It is not true,' said Andrea, with difficulty restraining his passion.'I tell you it is,' cried his opponent. Look, gentlemen, brother artists; look! this figure is mine--my own design; and here I execute my will upon what is my own!' and he drew a hatchet from under his cloak, and before the wonder-stricken spectators could interfere, he severed one of the upraised hands of the nearest figure.Andrea was stung to the quick by this mutilation of his work; all his Italian blood was roused within him; with a sudden impulse, he rushed upon Kunst with the fury of a tiger at bay. Those around interfered; but it was needless, for Andrea's well-constituted mind had already got the better of his momentary rage, and he stood pale but self-possessed, gazing alternately at his adversary and at his own despoiled work.'Melchior Kunst,' said he at last, 'you think you have done me a great injury; and so you have, but not an irreparable one. I will not revenge myself now, but you will be sorry for it some time.'A loud laugh from Kunst made the sculptor once more clench his hands, while the bright red mounted to his brow; but he said no more, and after Melchior's departure he too left the hall with some friends, who were stricken dumb by this untoward event.It was late in the evening when Andrea returned towards his own home. He walked slowly along by the side of the dark and gloomy canal, which the setting light of the young moon only made more solemn and fearful. Thick ivy-hung walls, even in the daytime, cast a heavy shadow on the water; and now it looked like some dark abyss, which no man could fathom. Here and

there some pale solitary ray of moonlight pierced through the branches of the acacias that overhung the opposite side, seeming like a bright arrow flashing through the darkness.Andrea's heart was very heavy. His triumph had ended in pain: disappointment not only at the injury done to his work, but at the unjust accusation of Melchior Kunst. Andrea knew how ready are the suspicions of the world when once aroused; and he fancied that already cold and doubtful eyes examined his group with less favour than heretofore. And, besides, the sudden ebullition of anger to which he had been goaded left a weight behind, both bodily and mental; for with men of Andrea's gentle and not easily-roused temperament, such excitement ever causes a painful reaction.The sculptor walked on quickly amidst the gathering darkness of the night, for the moon had now set. He fancied now and then that he heard stealthy footsteps at a distance behind him; and perhaps this made him unconsciously urge his pace. Andrea was no coward, but it was a lonely place by the water-side, and he was unarmed. Still, as the footsteps approached no nearer, he reproached himself for yielding to the delusion of an imagination heated by the events of the day. All at once Andrea heard distinctly a plunge in the water of some heavy body. His first idea was, that some unfortunate had thus ended his life and his miseries; but the sound was so distant that he was uncertain. He retraced his steps; but there was nothing to justify his previous thought. The canal flowed on, silent and dark as before; not a struggle, not a groan, not a cry rose up from its gloomy depths. It could have been only a heavy stone, which had fallen from the old dilapidated wall

into the waters beneath. Andrea felt sure of this, and went on his way until he reached his home--a home where, since he left, danger and anxiety had entered.Three days after this two armed officers of justice made their appearance in the dwelling of the sculptor of Bruges. They came to take prisoner the master of the house, accused of the crime of murder. From the day of the contest in the hall, Melchior Kunst had never been seen until that morning, when his lifeless body had floated up from the bed of the canal into the very market-place, a fearful spectre among living men. Then one of the horror-stricken bystanders remembered that on the same night of their quarrel he had seen Messer Andrea pass by the way that led along the canal, and that not long after Melchior Kunst also followed. Another man, who lived near, had heard a plunge in the water, but thought it was only his own dog, who often at night swam across the canal. A third had met Messer Andrea beside the canal also, but had seen no other man. This was sufficient evidence to convict the unfortunate artist.The officers found their prisoner alone. He was sitting with his head buried in his hands, and hardly moved at their entrance. One of them laid his hand on the sculptor's shoulder and claimed him as a prisoner.Andrea looked up with a face so listless, so vacant, so deadly pale, that the officer started, and unconsciously let go his hold.'A prisoner!' said Andrea, without making an effort to move. 'What have I done? Who accuses me?'The officer was a man of kindly nature, who had known Messer Andrea in former times. He gently and respectfully explained his errand, but had to repeat it several times before Andrea comprehended him. It

seemed that some heavy cloud darkened his faculties. At last he understood the whole.'So they accuse me of being a murderer--an assassin?' said he, rising, while a shiver ran through his frame. Then addressing the first officer: 'You were a good man once--follow me.' The other hesitated. 'You need not fear,' continued Andrea; 'I am unarmed--I have no thought of escaping from justice.'The man followed his prisoner until they came to a darkened room; it was the chamber of death. On the bed lay the pale and shrouded form of a woman. Very beautiful she must have been, and her beauty had scarcely passed its maturity. No long illness had taken away the roundness of health from her face, so that even in death she looked lovely as a marble statue. The long dark lashes rested on her cheek, and a few locks of jet-black hair, escaping from the fillet that bound her head, gave a life-like air to her repose. By her side lay an infant--a flower of an hour--whose little soul had come from heaven at sunrise, and returned thither at sunset. They were the wife and child of Andrea.The sculptor pointed to the dead. 'Look there,' he said, 'and say if I am likely to have revenged any trifling insult--if I am likely to have been a murderer!' His voice grew hoarse; he stretched his arms towards the body of his wife, and then fell to the earth in strong convulsions.Andrea, during nearly the whole time that elapsed between his apprehension and trial, was dead to the consciousness of his misery. A low fever enfeebled all his senses, and reduced his outward form to the appearance of an old man. His friends--for he had still many--took both his sons to their charge. It was well they did, for

