Hester Morley's promise

Little Aston is one of those small midland towns, lying in the midst of an agricultural district, which offer no attraction to tourists, and where very few events seem to happen. Every family in it, even to the lowest classes, possesses a staid respectability and decency, which is chiefly the heritage of those who live in isolated places, divided from the busier, and perhaps the more wicked, world by a girdle of corn-fields and meadows. The population cannot be more than five thousand, which in these days constitutes little more than a family party, whose members must be very closely allied. A large proportion of the townspeople consist of professional men, and people with means, who keep up the tone of its society. The grosser vices, if there be any, hide themselves diligently from the microscopic scrutiny of the town. Murder has never stained its precincts with blood; suicide is almost unheard of; intrigue is unsuspected. There are scandals, but scandals of the gentler kind, such as one might whisper of one's own mother's son. From day to day, and from year to year, its narrow stream of life flows in commonplace channels, seldom quickened into rougher and swifter currents. There are births, deaths, and marriages; old men retiring from business, and young men attempting small innovations; but the town of Little Aston is always very orderly, and strictly respectable.

Some years ago the centre of respectability was the Market Square, and to dwell elsewhere was to be a grade or two lower in society, and to be inadmissible to the selecter circle. But the next best place was Chapel Street, opening out of the north-west corner of the Square. It was narrow, and very dull, even upon market days; the dullest street in the town. The shops were dark and dingy, and about half-way along it, they gave place to small, poor houses, built capriciously, each one of differing height and size. Nearly at the end stood a large and ugly chapel, with a pretentious portico, supported by four square pillars of red brick, and surmounted by a pediment and architrave of blue and yellow tiles. This chapel gave its name to the street.

A few houses distant from the entrance into the Square stood a very old and very dingy dwelling, which had undergone but little alteration from the date of its erection, a century and a half before. Not that there was any of the picturesqueness of antiquity about it; its aspect was only gloomy and weather-beaten, the windows being of small panes of discoloured glass, and its walls blackened by smoke and age. The roof formed three gables, and the moss and house-leek grew along the gutters, and choked up the water-pipes. It was a large building, occupying more basement than would have sufficed for two handsome modern houses. It was on the north side of the street, which the sun never gladdened, and looked as if a perpetual cloud overshadowed it. Whether the gloom was within or without one could scarcely tell. The street was narrow, and the side pavement exceedingly so; yet the old house thrust upon it two ancient bow windows, with casements painted black, and small dark panes through which a passer-by with good sight might decipher the titles of long rows of books, the bindings and lettering of which were faded by damp, rather than by excess of light. The books were dry, judged by modern taste. They were certainly old, and mostly theological; with here and there a lighter volume of religious biography. Latin amid Greek classics might have been found among them. Between the two windows was a door, always closed, but which rang a bell as it opened; and the black lintel above it bore, in dim and tarnished letters, the words "John Morley, Bookseller." Within, the shop was always dusky, partly because of the books filling the windows; and partly because of its northern frontage; a cool and pleasant shade in summer, but in winter a very den of chill and darkness. As you opened the heavy door, and entered the shop to the tinkle of a noisy bell, John Morley himself would step down into it from some apartment beyond, and meet you face to face. It was less like addressing a tradesman behind his counter, than the meeting of friends or acquaintances. Most of his customers shook hands with him.

At the first glance it would have been said that John Morley was a grave and bookish man; at the second, that he was solemn; at the third, that he was sorrow- stricken. Some souls have a vast capacity for sorrow, and drink it in as a parched land drinks in water. There was no glimmer of sunshine about him any more than about his dwelling. Like it, he was stationed on the northern side of life, where no laughter or splendor of sunlight could fall upon him. Involuntarily, every voice was lowered to a subdued and respectful tone. Not a sound from the rest of the premises penetrated to the dusky and quiet shop; and when John Morley bowed out his customer, and closed the door as upon some departing guest, the little bell rang loudly, like one jingling to the hard pull of a schoolboy in an empty house.

The rest of the dwelling consisted of a number of half furnished rooms, with steps down or steps up into them, as the fashion is in old buildings; with low, long casements, high and narrow doors, stained ceilings, amid half-wainscoted walls. The windows at the back looked upon an enclosed yard, part of which had, a long time ago, been slanted as a garden. A few melancholy lilacs and thin privet bushes still sucked a feeble life out of the sooty mould, and sent up slender black branches and a handful of pale leaves, to catch any stray sunbeams which might shine over the surrounding walls. There was a rambling range of outbuildings, including a stable filled to the rafters with rubbish; above which was a small room with a shelving roof, which was approached by an outside staircase. A sad and sombre little room, with dingy ivy-leaves growing round the door, and tapping at the dusty panes of its lattice window, as if in parody of ivied doors and windows in the country. This room--nobody knew why--bore the name of the nursery; though no children, within the memory of man, had ever played in it.

About a mile from Little Aston stood Aston Court, a handsome, bran new, desirable family mansion, with pleasure-grounds, conservatories and gardens, all surrounded by a fine, well-timbered park. The old court had been bought and pulled down ten years ago by David Waldron, Esq., M.P., a famous man among the dissenters, and naturally the great man of the chapel at the end of Chapel Street. The portico had been built in honor of him. The church at Little Aston--by which we mean that "congregation of faithful men" worshipping in the dissenters' chapel--had been small and of no repute, before the advent of Mr. Waldron. It had been looked upon as low and vulgar, fitted only for the poorer classes. There had been but one member of any standing, of any education or tongues on his lips more aptly than the rector himself, and who knew the whole origin, motive, and history of dissent. That man was John Morley.

If these two, David Waldron, M.P., and John Morley, bookseller, had met each other in the aisles of the parish church, they would have kept to their own legitimate spheres, and been no more to one another than the squire and his tradesman. But they were brought together on the democratic platform of a church-fellowship, in which all the members were professedly equal. They called themselves brethren. All the rest of the brethren were content to look up to Mr. Waldron from a long way off, as a brother far above them; and they were quite willing that he who helped to rule the nation should rule their church absolutely. But John Morley was a deacon; like Mr. Waldron; he was also a trustee, like Mr. Waldron. He knew what equality and fraternity meant, if Mr. Waldron had political influence, John Morley had literary influence; for he could use his pen well in defence of their sect and its tenets. These two men held a somewhat uneasy position with regard to one another. John Morley was the Mordecai in the gate; but let it be understood that Mr. Waldron was a very worthy Haman, a really good man, only a little jealous of the homage and authority he believed to be his due.

