have broken my spirit. I should only get into disgrace, and you would be vexed, and he would be cross. You will get on better without me.'

It was easily said, but Miriam was not easily convinced. She made no reply, and as she heard her father returning, she hastily retreated, to carry her griefs back to the dark and silent chamber of death.

28

CHAPTER III.

Through every rift it moaned in vain,
About its earthly prison,
Seeking some unknown thing in pain,
And sinking restless back again,

For yet no moon had risen:

Its only voice a vast dumb moan,
Of utterless anguish speaking;

It lay unhopefully alone,

And lived but in an aimless seeking.

LOWELL.

HREE weeks after his visit to Edinburgh, Mr.

TUREE

Cornwall left his own small domain in the twilight of a summer's evening, to welcome the Mordaunts' return to the Mains. It was a pleasant walk, through winding lanes and footpaths across the small grass fields still to be found in the more secluded parts of Dorsetshire, where the innovations of high farming have not penetrated. Mellowed by distance, the plaintive call by which the cattle were summoned from their pastures, had a certain music of its own, not out of harmony with the flood of song poured from every hedgerow. The shy, uncouth man was peculiarly susceptible to the influences of nature, and he responded cordially to the greeting which met him almost as soon as he entered the bosquet skirting the Mains' garden.

'Oh, Uncle Ralph, I thought I should meet you! How pleasant it is to be at home!'

Susan Mordaunt was the speaker. She looked bright and happy, her joyous bearing seeming to exult in the consciousness of youth and strength. Her broad straw hat hung, filled with flowers, on her arm, so that her head and throat were bare, and the soft summer breeze gently lifted her wavy hair.

Mr. Cornwall looked at her with great satisfaction. 'I am glad you think it pleasant, Susan. Where are the others?'

'Each one riding his own hobby. Patty and Minny are in the paddock, feeding the ponies; Lily is in the garden, but she will find nothing there so pretty as my wild spoils; only look at this creamy honeysuckle! Ailie has already been summoned to the gardener's house, to doctor a sick child. And Mamma-I think that poor Mamma must be sitting over the tea-tray, wondering what we are all about. We must really go home.'

'Mr. Mordaunt has not come down with you?' said Mr. Cornwall.

'No; he cannot get away till next month. And that reminds me to ask after your belongings. What have you done with Miriam,-Miss Leigh, -what am I to call her ?'

Mr. Cornwall did not look gratified by the reminiscence, but he only said, 'I call her Miriam, and had better do the same. She is at home.'

you

'All alone?'

'She seems to be best pleased with her own company.'

Susan checked an instinctive feeling of complacency in the discovery that Mr. Cornwall's new acquisition had not yet supplanted her in the place she occupied in his affections. It was unworthy of her, and she said compassionately: Poor child! I dare say she is sufficiently lonely and homesick.'

'She is not a child at all,' said Mr. Cornwall; 'call her a little woman, if you please, for there is nothing childlike about her.'

'I suppose not,' said Susan; 'I forgot, when I spoke, that she is as old as Patty.'

'Yes, but she is not at all like Patty,—a poor, pale, spiritless thing.'

Why, you wrote that she was pretty!' said Susan, surprised by this outburst.

'So she is. At least, she has small, delicate features, and a transparent complexion, like a hothouse plant. No wonder, when she sits moping at home all day. There is no expression in her face, no life in her movements; and she creeps about so soft and sedate, with her old-womanly ways. It is worse than having a cat about the house.'

'Now, Uncle Ralph, you had better stop,' said Susan; 'you are becoming uncharitable.'

'So I am, indeed,' he replied, ashamed of his vehemence. And I know no harm of the poor thing either-poor Mary's only girl. I suppose that we shall fall into each other's ways in time.'

The surmise, expressed in no sanguine tone, was still on his lips when they entered the house. Uncle Ralph was eagerly welcomed by the party gathered round the tea-table, and sundry items of family or local history were discussed before it oc

curred to Mrs. Mordaunt to inquire, as Susan had done before, after Miriam. This time Mr. Cornwall was more guarded in his reply; he said that he had thought it best to leave her at home, since she was not strong and it would be late before he returned. And further questioning only elicited the fact that it was difficult to describe any one so shy and quiet.

In truth, Mr. Cornwall was remorseful for his harsh judgment; and it may have been as a sort of penance, that he ascended the stair to Miriam's room on his return. Entering with cautious steps, he discovered that she was in bed, and, as he thought, asleep, for the sealed eyelids did not quiver before the light cast upon them. Yet even now, the tension of the muscles, of which he had complained, was not relaxed; the delicate features still wore their harassed and prematurely old expression. But Miriam was in reality still awake, and she had only closed her eyes to escape observation. When her uncle had retreated as softly as he came, she sat up and clasped her hands with a gesture of impatience. 'He comes, as a jailor comes,' she thought, 'to see that I was safe. Did he think that I should run away? And so I might, perhaps, if I had anywhere to go.'

On the following morning, after loitering for some time in the school-room, and retarding Miss Alison's arrangements by her flow of talk, Susan declared her intention of going to Duck Dub, to inspect Uncle Ralph's new niece; and she asked who would accompany her.

Lily demurred as to the distance, and the two