the father seemed to have lost all remembrance even of their existence. When they visited him, he took not the least notice of them; so the children were at last wisely sent far away from the scene of disgrace and suffering. But with Gertrude the father would not part. She was a sweet little creature, the image of her mother in feature and expression, but in complexion resembled her father. Her eyes were of that deep violet hue which is seldom seen beyond childhood--so dark that a careless observer would call them black. Gertrude's hair was of that colour which the old masters often gave to heads of Christ and of the Virgin--a mingling of warm brown and reddish gold tints, which the uninitiated might call red, but which painters know to be the most beautiful of all shades. It gave to sweet Gertrude the appearance of an angel, for in the sunshine it looked like a coronet of golden light around her head. If ever human form seemed the visible embodiment of a perfect soul, it was this child's. We have lingered over the picture of her, partly because we love to think of beauty, and partly because such descriptions always give vividness to events that are long gone by.The first evidence that Andrea gave of returning consciousness to things around him was in recognising his little daughter, and calling her by her name. It was her mother's also; and perhaps that, aided by the strong resemblance, was a comfort to the widowed husband. He began to talk coherently, first with Gertrude, and then with others who came to see him; and by degrees his mind and body gathered strength, so that he was able to think of his defence against the terrible crime laid to his charge. This was a momentous thing, for the proofs were all against him, and Andrea could bring no evidence in his favour, save his own explanation of what had hap-

pened on his way homewards that fatal day, and the irreproachable character he had borne all his life.At last the sculptor of Bruges was brought from his prison to the judgment-hall where he was to be tried. He seemed to himself like one risen from the grave, and indeed so he appeared to those about him. Andrea had been a strong, powerful, noble-looking man, but now all his flesh had shrunk away, and his height only made him appear more shadowy. Dark circles were round his eyes, and his face bore an unvaried sallow hue. Nevertheless, his mien was firm and composed; no one could look at him and doubt for a moment his innocence. Andrea's little daughter stood by his side: one might have likened her to a flower growing close beside a tomb. Gertrude had become accustomed to the change in her father's looks, and the shocked and anxious gaze of all around struck her with alarm. She crept closer to him, never taking her eyes from his face.The trial proceeded. All was against Andrea; even the words he had uttered before Melchior left the hall were brought in judgment against him: they had sounded like a threat. None that had known Andrea doubted in their own hearts that he was a guiltless man, but the circumstantial evidence was too strong to be gainsaid by the law. He was found guilty of the assassination of Melchior Kunst; and Andrea--the gentle, upright man, who had never lifted a hand against a fellow-creature, save in that one evil hour when he was driven to passion by Melchior Kunst--was removed from the hall of justice with the stain of murder on his name.Condemnation was deferred for a short space, for the sake of the hitherto unsullied character of the criminal. In those days the hand of law was often tampered with,