The room behind John Morley's shop was spacious enough; but it had a low ceiling crossed by a massive beam, and it was lighted only by a long low casement of small panes and thick woodwork, opening upon the mournful garden at the back. It looked like an addition to the crowded shop in front; for the walls were lined with shelves closely packed with books, dull and dark in their bindings, with narrow strips of crimson baize, which had long lost their bright tint, nailed along the edge of each shelf. The furniture was heavy and old; the carpet threadbare and faded. No curtains shut out the black night when it pressed against the window outside. On the table, during the daytime, there usually lay a pile of business books, a ledger, a day-book, which no neat, meddlesome hand of woman moved from time to time. No woman's work lay side by side with them, neither sewing nor knitting; such as had once, for a brief space of two years, sometimes ruffled John Morley a little by its disorder and interference with his own more important occupations. He had remembered them often, when they could come in his way no more, with a pang too sharp to be shown by any other sign than the deepening shadow under his eyes, and the threads of white growing plainer in his dark hair. In this room, haunted by memories becoming more and more dreamlike, John Morley had spent his evenings alone, without companions, and wishing for none, having his books and his remembrances only; the latter dying away softly and slowly, as if they had merely lingered for a while out of pure good nature, before leaving him to his solitude.

This room was not, however, yet solitary at six o'clock one winter's evening; though John Morley was occupied with a customer in his shop. It was unlighted, except by a good fire burning brightly in the grate. Stretched at full length upon the hearth lay a little girl, reading by the fire-light, her face glowing partly with the heat, and partly with the interest excited by her book. Her hair, cut short over the forehead, had been flaxen, then golden, and was now taking a sunny chestnut shade of brown. The eyes were large, well opened, and clear, with that peculiar gaze of wonder and innocence which some children's eyes still retain at the age of ten years. In spite of the glow upon the face, it was grave and sad--as sad as a child's face can be. You might have seen, looking at her closely, and reading rightly the expression of the eyes and mouth with its sweet and pliant lips, that this was a child whose life would be most completely shaped and colored by the temperaments of those around her. She could never be childishly gay while others were suffering; nor grave in the presence of mirth. By a more direct necessity of her nature than most others possess, she would weep with those that weep, and rejoice with those that rejoice. Only encircle her with gladness, and she would be the most joyous among the happy; here she was the most subdued among her mournful and sad surroundings.

This child caught at last the sound of animated voices, and lifted up her head, which had been bent over her book. A minute or two afterwards she crossed the room quietly to the door which connected it with the shop, and pushed it open far enough to get a glimpse of the talkers. She could see her father's face, and she leaned forward more eagerly to look at it. She could hardly remember to have seen it without its profound and unbroken gloom, which never lightened when looking at her. But now the gloom was gone; the dark eyes glittered, the stern lips smiled and the heavy eyebrows expanded with an unmistakable pleasure, as he gazed into the face turned towards him. This face the child could not see. The little solitary heart was as quickly troubled as the surface of a mountain tarn, which lies open to every breath that blows; and the tears came, she did not know why, into her eyes.

"Come in, and see my little girl now," said John Morley, in a tone which reached her ears.

The child shrank back shyly, and retreated to the hearth, reaching it just in time to turn, and front the stranger, who seemed to hesitate for a moment on the threshold of the comfortless and sombre room. The face was girlish and exceedingly pretty, set round with rich masses of fair hair, and lit up with blue eyes, which appeared to shine into the gloom, and disperse it. Her hesitation, if it were hesitation, was gone in an instant, and she crossed the floor with a light and eager step to the child, who waited timidly her approach. She laid her arm about her shoulders, and stooped down to kiss her cheek.

"What is your name, my dear?" she asked, in a gay young voice, which seemed to thrill through the child's sensitive frame.

"Hester Morley," she answered, speaking with quaint self-possession, and in measured tones: "what is your name, and where do you come from?"

"My name is Rose Mary," said the stranger, with a laugh breaking through the long, dull silence of the place, with a promise of more music like it: "is it a pretty name, Hester?"

"I think so," replied the child after a moment's musing; "does my father like it?"

"Oh you droll little creature!" exclaimed the girl, with a sidelong glance at John Morley's radiant face. "I daresay he does, but I shan't ask him. How old are you, Hester?"

"I am nine years old," she said, sighing as if she had found the nine years a heavy burden ; "but you are older than me. How old are you, Rose Mary?"

"Oh, fie!" she cried, lowering her voice to a mock whisper "you must never ask a lady her age; that is always a secret. But I will tell you; only you must never, never tell your papa. I am twenty-three years old; positively an old woman. What an odd little mortal you are!"

The girl's manner had a light and graceful vivacity about it, full of charm and novelty to both of her grave listeners. She glanced again at John Morley with an expression which the child could not altogether comprehend, but which caused her to withdraw her hand from hers. John Morley came forward to the hearth, and laid his hand upon his little daughter's head.

"She has been sadly neglected," he said, looking fondly at the pretty girl beside him; "but you will soon put her right: Hester, this lady has promised to be your mother."

Hester neither spoke nor moved, except that her clear eyes went quickly from the one face to the other; but dwelt longest on the sombre, yet handsome, features most familiar to her.

"Don't you understand, my little Hester?" asked Rose, putting her hand through John Morley's arm with a coquettish and caressing gesture. "I am going to be your mamma, and take care of you."

"Yes, I understand," said the child, nodding her head, "you are going to be my stepmother. I have read all about it in books, and Lawson has told me about it. My real mother is dead; and my father is going to marry you. Yes, I know all about it. At first the stepmother is very kind, and is very fond of the children; but as soon as she has a baby of her own, she gets cross with the others, and everything is quite different."

John Morley's face flushed and darkened while his little daughter spoke in her measured tones; but Rose laughed her blithe and musical laugh again, and fell down on her knees before Hester, so as to bring her bright face on a level with the child's serious eyes.

"Look at me, little Hetty!" she cried, "just look at me. Do I look as if I could ever be cross or unkind? I'm not an old dragon of a stepmother. I shall want somebody to play with me, and your papa is years and years too old to play; but you and I will have fine games together. Oh! I am sure you will love me."

Hester gazed into the blue eyes of the girl with the deep, full, unconscious scrutiny of a child. The color came and went upon Rose's cheeks, and her lips pouted under this inspection. At last Hester half held out her small hand to her future stepmother, but checked herself, looking up to her father.

"Will it make you happy?" she asked with a grave air.

"Happier than I could tell you," answered John Morley passionately.

