many rough assaults, should be crumbling away at last, reduced by the arrow of a sharply uttered word! But the case is not a novel one; nor is Alice the only woman who has deemed an act or thought of meanness to be the worst of faults, and of all others the most hard to be forgiven.

And was it a true bill that the deliberating jury in her heart had found against her unhappy sister? And can you, O reader (magnanimous and disinterested as you doubtless are), suspend your judgment for a while, and forbear to condemn this Gertrude, faulty though she be? Can you abstain from stigmatizing her as one who could command her feelings and her temper well enough, till she found that it was not love and confidence alone, but lands and money that Mrs. Vaughan had obtained from Philip Thornleigh? Can you, in short, do what Alice did not, namely, think of her charitably, and with hope?

Lady Thornleigh left the garden abruptly,

after her last angry speech; and soon after Alice was startled by the sound of carriage wheels. Looking round her, she saw their little char-à-banc at the door, and a minute later Gertrude entered it, and was driven away at the measured trot of the broadbacked mare who drew the old-world looking vehicle.

On that evening, Helen sat alone in the little inn's best room at A. It was a large and lofty chamber; two narrow beds, placed side by side under an alcove, occupied one end of it; and at the other were three windows, having view upon the marketplace. In the centre stood a white marble table; and round the walls were heavy chairs, cushioned with time-worn Utrecht velvet. Who has not seen hundreds of such rooms? Who has not said, on entering them, that they were of all rooms the most cheerless and unhomelike.

Helen had wandered about her apartment till she was tired, and she had examined the

engravings on the walls till she knew their small details by heart. There were bronze horses on the chimney-piece, driven by an insane-looking Apollo, with hair erect; and of those horses she knew every vein and muscle; nor was there a paper rose or poppy in the gaudy flower-vases which had escaped her notice. She had been long alone, and what was to her a trying thing, had been for hours without occupation. The shades of evening were creeping on at last, and under cover of the coming twilight, she drew her chair towards the open window. There were crowds of busily idle peasants on the place outside; and much of noise and merriment. Helen looked on and listened mechanically, for her thoughts were far away. She was with Philip again in that great London house, where he had bid her work for him; and she was glad-glad in spite of loneliness and gloom-that she had taken her first step in the direction to which his dying fingers had pointed. She was absorbed

in these meditations, when the door of her room was opened slowly, and a figure, treading noiselessly along the uncarpetted floor, advanced towards her. Then she turned her head, and seeing a pale face, with thin, sharply cut features and cold, grey eyes, looking at her fixedly, she knew at once, and by intuition, that it was Philip's widow who stood before her. There was no resemblance between that attenuated woman and the fresh, bright being whom (before the shadow had fallen on what was then the sunshine of her life) Helen had once seen; yet, despite the great and entire change, her instinct did. not, and could not, deceive her.

She rose from her chair, and the two women confronted each other. They were very different in appearance, and apparently so in age; though, in point of fact, Lady Thornleigh was scarcely more than two years the elder. She was, however, wasted nearly to a shadow; her cheeks were hollow, and her forehead traced with lines; while Helen

was in the full zenith of her wonderfully

preserved beauty.

Gertrude was the first to break a silence which was painfully embarrassing.

'I beg to apologize for my intrusion,' said she, with all the haughtiness that could be thrown into civil words, but it appears to me advisable that Miss Ellerton should not visit this hôtel at present; and in affairs of business, there is no one in this neighbourhood who can take my place.'

Helen bowed her head humbly; but words wherewith to answer the implied taunt, failed her.

'I am afraid,' continued Lady Thornleigh, drawing her chair to the table, and leaning her arm upon the marble, 'I am afraid that I must ask your permission to rest during a few minutes, for I am weak and ill.'

Helen again inclined her head, but remained silent. She gave one look at the care-worn face and figure, clad in its deepest