and never was it with greater show of justice than in this instance. Andrea's great talents, and the many friends who warmly protested how incapable he was of such a crime, interposed in his behalf. They succeeded in obtaining only a suspension of the sentence for a few months, that some chance might elicit the truth which so many doubted. But in the meantime the sculptor was ordered to execute some work of art to adorn the Palais de Justice at Bruges, where he had been tried. For this purpose he was brought from his cell, and confined in the hall which had witnessed his trial.It was a large, gloomy-looking chamber, so dimly lighted from without that even at midday the dark shadows in the corners of the room looked like night. An immense hearth, on which lay a few fagots, was the only cheerful object, but even that light and warmth did not reach beyond the immediate vicinity of the fire. There was no furniture in the room, save one small table in the centre, a bench, and a straw couch in the gloomiest corner. It was a place in which one would instinctively shrink from looking behind, and where the sound of one's own foot-steps would sound hollow and full of dread, as if something fearful were following after us.Andrea and his daughter heard the heavy door close, and they were alone in the hall. The little girl led her father to the bench beside the hearth, and then sat down at his feet, holding his hands fast in hers. She dared not look anywhere but at the bright fire and at her father's face; even the shadows that the flames cast on the ceiling made her start sometimes. Gertrude had been accustomed to a prison, for she had never left her father, except when taken home at night, to return next morning--but this place seemed gloomier than any before.Andrea had no hope. His life had been free from any very heavy sorrows, and the first that came, so fearful as they were, overwhelmed him. His sole idea now was to employ the short remnant of his life in executing some memorial of his talents to leave behind him, that, when time had removed the shadow from his fame, his children might have no reason to blush for their father. He returned again to his long-cherished occupation. For a while this gave him sensations almost amounting to pleasure. His step became lighter, and his countenance lost somewhat of the settled melancholy. He almost forgot his sorrows, his blighted name, his impending doom, in the exercise of his beloved art. He would cease from his work, look at the beautiful image which had risen to life under his hand, and murmur to himself, 'What man will say that the hand of an assassin has done this? that the brain which formed this idea of beauty could plan a murder?'And by degrees the influence of his beautiful art in some measure soothed the mind of the sorrow-stricken man. His desolate prison became cheerful with the graceful forms which it contained, and Gertrude moved among the whole like a beautiful spirit. If ever the sculptor clung to hope and life, it was when he looked at his darling child, and at the more imperishable offspring of his genius.At last Andrea's work drew nigh to a close: the sculpture was finished. Then it was that the enthusiasm which had sustained him faded away, and the artist's soul sank within him. He gave the last touches to his beautiful work--he knew he could do no more--and then went and sat in dumb stillness, in a stupor of grief and despair. Gertrude clung round him in affec-

tion, mingled with fear, but he did not speak to her or embrace her.'Father, dear father, are you tired? Are you angry with your little girl?' and the child stood on tiptoe, trying to remove the hands which covered his face.Andrea seemed hardly conscious of her presence, but repeated every now and then, in a low tone, 'I have done my work--I have no hope--now let me die.'The terrified child, who had been all along kept in ignorance of her father's doom, began to weep, but her tears were interrupted by the entrance of the magistrates of Bruges. They came to view the finished work of the artist. High as Andrea's reputation had been, they did not expect so beautiful a creation as that which now met their eyes. They looked upon it in silence, and then turned to the artist, who, wan and haggard, without a single ray of hope illuminating his pale features, stood behind his judges. One of them, an old man, was melted even to tears. Forgetting the dignity of office, the magistrate took hold of the criminal's hand and led him to a seat.'You must not stand, Messer Andrea; you are not yet strong,' said he compassionately. 'Sit and rest while we examine your beautiful work.'The sculptor obeyed without a word; he was passive as a child. Little Gertrude, who had shrunk away at the sight of strangers, came and stood silently behind her father, taking fast hold of his garments. The two magistrates inspected the sculpture, and could not restrain their admiration. The eye of the unfortunate artist brightened for a moment at their warm praise, but immediately his face returned to its accustomed melancholy.'It is all in vain,' he answered; 'you cannot make men

forget the past--you cannot take the shadow from the name of my children--you cannot give their father life.'The magistrates looked at one another, and the elder one spoke.'There is hope still, Messer Andrea; have you courage to hear it?'The artist started up, and raised his thin form to its full height. 'Tell me that I am proved innocent, and I will thank God and die.''We do not promise quite so much,' said one of the judges, wishing to temper Andrea's violent excitement.'Only have hope. Many things have been discovered to-day,' continued the aged man whose kindness had first moved Andrea. 'Be calm now; to-morrow we may send you good news.'The magistrates departed, leaving the poor prisoner with a wildly-throbbing heart, which he vainly endeavoured to still. All that day he sat with Gertrude in his arms, kissing her, fondling her, at times almost weeping over her. To all the questions of the wondering child he only answered, 'To-morrow, love; we may be free to-morrow.'And when the attendants came to remove Gertrude for the night, he unclasped her arms from round his neck, with the promise that he too would go away with her to-morrow.'Leave here to-morrow!' cried the happy child. 'Will you, too, leave this gloomy place to-morrow, and return no more?''God forbid I should return! No, my child, never more,' answered the father, with a shudder.And shall we go out together--shall we go to our own home?' pursued Gertrude.'Yes, clear child,' said Andrea, as he kissed her once more, and set her on the ground from his trembling arms, too weak for even so light a burden. 'Yes, my Gertrude, I shall indeed go home to-morrow.'He had spoken truth. Soon after daybreak next morning some officers
entered the hall, bearing a release for the prisoner, whom the
confession of a stranger had proved to be guiltless. Andrea was
leaning on the table, his head resting on his arms, and his upturned
face raised towards his work. But as they drew nearer they saw that
his countenance was meaningless, and that no life shone in his fixed
and open eyes. The sculptor of Bruges was dead--his heart had broken
with joy.*The leading incidents of this story are strictly true. The works of Andrea may still be seen in the Palais de Justice at Bruges.THE END.Edinburgh:Printed
by W. & R. Chambers, Limited.Advertisement for "Books by Mrs. Molesworth" included at the
end of Craik's The Half-Caste.