"I like you," she said, turning to Rose, "and we shall all be very happy--at first."

"No! no! no! Not at first; but always," cried the girl, pressing kiss after kiss upon Hester's mouth, "we will love one another very dearly. You will be very glad to have me for your mamma?'

"Yes," answered Hester, still regarding her wistfully. And you promise me to be like my own daughter," continued Rose, half playfully, "for ever and ever? You will love, honor and succor me,--those are the words, I think,--as if I were your mother? When I am old and ugly, and nobody cares for me, you will care for me and never forsake me. Let me whisper a little secret, Hester. Your father will grow tired of me by-and-by, and we shall quarrel sometimes, and he will be very angry, and dreadfully cross; oh! so cross! But you must never get tired or cross with me. You must try to be exactly, just exactly, the same, as if you were born my own little girl. Will you promise me this, Hetty?"

She had spoken quite as much to John Morley as to Hester, with little coquettish charms and prettinesses which infatuated him. Hester's small, serious countenance deepened with thought, as she deliberated for a minute or two, gazing into her father's beaming face.

"Ought I to promise, father?" she asked at last.

"Certainly," answered John Morley; "she is to be your mother. You cannot be too good a child to her."

"God hears me promise," said the little girl, with simple solemnity; "I promise that I will be the same as if I had been born your daughter. I do promise it."

The gloomy room was silent again as Hester's childish voice ceased speaking; and the girl, who still knelt before her, grew pale, and the tears sprang into her eyes. John Morley also felt a passing chill and shadow of doubt crossing the brightness of his new joy. It was a gloomy niche in a gloomy household, which he was about to fill up with this gay and girlish creature. She glanced round the room with its dingy rows of books, and peeped up into John Morley's face, already marked with austere lines; and an involuntary shudder ran through her. But the next moment she laughed merrily. She embraced Hester with warmth, and held out her hand for John Morley to assist her in rising from her knees. It was one of her charming ways to seem to require help upon the slightest occasions.

"Thank you," she said, giving him a smile which made his heart beat quickly again with delight: "this is a queer child! She made me feel, I can't tell you how solemn! It was almost like being married, and hearing you vow all you will have to vow, you know. Are you quite sure you will be as much in earnest?"

John Morley murmured a reply which could not reach Hester's ears.

"Well! I must go now," she said. "I ought to be back already at that wretched school. Oh! I am tired to death of it; I long to get away from it. I believe I am only marrying you to be sure of never going back to it. There, now! It is such a shame for a pretty girl like me, and I am a pretty girl you know, to be chained to a long table, hearing stupid dolts repeat stupid lessons. You will save my life, sir; and I thank you a thousand times for it"

She curtseyed to him playfully, kissed Hester, and tripped away lightly out of the dark room, which seemed darker than ever after she had left it.

When John Morley returned to the sitting-room, he busied himself for some minutes in lighting the lamp, and setting everything into unbroken order, without once venturing to meet the eyes of his little girl, who still kept her station upon the hearth, watching him timidly but steadily. There was an undefined shyness and disquietude in his feelings towards her, which he could not well have explained to himself. He was accustomed to perform these small feminine duties of setting his room in order; but to-night he found himself embarrassed and awkward, with Hester's eyes upon him. After completing his methodical arrangements, he reached down a thick old volume from the bookshelves, and appeared to absorb himself in its contents.

But he was not reading. Hester was not to be deceived by the transparent artifice; and he felt it uneasily, and moved restlessly in his arm-chair, shading his eyes with his thin and scholarly hand. But all his features were kindled with a sunshine from within, brighter and stronger than a smile. For he would not smile; though he could not dim the light in his eyes, or make harsh again the strange softness which was smoothing away the rigid lines upon his face. Hester comprehended, but vaguely and as a child only, that a sad life, solitary and unnatural, was coming to an end, and that already the light shone upon him from afar off. Her young heart was full of sympathy for him; but for some time she kept silence. Her short life had been full of lessons of reserve and taciturnity.

"Father," she said after a long while,--and he put down his hand, and looked across to her, where she sat in a large, deep, old arm-chair which had always been her mother's seat,--" I am not at all sorry to have a stepmother."

The child's approbation had something quaint about it, but its oddity did not seem to strike her father; though he allowed a vivid smile to flit across his face as he heard it.

"Will it be long before you are tired of my stepmother?" inquired Hester.

"I shall never be tired of her!" he answered.

"But you are tired of me," she continued, "and you are tired of my mother, or else you would not want to marry another wife. So I thought you would get tired of Rose Mary some day."

"Hester," said John Morley, his face over-clouded again, "I should never have been tired of your mother if she had lived."

"But you tell me she does live," persisted the child, "and Lawson says she comes back sometimes and walks about the house, though I cannot see her. Sometimes I think I can feel her kissing me very softly. Perhaps she is here this evening, and heard me promise to be like a daughter to my stepmother. Do you think she would like it, father?"

It was seldom that Hester spoke so freely and fluently; but this evening she was excited, her cheeks were crimson, and her large gray eyes were lit up. John Morley lowered his voice, and looked stealthily round the room as he answered her.

'My love, if your poor mother, who was very dear to me,--dearer than you can think,--could know of this, I am sure she would rejoice for your sake as well as mine. I am doing what I believe to be good for you as well as for myself. You need some woman to stand in a close relationship to you; and you will need it more as you grow older. Rose will be a second mother to you."

"You are quite sure?" said Hester, with a childish love of reiterated and positive assurance.

"Quite sure," he answered.

Perhaps he had had but little thought of his child till this evening, but now he began to believe that she had been his chief consideration; and as he turned back to his book, he said to himself several times, "Certainly, Rose will be a second mother to her."

The silence which followed seemed scarcely like a silence to him; while the eager face of Hester was bent forward out of her great arm-chair, and her speaking eyes were fastened upon him. But he would give no attention to her eloquent looks; and in a few minutes she seemed aware of this, for she nestled down into her mother's chair, as she might have nestled into her mother's lap, and produced a book which she had kept wrapped up in her pinafore since the first interruption of her evening's reading. John Morley and his daughter sat thus for half an hour, no sound reaching them from without; when the sharp tinkle of the shop-bell broke upon the stillness.

