from this desert earth, this hateful wilderness, from which the Queen of Faerye had departed, leaving but drear solitude and loathly fens where beauty and verdure were wont to smile.

The sad hours, the melancholy days wore on. Time brought no solace to the grief of the desolate man, to his sorrow. At times extreme debility appeared likely to make an end of the disaster, and of his enfeebled frame altogether. Then his constitution would rally, and a period of comparative health follow. As yet none had ever seen a smile upon his face. He went about his duties, his pleasures mechanically. He was as a corpse reanimated. The sole matter which had power to interest him was the education of his children. In them he saw the darlings upon whom the "dear dead woman" had lavished the ceaseless care, the overflowing tenderness of an unselfish motherly heart; to whom her first waking care, her last sleeping thoughts were dedicated; whom as a Christian she was pledged not to worship, but whom, as a woman and a mother, she nevertheless did adore with an idolatry that reason and the words of Holy Writ had scarce power to disturb.

He had at first connected the unconscious little ones with the terrible disaster-the dread storm, in which his life's barque had made final wreck. Then he began to tolerate, afterwards to love them, daily exhibiting as they did the traits of character of both parents after a wonderful fashion.

In the boy's proud face the soft dark eyes of his mother looked over from time to time at the silent, lonely man with a pleading gaze, which made him fain to quit the house and seek for distraction in the hardest outward exercise. His own mother's features, with the smile of a dead sister, appeared before him in the countenances of the two girls, and gradually drew him to be almost jealously watchful of this small fold in the wilderness. Yet the desolation of his home had by no means abated. This sorrow had settled down in the heart of the solitary mourner like the shadow of a funeral pall. It was a gloom which invested his every waking thought, every act of his daily life. The ceaseless misery commenced to grow into a nameless

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terror which at times agonised him with a haunting doubt lest his reason might in time be impaired-might even then be disordered.

He was not one who could turn from a great sorrow to find solace in the ephemeral distractions which serve well so many men in their dark hour. The fair face of heaven itself was gloomed-o'erclouded as by the horror of a great tempest-the awful silence—the impending destruction of a coming earthquake.

The tempest had swept by; the forest had been levelled; the earth had opened, and into its riven depths the fair columns, the graceful friezes and entablature of the edifice which sheltered and graced his life had disappeared.

How could he be consoled? Could the earth give up her dead-the sea his lost argosy? It was mockery to talk-madness to reflect. Why should he cumber the earth? Better death and oblivion a hundredfold than this hourly rack and scourge-this daily, nightly torture. Whenever he looked upon his children, to whom his whole heart went out in passionate tenderness unusual in a man, how every fibre of his heart seemed freshly torn! How every nerve of his being was newly lacerated as he thought of her, whose wise and sleepless love wrapped them as in a garment close sheltering in its prevision and completeness from every ill of life. Did not their every word, almost every act, remind him of the loved, the lost, the dead, until his whole being cried aloud in unendurable agony!

Perhaps a more healthy form of pain, now that "he had come to live on poisons," was experienced by him when he discovered that for want of due care and nurture his darling children were deteriorating markedly. In vain he changed their nurses, their teachers; in vain he remained within the lonely house so full of dreadful memories, in order to watch the education of his loved ones. It seemed not to avail.

Whether his continuous melancholy repelled them, or, quick to perceive altered circumstances, as children are, they assumed positions of independence from which it seemed impossible to dislodge them. When he interfered he seemed to make matters worse by imprudent

He even fancied that he

rewards or punishment. detected a taint of insincerity either fostered or winked at by their attendants, which more than all things else reduced him to despair.

At this state of affairs, when it appeared to him as if the virtual loss of his children was about to be superadded to his already overwhelming burdens, a letter arrived from a cousin of his wife's who had more than once resided in the house as a visitor in the days of love and life and glory which were now so far, so dimly distant.

After mechanically running his eyes over the paper, he began to collect his scattered thoughts.

