said, clasping her hands with an impatient gesture 'Let me pass! you shall not keep me from him.'

'I will not, my dear,' said Ailie. 'Come in, Mr. Leigh; I thought there was no need of preparation. 'So you have guessed, Miriam,' said George, advancing with an embarrassed laugh.

Miriam did not reply, she did not even make a step forward to meet him, until Miss Alison had left the room. But when that restraint was withdrawn, she flung her arms round him, caressing his sunburnt cheek with her small fingers, and pressing her lips to his forehead with passionate tender

ness.

6

So, little woman!' said George, who was himself not unmoved, are you so glad to see me back again?'

'Oh, George! I am so happy. I have been so wretched without you, and now I shall care for nothing. But where,' Miriam added, with sudden recollection, where is Papa ?'

The ship took fire,' George answered; 'he lashed me to a spar and made me jump overboard. One of the boats picked me up, and when we had been some hours at sea, we fell in with a brig, which afterwards put us on board the Leopard, as she was outward bound, and rather short of provisions.'

And what became of Papa ?' Miriam repeated, with a terrified glance.

'He was drowned. At least I hope so, for I can tell you,' George added, shuddering at the recollection, 'that if you had seen all that I saw, you would think it better to die by water than by fire. The other boats were all swamped, and the ship burnt

down to the water's edge before we pulled off, and when the brig went over our course, for the chance of picking up some one else, there was nothing to be seen but floating pieces of charred wood.'

'Where was he when you last saw him?'

'Standing on the poop, with his hands above. his head, as if preparing to leap overboard. But by that time the smoke and flames were all round him, and he was suffocated and half-stupefied. Then came a crash, and I saw no more. The men said that he might have saved himself, if he had not stood there watching what became of me. But I don't know.'

With a sigh of relief that the dreadful tale was told, George looked fearfully in his sister's face. It was fixed and tearless, and she only said slowly, 'He died to save you. If I had only loved him!'

There is no use vexing yourself,' George began; but Miriam turned from him, feeling as she had felt before, at the time of her mother's death, how impossible it was for him to sound her grief.

'If Leonard were here, he would understand,' she said. He warned me that it was terrible to hate. But I would not heed him then.'

'Why, who is Leonard?' asked George.

'I will tell you some day, but I cannot talk now. Let us go home. It will seem like home,' Miriam added, clinging to her brother, 'now that you are here.'

She tied on her bonnet with nervous haste, eager to avoid a rencontre with any of the Mordaunts; and hurrying her brother down the back stairs, they effected their escape unchallenged.

Meanwhile Roger had told the tale in all its horrors to the group of eager listeners gathered round him, more graphically than George was willing, or perhaps able to do. But when Mrs. Mordaunt deplored the dangers of a seafaring life, and congratulated herself on having got her dear boy home in safety, he disclaimed any special cause for gratitude.

Why, my dear Mother, we manage things differently in our Service. The wonder is, how these passenger-ships ever get safe to the end of a voyage.'

'There is no use talking about it, my dear,' said Mrs. Mordaunt. 'I know that this horrid story will haunt me whenever you are at sea. I hope it will be a warning to you to give up smoking, for I dare say that did the mischief.'

But the incorrigible Roger only replied by producing a roll of ship's tobacco, which he informed her was intended for home consumption.

'I don't believe that Miriam cared much about her father,' said Lilias, in a matter-of-fact voice, which provoked a laugh.

'It is very heartless,' said Mrs. Mordaunt, checking herself, but it is Roger's fault for taking us all by surprise in this way. It makes one foolish enough to laugh at anything.'

'And I don't know,' Roger added, 'that we need be very deeply affected by the death of a man whom every one agrees to have been a particular scamp, especially if his own children are philosophic. Certainly the son took it remarkably easy. I can't make the fellow out. He is so good-tempered that

it is impossible to dislike him, but he seems to have no ideas beyond eating, drinking, and basking in the sun.'

'He is a good-looking fellow,' observed Mr. Mordaunt. I wondered where you had picked up your driver, when I came up to the door, and found him sitting disconsolately in the gig.'

'I forgot all about him,' said Roger; 'the young people scared away my senses by clattering down with such an uproar. Why, I think that even Lily joined in the clamour.'

And Lilias, now sedate and demure enough, only smiled and coloured, and pressed closer to her brother.

say.

'I wonder,' said Susan, 'what Uncle Ralph will I suspect that he will feel ill-used that his brother-in-law did not live until he was in greater charity with him. Besides, there is this son to provide for, whom he also disliked, though I think that he looks more attractive than Miriam.'

'If the fellow were a girl, he might do well enough,' said Roger; but from what I saw of him on board ship, he seemed no more fit to guide himself than a child, and rather obstinate, too, at times, with all his easy temper.'

'And Ralph Cornwall does not make a good caretaker,' said Mr. Mordaunt ; 'I suspect that he bullies that niece of his, from the way he talks of her.'

'No, indeed, Papa,' said Susan warmly; 'it is all Miriam's fault that they do not get on better.' And here the family conference was broken up by Roger's remark that he had breakfasted at daybreak, and was as hungry as a hawk.

106

AS

CHAPTER XI.

Thou hadst, ere thou the light could see,
Sorrows laid up and stored for thee;
Thou suck'st in woes, and the breasts lent
Their milk to thee but to torment;
Thy portion here was grief, thy years
Distill'd no other rain but tears,
Tears without noise, but, understood,
As loud and shrill as any blood.

VAUGHAN.

S Susan had predicted, Uncle Ralph was disposed to resent Mr. Leigh's death as a personal injury, and he walked over to the Mains ostensibly for the sake of seeing Roger, but also in order to confide his wrongs. 'If I had liked the fellow,' he said, 'I should not have minded it half so much.'

'You invert the usual order of things,' said Susan; 'on that principle I infer that if anything happened to me, you would consider it rather a pleasant incident than otherwise.'

' And there seems to have been something heroic about his death too,' continued Mr. Cornwall, without regarding her raillery; at least as far as I can make out the boy's story.'

The story is true enough,' said Roger. One of