The persons who entered were two men, one old, the other elderly; unlike in feature, yet possessing an undefinable and subtle resemblance, which linked them together, and seemed also to link them to John Morley. It might have been that the order of their thoughts, and the convictions and conclusions at which they had arrived, had been the same; for the brain works out its own family likenesses. It was evident that in some way or other they belonged to one class; though John Morley, a handsomer man than either of the others, had also most the look of a scholar. The smallest, meekest, and eldest of the three men was distinguished as a minister by his dress, and the spotless whiteness of a large neckcloth, which served to withdraw the eye from dwelling upon his somewhat feeble features. The third was a robust, thick-set, elderly man, with a square and massive face, and with the air of one not much accustomed to be gainsaid, yet who would not altogether dislike to meet with a worthy antagonist.

"Brother Morley, we come as friends," said the minister.

With a courteous but formal bow John Morley ushered his guests into his sitting-room, and set chairs for them at the table; as if they were about to sit in committee. The minister alone took any notice of Hester, who slipped down from her high seat upon their entrance, to offer them a shy welcome. She was used to listen earnestly to the discussions and controversies often held in her father's parlor.

This evening, however, there was some difficulty in introducing the subject of conversation, and when the minister broke silence it was in a faltering, apologetic voice.

"Brother Morley," he said, "cannot you divine the purport of our visit to-night?"

Over John Morley's face closed again much of the old gloom and austerity, as he looked from one to the other of his visitors; gazing longest and hardest into the square set face of the younger man; who regarded him, in his turn, with an unflinching judicial eye. The three men were three brothers doubtless, though the weakness and mercifulness of age were creeping over the eldest.

"We are come," he continued, deprecatingly, "because certain rumors have reached the ears of the church--"

"The church has many ears, and long ones," interrupted John Morley, with a grim smile, "but no doubt it has heard correctly. I apprehend the purport of these rumors."

"But brother," pursued the minister, in his most soothing accents, "it is not as if you were one of the unknown and inconsiderable members of the church. You are one of our chief men; a polished pillar in the temple. We come only to expostulate and beseech. It is written in the Scriptures, 'Thou shalt rebuke thy brother, and not suffer sin upon him.'"

The minister gazed at John Morley with mingled entreaty and sadness; but his companion, who was eager to pursue the assault with greater vigor, quickly broke the reverential pause which followed his quotation from the Bible.

"Come, brother Morley," he said, speaking as if he were a brother very far removed, "there's no need to beat longer about the bush. You are thinking of taking a second wife."

"That is essentially a domestic arrangement, Mr. Waldron," said John Morley, girding himself willingly for the contest "the church has nothing to do with it. If it were a question of moral discipline the church must needs take note of it. But it has no voice in this matter neither of assent, nor veto."

"Tush, brother!" answered Mr. Waldron, sharply: We come but semi-officially. As your brethren, we are bound to watch your conduct; and if your choice had fallen upon a godly woman, not a word would have been said. But when we see one of ourselves about to form an ensnaring union, our constitution as a pure chord, gives us the right, and lays it upon us as a duty, to warn, rebuke, and protest. This marriage ought not to be."

"Yes, dear brother," said the minister, emboldened by Mr. Waldron's words, and pressing into the breach he had made, "the rule of the apostle is simple: 'Be ye not un equally yoked with unbelievers.'"

"The unbeliever," replied John Morley slowly, "signified to the early church the heathen and idolater. My future wife has been baptized, and is probably a communicant in the Church of England; therefore she cannot be called an unbeliever in that sense. But there is another saying of the apostle: 'The unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband.' I trust that this marriage may prove the entrance into a purer faith and truer creed for my wife."

There was a short silence again, while Mr. Waldron drew a well-worn Bible out of his pocket, and turned over its pages impatiently.

"Listen then, John Morley," he said; "in the thirteenth chapter of Nehemiah, beginning at the twenty-third verse, it is thus written :-

" 'In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab. And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people.

" 'And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves.

" 'Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things! yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel: nevertheless, even him did outlandish women cause to sin.

" 'Shall we then hearken unto you to do all this great evil, to transgress against our God in marrying strange wives?' "

Mr. Waldron read the passage with an evidently keen sympathy with the indignant governor; and he looked hard into John Morley's rigid face. The latter was not a man to yield quietly to the arbitrary rule even of Nehemiah the Tirshatha; and he met the judicial frown bent upon him with cool composure.

"Yet it had been permitted to the ancient Jews," he said, "under the rule of Moses, when they saw among the captives a damsel who pleased them, to take her to wife. Also David, the man after God's own heart, took to wife Maacah, the daughter of Talmai, king of Geshur."

"And she bare him Absalom," interrupted Mr. Waldron eagerly, "the rebel and the assassin."

The words were still upon his lips when there came a gentle tap at the door, and it was opened from without before John Morley could reach it. Rose appeared in the doorway; and the minister and Mr. Waldron regarded her with surprised admiration. Again the sombre room seemed the brighter for her presence, and her clear, fresh young voice sounded pleasantly to their ears, after their own grave and deep tones.

"I thought I should find you and Hetty alone, Mr. Morley," she said; smiles and blushes following one another closely upon her fair face; "and the bell did not ring, so I came straight on here. I have only left a book behind me, and I came back to fetch it."

John Morley had approached her, and drawn her hand through his arm with an air of pride. Hester too, as if attracted by some irresistible charm, had descended from her seat, and pressed close beside her. This girl possessed some fascination which drew all hearts to her; though one might know lovelier women, wiser women, women tenfold better. The few words she had uttered were simple; but like the foolish old songs with sweet tunes, which are heard by chance, and which one always wishes to hear once more, the three men were silent in the dull parlor when she ceased speaking, as if they waited to hear her voice again.

"This is the young lady who has consented to be my wife, Mr. Waldron," said John Morley, with an ill-concealed triumph in the effect her appearance had produced.

She stole a bashful look at the great man of the neighborhood, and curtseyed profoundly; a boarding-school curtsey, learnt from a dancing-master, yet not without a certain diffident grace of its own. Mr. Waldron's face relaxed from its severity.

"Well brother," he said, with greater affability than before, "I wish you joy. And you also, my dear; only we must make you one of ourselves as speedily as possible. We have just been speaking of it to John Morley. You must join the church, when you become his wife and the mother of this little girl."

"Yes, sir," murmured the girl, with charming shamefacedness; while a shade of gravity clouded her sunny face for a moment. The old minister came forward, and addressed her in a tone of earnest solemnity.

"It will be the turning-point of your life," he said, "to become the wife of a godly man. Hitherto you have been wandering in the paths of vanity, but here you will be safely enfolded from the snares of this world. Morning, noon, and night a voice will sound in your ears: 'This is the way; walk ye in it.' You will be snatched from the world, and gathered into the bosom of the church."