She was a fair girl
There was a kind of

Yes, he remembered her well. with a low voice and happy eyes. likeness to her !—Ah, God!-to her! And yet they used to laugh. Yes, laugh. Did we laugh then? Was that the word? And say when she was older she would still more resemble her. She was always good and kind to the children. They loved her, and she seemed never happier than when telling them fairy tales, and generally sacrificing herself to them. Marguerite used to say that she should be head mistress of a child's college and that the students should be sent when they were three years old, so that at ten they could graduate in gentleness, unselfishness, and general readiness to receive instruction.

For the rest, she had been like all the remainder of the feminine creation to him, one of the world of creatures whom he viewed with benevolent toleration, but in whose personal traits and attributes he found only the faintest interest. He could but recall a blurred and sketchy outline of her general appearance and presentment. This was her letter which at length he succeeded in deciphering:

"ST. OUEN, April 10th.

"MY DEAR COUSIN HUGH,-Mother and I wrote you at the time of your great sorrow, but doubtless you were, as was natural, unable to answer letters of the kind. Though we could not have you think that we could pass over dear, dear Marguerite's dreadful end without assuring you of our heartfelt, fullest sympathy.

"Mother, I think, wrote since we have been abroad, but we also have had our deep and bitter grief, though not in all respects to be compared with yours.

"You may remember that we had to go abroad on account of the health of my beloved brother, whose illness commenced at college when he was reading hard for an examination, and rendered it necessary for him to seek a warmer climate. More than a year has passed since then, and he, though at first apparently recovering, gradually declined, and a few weeks ago passed peacefully away here.

"My dear mother's state of grief was such that we could not think of moving homeward until it had abated. She has now consented to return to England, and has authorised me-recognising her duty towards you and yours to say that if you do not object to our presence in your house, and think that we could be of any aid or comfort we could pay you a visit of a few weeks before we go back to Stanmore, the sight of which, destined as it was for poor Cyril's future home, she cannot as yet support.

"She bids me say that this offer should have been made before, had not God willed it otherwise.

"Believe me, dear Cousin Hugh,
"Yours affectionately,

"MARIANA WINSTANLEY."

After reading this letter over and over again, as if unable finally to master the contents, Hugh Gordon paced for an hour to and fro in the large room in which he usually sat after the children had been dismissed for the night. He remembered after considerable effort, first, the letter of condolence sent by the widow and her daughter, which had even then fallen softly as a message of loving sympathy on his bruised heart. He had thrown it aside with the piles of half-read or wholly unopened letters to none of which he could recur without a revival of torment. The girl's letter he remembered too, simply worded as it was. She, too, had loved the dead.

And could he bear to have a living reminder of all "the old sweet tenderness," of the days when she had

shared their happy home? How considerate had they been in that they had concealed at the time their own great sorrow and been thoughtful only for his.

And now their days of despair and mourning and woe had arrived. They were even as he-weeping and refusing to be comforted. It was a house of mourning, and in its halls such dark-robed, dark-souled guests would be fitting and appropriate.

They should come and be welcome, as was befitting. They would be the first strangers, though many had offered to cheer the sorrowing recluse, that its portals would open to receive.

So Hugh Gordon wrote saying that "if it suited them to abide for a while in a household where still unending sorrow reigned supreme, that they were truly welcome. He was a wretched broken creature, incapable of hope or comfort. Their sorrow should be his, and as their wretchedness could not be increased, it was possible that some ray of consolation might be permitted by Heaven to enter, where the souls of all dwelt in such utter darkness-and-thanking them-from his hearthe remained-their most miserable kinsman, HUGH GORDON."

CHAPTER III

WHEN this letter had been dispatched and he had given the necessary orders to make the requisite arrangements for the reception of the guests, he felt an unwonted elevation of spirits, caused perhaps by the evident joy and satisfaction of the children, orally communicated, upon the announcement of the visit.

"Cousin Mariana coming again!" said the eldest, Rita. "Oh! I am so glad! She was so kind to us when she was here before. never saw any one like her. Did you, Alister? '

I