quickly, and glare with such wide-open eyes upon the window? What but a sound so harsh and unnatural, that it made her very blood run cold within her veins! What but a sight that, while it filled her with horror and disgust, yet kept her eyes riveted upon it with a kind of terrible fascination! From a thing in human shape that cry had come which seemed so little human; and as Alice, with feet that seemed riveted to the ground, faced the window where it stood, it stared and gibbered at her! The vision passed away as suddenly as sit had come, and then the poor child breathed again; but her nerves were shaken, and the loneliness appalled her. Again and again there rose before her in imagination that hideous face, thick-lipped and blear-eyed, with its idiot laugh and guttural cry. The age of the unhappy being was difficult to guess at accurately, but he was young, possibly not more than twelve years of age, but short and obese in person, and altogether of so pitiable an aspect, that Alice, as she thought upon him, blamed herself for the horror she had felt. 7 16 The trembling girl was but just beginning to recover from the shock she had experienced, when Lady Thornleigh (without any previous warning of her approach) glided softly into the room. Very pale she was, that cold and meagre woman so pale, indeed, and ghastly, that but for the red spot upon one clay-white cheek, she might have passed for a walking corpse. "Good Heavens! Gertrude, what has happened? You are ill," cried Alice, so alarmed at her sister's looks, that she at once forgot her own perturbation. 5 "Not ill; only cold," and she sat down, shivering. "Cold! this oppressive summer day! Gertrude, it must, I fear, be the chill of coming illness." Instead of replying, the miserable woman looked up in the girl's face with a faint quivering smile, that pained her to the heart.evs nad sgod tow senget. bas Oh what can I do?" she cried, inc increased alarm. "Shall I send for Philip? Shall I seek for help?" n 4། "It is needless; I shall be better soon. It is but a chill," and she pressed the gentle hand that held her own to her cold lips and burning brow. At last tears came, and then, and not till then, did she speak coherently and calmly.se bo meg 29 ballonge J Aday elapsed ere Alice for her sister's nerves were weak ventured to make allusion to the frightful visitant who had troubled her in her solitude. She did not spare him in her description, for, woman-like, she (though almost unwittingly) exaggerated the feeling of repulsion and disgust that had oppressed her at the sight of the idiot boy.pngh *། As she spoke, Gertrude listened at first with an eagerness almost disproportioned to the subject; but as she proceeded in her portraiture of the miserable object, the narrator was surprised to see large tears gathering in her sister's eyes, and rolling slowly down her wasted cheeks.s + She did not speak till the description of the afflicted being was ended; but then she sighed heavily and, in a low and smothered voice, said: portów a se "May God pity him!" Once more during her stay at Thornleigh did Alice's eyes rest upon that hapless boy; but he was older then, with a face still more bloated and repulsive, and a form more spread and muscular. It was in her walk she passed him, but he saw her not as, with shaking, feeble knees, she kept behind the trees to watch him where he went. She did not linger long, for, advancing stealthily towards the idiot among the low brushwood, she perceived the figure of a woman, and that woman (almost impossible as it seemed) was Gertrude. During the years that Alice passed in joy and in sorrow, in doubt and sometimes in hope, at Thornleigh Abbey, Francis Herbert had repeatedly urged his suit, and pressed her to become his wife. It was not only that in his lonely home he longed for her companionship, but that having, as has been said, but a poor opinion of the elder sister, he was anxious to remove his betrothed from her influence and example. Herbert had (as has been shown) but little toleration for the weaknesses of others; and having begun by deciding that Lady Thornleigh was a flirting wife, of the giddiest and most frivolous description, he had ended by holding her up as a warning to Alice, and as a melancholy example of the ultimate condition of women who indulge in vanities and follies. He had no mercy on, and he professed no feeling for, the worn and ailing being, whose maladies were (he was convinced) as much the offspring of her own imagination, as the result of her selfish and morbid craving after excite But, reason with and entreat her as he would, his promised bride could not be induced to desert her sister. While Gertrude was ill and unhappy, her place was, she maintained, at the joyless woman's side; and much as she respected Herbert's opinion, and grieved as she was to pain him he failed in turning her from her purpose. Td wse ad tod md hig le dign af 2 Meanwhile, the children had become an increasing source of interest and amusement to their parents; for the important heir to the title and estates, the little Edgar, who was now nearly nine years old, was often allowed the happy privilege of trotting on his pony by Sir Philip's side when the latter rode to cover; while his daughter, the pretty delicate Marie, was the constant and favourite plaything of her father in his home and leisure hours. The last kiss was for her, and the first morning smile was sacred to the child whose sunny curls were so often pressed in childish tenderness against her father's breast. wife trul But as the children grew in grace and beauty, so also grew and spread the little cloud, at first no bigger than a man's hand, that was darkening the sky above their heads. The storm was long gathering, but it broke at last, and the thunderbolt descended on the house. ad furqitesh {* There was no Arthur now to counteract, by his genial presence and by the exposition of his expanded views, the influence which Herbert, with his stern and somewhat narrow-minded ideas of our reciprocal duties, was beginning to exercise over Thornleigh's mind and actions; for the place which Arthur had once occupied had long been empty empty since the day when his conscience whispered to him that he had come too near to his friend's affianced bride.. on Ay note, friendly but nothing more, had one day reached the Abbey, and in it the writer bade the family a long farewell. He was going abroad, he wrote: his only sister was ill · dying, indeed, he Recommended to Mercy. I. 12 feared and had entreated him to come to her. He concluded with kindly wishes for the happiness of all, but made no especial allusion to Alice. The letter was addressed to Lady Thornleigh, by whom it was read aloud; and then its contents, having been duly commented on, were, except by one of the party, forgotten. A 1 T It was long ere Alice could quite draw the veil of forgetfulness across the image of the man whom, in her inmost heart, she almost reproached as having deserted her. And then, during the sunny summer, so many things recalled him to her memory! The scent of the honeysuckle, so sweet after the close of night, the song of the birds, and all the busy voices of the season, reminded her eloquently of Arthur. But after awhile, pride stepped forward and told her she must forget him. At first it was a whisper only, and scarcely heard; for his voice and touch were still fresh within her recollection. But as the weeks and months wore on, the picture faded, and other images filled up the place where his had been. It is a fact that a woman does not readily pardon the voluntary absence which she considers as in some sort a slight to her personal charms; nor is the virtue of self-command, when exemplified by a lover's abstaining from her society, ever properly appreciated by her over whose safety he is watching. But there came a time of great sorrow and heavy trial, and then Alice's thoughts almost involuntarily returned towards her nearly-forgotten friend that friend who seemed to her in absence as the only one able to afford either consolation or assistance. |