Once again the girl shivered, and looked in bewilderment at the faces around her, wondering what their strange manner of greeting her might mean. But they had each put on a smile for her, and her nature was buoyant enough in itself to find complacency everywhere. John Morley's handsome face, moreover, wore an expression which any woman would be pleased to see in her future husband; and she bridled her pretty head with a half-affected air of coquetry.

"I must go directly," she said in a girlish tone of importance; "I have a hundred things to do yet to-night. There is my book on the table, Mr. Morley. Thank you very much. Good-night; good-night. Good-bye, my little Hetty."

The door closed upon her, but the three men did not resume their seats, and Hester remained standing on the hearth, listening eagerly for their next words. The controversy had come to an unexpected end. Yet John Morley drew his little daughter within his arms, in an unaccustomed caress, and stroked down her tangled hair with a trembling hand.

"If the church be scandalized," he said, in a voice which he rendered steady by a great effort, "I can withdraw from it. There are other forms of worship and other sects not greatly differing from our own. My intended wife has been brought up in the Established Church. If it be necessary--"

The pause was of even more significance than the words; and the old minister opened his eyes widely in unutterable astonishment. Mr. Waldron was the first to speak.

"It is a matter for expostulation," he said, "not of reproof or censure. Let each man act according to his own conscience. What do you say, Mr. Watson?"

"It is a question encompassed with difficulties," answered the minister diffidently; "and every man must act according to his own inward light. But since brother Morley has gone so far as to promise marriage to this young creature, I do not see how he can conscientiously break off his covenant with her."

With that uttterance the subject seemed settled. A few minutes later Mr. Waldron shook hands with John Morley with distant brotherliness, and went away with the minister. John Morley kissed his child, and bade her go to bed and dream of her new mother. But Hester loitered for a minute or two after he had reopened his large book, as if longing to say something to him. It was evidently an effort, an effort which she felt constrained to make; and at last, when he believed himself to be alone, John Morley heard a small, timid voice speaking from the threshold, and saw Hester looking back at him with anxious eyes. What she had to say before she left him was simply this: "I hope you will not make God angry with you, father."

One of the three gables of John Morley's house rose a story higher than the others, and under its pointed roof was a large attic, lighted by a great dormer window, which overlooked the neighboring buildings, and caught a glimpse of fields and woods beyond, with a range of distant hills, lying blue and cloudlike against the sky line. It was the pleasantest room in the dark old house. Beneath it lay some printing offices, black and grimy, containing ancient presses, covered over with dust and cobwebs; for John Morley had given up the printing business, which his predecessor had carried on, and the attic in the gable was his only workroom. He employed also but one workman, a stranger, who looked like a foreigner, and who had been passing through the town on the tramp the first week after his marriage with Hester's mother. The young wife had taken pity upon the footsore and famishing wanderer, and had persuaded her husband to give him a trial at his professed trade as a bookbinder. This trial was a complete success. He had learned his trade in Paris; his father having been an English artisan, who had married a Frenchwoman from Burgundy. The amount of work accomplished by this single man was marvellous, and the price he set upon it extravagant, yet such was the taste and beauty of the workmanship, that John Morley seldom received less for it than the high sum at which his binder valued it. Throughout the whole county no binding was esteemed unless it had issued from John Morley's workshop.

The binding room, wherein this solitary artisan had worked for ten years, was not only light and sunny, but it was odorous with the pleasant scent of Russia leather and morocco, and in the summer with the flowers which he cultivated in boxes and pots about his window-sill. His press and work-table stood in the wide bay formed by the casement, where the daylight fell upon him, long after the court below and the sombre parlor were obscured in twilight. Over the rusty old grate, which was formed only of a few rude bars of iron fastened into the chimney jamb, stood a rack containing his tools for the printing of his ornamental devices upon the gold-leaf. All around on the shelves and the sloping ceiling were displayed specimens of the tasteful branch of art which he carried on in unbroken monotony from day to day, and from year to year.

He was a man so quiet, perhaps from his ten years of lonely work, that never was any sound heard of him in his attic; which indeed was isolated from the rest of the house by the empty rooms below, though there was a door out of them which communicated with the second floor of the dwelling. There was another entrance to the workroom by a door into a passage running along the side of the house, of which he kept the key, in order to let himself in at any hour; for he was an early riser, and often came to his work at five o'clock in the morning, and remained until late at night; taking neither pleasure nor rest, beyond that absolutely necessary for health. He was a small, tough, withered-looking man, stooping a good deal in the shoulders, and with thin, scanty hair. Always upon reaching the deserted printing offices, it was his custom to exchange his boots for a pair of soundless list slippers, which could make no noise upon the bare boards of his attic. He was a nervous man, starting at every sound, of which however but few ever reached him in his solitude, for the window opened upon the court instead of the street; and whatever rare tumult might be in the latter only came to his ears softened by the distance. So quiet was the gable that the house-sparrows gathered there in numbers, and their shrill, pert chirping seemed the only sound that did not discompose him.

The sole pleasure of this secluded and laborious being was to see Hester push open the door of his attic, and, with her book under her arm, creep quietly in and climb upon a tall chair which stood at a corner of the press. There she watched him spreading the delicate gold-leaf upon the crimson or blue morocco of his bindings, and stamp them carefully with his elegant devices. Very seldom any conversation passed between these two; but sometimes the child mounted upon a ladder, and sat on the highest step, which reached nearly to the ceiling, and there read aloud, in a low, pleasant murmur of a voice, which was as soothing as silence itself, from the book which happened to be the favorite of the day. That was the crowning point of his pleasure; but he never sought it, and never put his sense of delight into words. If Hester ever brought him any book to be mended, however old and stained and worn, he lavished all his art upon it; pondering in his mind what new device he could discover to embellish it. The nursery rhymes and primers of Hester Morley were marvels in the decorative art of bookbinding; though they lay unseen in her bedroom, upon some shelves which he had made for her.

The second marriage of John Morley was solemnized in a distant town, and afterwards he took his young bride a short excursion, while his house was being set in order for her reception. During this time Hester almost lived in the attic, to the inexpressible delight of Lawson; a delight, however, which was mingled with a profound and smouldering resentment against his master. He could not understand how he could need any companionship beside his child's.

"Lawson," said Hester, one day recurring to a subject which had secretly troubled her ever since the visit of Mr. Waldron and the minister to John Morley, "do you think that God will be really angry with my father for being married to another wife?"

"Ay, do I," answered Lawson, in deep accents and brief words.

"But, Lawson," she said, her face growing pale and awe-stricken, "it is a dreadful thing to make God angry. Miss Waldron has taught me all about it at the Sunday school. Don't you know what He did to Sodom and Gomorrah? Suppose He sent down fire from heaven, and burnt all the house up? Or suppose He should strike my father and my new mother dead, like Ananias and Sapphira? I can't help thinking about it all day long, and at nights when I awake. What should God be angry for?"

Lawson stooped over his work, breathing softly on the gold-leaf, and smoothing it out carefully with his smoothest finger.

"If God is angry with my father," continued Hester, sobbing, "I think I should like Him to be angry with me as well. If Ananias and Sapphira had any little children, who would take care of them after they were struck dead? But I don't think He will be angry. Have you ever seen my new mother, Lawson?"

"You must not call her mother," said Lawson; "your mother is in heaven, with God."

"But I've promised to be like her very own daughter for ever and ever," answered Hester; "I don't know what made me promise, only my father said I ought, and it would make him happy. Lawson, I would do anything to make my father happy. And I don't think she will be the same as the stepmothers in books. What was my own mother like, Lawson?"

With slow and quiet movements, for he seemed incapable of any quick or energetic action, Lawson mounted the step ladder, and reached an old portfolio from the highest shelf. From this he drew out an engraving, mounted upon board, and surrounded by an exquisite scroll of gilding and coloring: it was a woman's face only--a sweet, calm, colorless face, long and oval, with a placid serenity approaching to sadness upon it. The child and the work man bent over it some time in silence.

"That was how she looked," he whispered, "the last time I saw her, just before she died; and I promised, and your father promised, on our bended knees, that we'd neither have thought, nor care, nor plan, save for you and your happiness, Miss Hester. And this is the way," he cried, smiting his hands together with a sudden agony of passion which seemed impossible in so quiet and subdued a creature, "that my master keeps his promise ! Yes. God and I do well to be angry."

It might have provoked a smile to hear this puny, shrivelled, insignificant workman identify himself and his impotent resentment with God and His anger. But there was no one to smile, except Hester, who looked up into his face with wide open eyes of terror and amazement.

"Miss Hester," he said, more wildly, "this is how it is. It is seven years ago, and I've been toiling ever since to make a dot for you. Why I've only taken eighteen shillings a week wages from your father, while he gets six or seven, or sometimes ten pounds a week by my work! I found out a new way of bevelling the edges, which nobody knows how to do save myself. There was a very nice little fortune for you already. Everybody was saying John Morley is rich. And so this bold, laughing, flirting, flaunting madam has married him for his money, and she will make it fly like chaff before the wind. We shall all be poor again. I've been keeping down my poor mother and myself, when I might have made money for us both."

" Is your mother very poor?" asked Hester.

"Yes. She is living with my sister in Burgundy," he answered; "both of them are widows, and they are quite poor, but for what I send them, and I haven't sent them as much as I could."

"Is my father very rich, Lawson?" asked Hester again.

"He would have been by the time you wanted your dot," answered Lawson.

"I don't know what a dot is," said Hester.

"It is the money you will want to marry a good husband with," he replied; "and now you will be poor, very poor. It's all over, and I've been a fool, and John Morley is a fool."

He threw himself half across his binding press, and covered his face with his hands, while Hester stood by looking doubtfully at his downcast attitude, and going over in her mind the strange things he had been saying.

"Do you think my own mother knows?" she asked at last in a hushed voice.

"Ay! does she," answered Lawson; "many and many a time she comes up here, and walks about with her soft, quiet feet, which I couldn't hear at all if there was any noise in the room; and she looks over my work, and pushes the right tool towards me, when I don't quite know what to do for the best. Oh, she knows all that goes on in the old house she has left. Don't you think she is often and often with you, Miss Hester, watching over you in your little bed, and sitting by you in the parlor of an evening, when you're reading? Do you never feel her near you?"

"I think I do," whispered the child, pressing close to the visionary man, and laying her small fingers upon his warm living hand.

"She may die yet! She may die yet!" he muttered to himself; "people die easily sometimes. Then we should be all right again. There's no room for two mistresses in one house. I shall never feel her near to me when the other is here. My best work is over. I shall do no more good in the world as long as the other one is alive."

He continued muttering to himself at intervals, while he burnished the gilding under his hands. Hester mounted to her high seat upon the step-ladder, and sat watching the evening clouds, which could be seen slowly sailing towards the west across the field of sky which was visible from the window. Now and then she sighed as a child seldom sighs. The sun went down, and the distant corners of the attic grew dusky, and filled with shadows; and when the child awoke from her long reverie, cold and troubled, she fancied readily that in the darkest of the gloom there stood the soft, light outline of a figure clothed in white, whose dim face was calm and sweet and sad. It was her mother; but she had entered into a covenant to be as a daughter to her father's second wife.

The motives which had determined the second Mrs. Morley to become the wife of a man fifteen years her senior, and altogether different to the beau ideal of a husband which her girlish fancy had painted, were as complex as the motives to such marriages generally are. In the first place she had attained the age of three-and-twenty, yet, though very pretty and engaging, had met with no real opportunity of escaping from the life she hated; that of a governess in a middle-class boarding-school. There was a dreadful possibility that her attractions might fade away before she met with an establishment worthy of her; and she longed to be the mistress of a house of her own. On the other hand, John Morley had the reputation of being rich for his station, and he was a handsomer and more polished man than any of the younger men with whom she was brought into contact. Except one memory, which was sentimentally brooded over in her heart, no one had so nearly touched her frivolous affections as this grave, melancholy, handsome man of middle age, who had abandoned himself to a passionate devotion to her. She felt something of jealousy and triumph in thinking of the young wife, whom he had sorrowed for so austerely, and who was at last forgotten in her grave for her sake. As the last reason, she fancied that the toil and monotony of school life had already stolen away something of the softness and bloom of her fair face. On these grounds she had determined upon becoming John Morley's second wife.

Very naturally she resolved to put his attachment to the test, and not to spare it. She found the new house of which she was the mistress, gloomy, and poverty-stricken in aspect, and she set her heart upon beautifying it. It was a large, rambling old place, much too large for the small family dwelling in it; and she forecast her plans for turning it all into a habitation suitable to herself. But here she met a sudden and unexpected check, even in the first-weeks of her married life. John Morley assured her, with a hundred protestations of his love, that he could not give her permission to do as she pleased with the dreary, half-furnished rooms. One room should be her own, he said, the largest in the house; and she might buy whatever she chose for it. It was a compromise which was disagreeable to her; but she resolved to make the most of it. Upstairs there was a large apartment, extending from the front of the house to the back, and wainscoted with panels of oak throughout, which had been hitherto used as a warehouse. This she fixed upon, insisting upon the fulfilment of her husband's promise; and upon it she lavished all her taste and caprice, while John Morley looked on and laughed, as one laughs at a child playing at keeping house. It was a pleasant time for Rose. She enjoyed the unconditional permission given to her with the full enjoyment of one who has always been obliged to look closely to her expenditure; with a gay good nature she gave up her plans of embellishing the rest of the house, while she concentrated herself upon this room allotted to her. John Morley's home grew full of sound, in the place of its unbroken stillness. The blithe laugh of his young wife rippled from room to room, blended with the quieter but happy tones of his little girl. Now and then there came to his ears notes of music from Rose's piano over head, short, merry tunes, tinkling through the empty rooms, with a suggestion of dancing steps accompanying them; though there was no one to dance except Hester, whose small feet had never before been set to music. The time was as blissful for John Morley as for his second wife, or rather, immeasurably more so.

The pity was that the girl was no more than a school-girl, with nothing but a school-girl's idea of happiness. She was good-natured, and good-tempered, and quite willing to do what she could to please her husband. But it had never entered her mind that his companionship alone would be sufficient for her. She had no wish whatever to reign over her new household unseen and unenvied by her neighbors. As soon as her drawing-room was furnished and decorated after her own taste, she longed to receive guests in it, who would admire and praise it to her satisfaction. There John Morley, reserved and self-contained, made a stand. He wanted no witnesses to his happiness. The people of Little Aston were not of his kind; there were none among them who could become his associates, or whom he would choose to be the friends of his wife. On the one hand were the worldlings, the people who wasted their time at the card-table or in the dance; on the other were the members of the church, ignorant and ill-bred, with whom he had nothing in common beyond the religious conventionalities of church membership. He was separated from the world and the church alike. His wife might welcome to his hearth the old minister and his equally aged wife, whose gentleness could never offend or displease him; but there was no other person whom he could receive into his house with the cordiality of friendship. Mere acquaintances John Morley could not understand. To eat bread at his table was a pledge of living friendliness between host and guest. On this point no charm, or persuasion, or rebellion, could avail his wife anything. He was like a rock; and the poor, silly girl, with her empty mind and light heart, beat against it in vain.

After the first novelty had worn away, John Morley, though retaining his passionate and proud love of his young wife, fell back into his old studious habits; lost himself, and her, and all his new life, in the books which came almost daily to his hand. If she invaded his quiet room where he sat all day long, and which was too heavy and sombre for a butterfly creature like her, to ask him for some new indulgence, or to display some new possession, he put down his book only for a few minutes, and soon grew absent if she prolonged her visit. He had no thought of any unkindness in this neglect. Hester's mother had been willing to sit hour after hour, his silent companion, ready to hear him if he should like to read aloud some sentence which pleased him more than others, a sentence which to her stood alone, with none before or following it, and he had taken it for granted that Rose would do the same. Since she did not do it, but avoided his dull room, he did not complain; but it never occurred to him to alter his own habits. Besides, after the lapse of a few months his eyes were opened to the snare into which he had fallen. He had been guilty of a blunder, he would not call it a sin, which he had formerly blamed harshly in others. He, a chief member of the church, a deacon, had entered into marriage with a worldly woman.

John Morley's creed was colored by his gloomy temperament. He began to look upon Rose, whom he had made his nearest and dearest companion, as a soul which still walked in darkness, under the tyranny of Satan; and whose destiny was an eternal separation from all goodness and happiness. The gayety and charms of his young wife began to make his heart ache. He saw her treading mirthfully along the path leading to ruin and perdition. The possibility of eternal punishment, which he had calmly and philosophically considered from a distance, was brought into his own home, he had himself taken it to his heart; it was the only dowry his wife had brought him. In the quiet of his room this thought presented itself to him with innumerable and stinging variations--that the voice which he heard singing and babbling about his house would one day wail in hopeless anguish, and that the heart which he had won for himself would be pierced through with unutterable and unavailing repentance.

It is no marvel that John Morley set himself with his whole heart and mind to the task of enlightening and converting this beloved, but lost, soul. He argued with his wife; he read to her; he prayed for her. He called in the minister, as he would have called in a physician had she been stricken with some malady. Rose was frightened at first, and yielded readily to tears. But after a while she grew indignant, and then weary. Never before had it been suggested to her that anything was amiss in her. She had been christened and confirmed, and had been a communicant of her church. She ran over the Commandments, and found that she had kept them from her youth up. Certainly if she stood in any kind of danger the whole world was full of souls who were in equal, if not greater, peril. All this commotion was the result of having married an austere and narrow-minded man, who first shut her out from all the pleasures and enjoyments of her age, and then surrounded her with imaginary terrors. She began to harden herself against him; and resolved to bring up Hester after a fashion opposed to the strict rule of her father.

If there was any influence which could have won over the worldly spirit of Rose Morley to the grave but peaceful religion into whose sweet safety John Morley vainly strove to drive her, it would have been the simple faith of the child, who knew nothing of the technical phrases of any creed. Like the child Christ, Hester both asked and answered questions in such a manner as to startle and trouble the giddy mind of her young stepmother. But how could this gay and thoughtless girl help growing weary of her monotonous life, with a husband always burdened with spiritual anxieties for her, and a child who cared less for the plays of childhood than for the thoughts and pursuits of older years? She found herself altogether out of her element--a mere butterfly, which had flown heedlessly into a damp and chilly cave, where it could only fold its wings, and lose the brilliant hours of the summer which was swiftly passing away. The merry laugh and the tinkling of music ceased in the house; her step grew languid, and her voice low; the blue eyes were dimmed, and the cheeks faded; but John Morley saw in the change only what he wished to see--the pain and travail of a soul which was struggling into life.

Mr. Waldron's parliamentary duties deprived the church at Little Aston of his presence, and that of his daughter, during a considerable portion of each year. The church and the minister were perhaps a little more at their ease during their absence; but they felt all the increased importance of their personal attendance at the chapel, and their return was anxiously looked forward to. It had become a point of etiquette for Mr. Watson to proceed at once to Aston Court as soon as the rumor of their arrival reached his ears, in order to congratulate himself and them upon their reunion with the little church of which they were the most conspicuous pillars.

They had come down from London upon the commencement of the long autumnal recess, and Mr. Watson set out the next morning upon his visit of homage. Aston Court was about a mile from Little Aston, but most of the road lay through the fine old park which surrounded the newly-built mansion. Mr. Waldron was a utilitarian, and had sold off the deer which had belonged to the former owner, and divided his park into regular divisions, for the grazing of cattle and the growth of hay. The new house was plain, square, and massive, flanked by two smaller, but equally formal, wings. The windows of plate glass were of uniform size, distributed along the front of the building at even distances, and one large entrance door, with a portico, stood in the exact centre of the ground floor. The garden stretching before it was laid out in long, straight borders of the same breadth and length; and the trees separating it from the park were kept well clipped. The usual reception-room which was the dining room of the mansion, was a large handsome apartment, but heavy and dull. Its principal decoration consisted of two life-size portraits of Luther and Melancthon, excellently painted; the former hard, acute, and intrepid; the latter soft and feminine, with mournful blue eyes which seemed weary of gazing upon life. There was also above the fireplace a richly illuminated and gilded testimonial, signed by a thousand Nonconformists,--inscribed to David Waldron in gratitude for his eminent services in the House of Commons in defence and advancement of the cause of Nonconformity. The middle of this apartment was filled by a long wide table, similar to those seen in committee rooms, and covered with dark leather; a number of leather-covered chairs were ranged along the walls. Curtains of deep crimson damasks, always drawn a little over the window, shed a solemn light into the room--a twilight which was not mournful gloom, but rather a wealthy and grand obscurity.

It was into this reception-room that the minister was ushered. It was Saturday morning, and on the next day Mr. Waldron and his daughter would occupy the large curtained pew in the corner of the chapel, which was appropriated to their use. Miss Waldron was seated at the table, a small insignificant person to look at, but the daughter of David Waldron, M.P. She received her pastor with mingled fervor and condescension, and invited him to a seat beside her. Mr. Waldron soon joined them, and a close conversation, a sort of religious gossip, about the affairs of the church and its members, ensued.

"Brother Morley is married again, as you know," said Mr. Watson, after some other subjects had been discussed, "and he is beginning to feel sorely troubled about his young wife. She remains the same worldly, thoughtless creature she was before her marriage."

"Ay! ay!" answered Mr. Waldron, shaking his head, "we gave in too soon there. You and I, as well as John Morley, were smitten with the young woman's beauty."

"Father!" interrupted Miss Waldron, in a tone of reproof.

"It is true," continued Mr. Waldron; "I never felt so checkmated in my life as when she appeared suddenly in the very midst of our expostulation with John Morley. But we must get her into the church. There must be ways and means of winning her over. We will put her into Miss Waldron's hands."

Miss Waldron was one of those persons who are never called by their Christian names even by their nearest relatives. It is possible that, in conversation with her, her father or her brother might sometimes address her by it; but it was not known beyond her own family circle. There seems something significant in this suppression of the name by which one is enrolled under the banner of the cross.

"By what means shall I get at this young woman?" asked Miss Waldron, not at all unwilling to undertake the conversion of Rose Morley, and entering into it as a business.

"I scarcely know," answered Mr. Watson, in perplexity.

"There is my Sunday-school class," continued Miss Waldron, "and my Mother's Meeting on Monday, my Wednesday evening Bible Class, and my Saturday night Female Prayer-meeting."

"I am afraid we could not get her to attend any of these," replied the minister.

"Why not?" inquired Miss Waldron.

"She is quite an educated person," he said, timidly, "and has all the manners of a lady. She has been a governess, and plays very well, and can draw. She holds herself rather above the rest of our people. They are a little unpolished, you know."

"I do not see then what can be done in such a case,' said Miss Waldron, with a stiff and chilly air.

" I recollect," said Mr. Waldron, "she has a good deal the manner of a lady and very pretty she is, too. John Morley has a sweet-looking little girl by his first wife; I like to see that child in chapel. Miss Waldron, I think your only way of getting at her will be to call upon her. You might invite her to return your call. It would do you no harm, and, under God's blessing, might do her a great deal of good."

Miss Waldron mused with an impenetrable face.

"Do, my dear young lady," urged the minister eagerly, seeing a possible avenue by which gospel influences might reach Rose Morley's benighted soul; "your rank and position would give you consequence in her eyes; she is a girl to be touched by them."

"Mr. Watson," she said, with some severity, "we belong to different spheres altogether."

"I know you do," he hastened to say.

"And," she continued, lifting her hand to enjoin silence while she finished speaking, "there would be a danger of fostering her pride; but I will be on my guard against that. I do not desire to shrink from any cross, and I will call upon her. What else can be done for her soul may occur to me; and it is possible I may go so far as to invite her here for conversation with me upon her spiritual welfare. But that is in the future. For the present you may leave the young person in my hands."

Mr. Watson bowed, and thought it would be judicious to say no more upon this subject.

"Your son," he said, in a hesitating and deprecating tone, as if anxious to express his interest in him, yet doubtful how the great man would take it, "is all well with Mr. Robert Waldron?"

The father's face clouded at the mention of this name, but there was no anger against the timorous minister is his reply.

"No, no, my friend," he answered, frankly. "I did wrong in sending my boy to Eton and Oxford. There never was a more hopeful lad, full of good intentions and desires, before he went from home. There were as many signs of grace in him as in Miss Waldron; but the saying is fulfilled, 'One shall be taken and the other left.' Yet in part, if not altogether, it is my sin."

"It will be all well with him yet," said the minister, in a gentle tone of encouragement; "our prayers will not be unanswered, though the answer tarry. Is he with you?"

"We expect him, but only for a few days," said Mr. Waldron; "our household ways are too strict for him, and his habits are such as I cannot tolerate under my roof. Yet he is only gay, not vicious, I trust. But let us talk about something else; my son is no pleasant theme to me."

About an hour later, Mr. Watson, passing by John Morley's shop, looked in for a few minutes to announce to him the arrival of the Waldrons and their expected appearance at chapel the next day--intelligence which made so much impression upon John Morley that he remembered to repeat it to his young wife as she sat moping and dull at the tea-table. It came as a little gleam of light from the outer world, and the effect produced by it would have been astounding to the abstracted husband could he have been made aware of it. Rose had retained a lively impression of the great man whom she had seen and spoken to before her marriage; and she had often cast furtive glances at his large, empty pew in the chapel, to which she accompanied her husband twice every Sunday. Mr. Waldron was by far the greatest man she had ever seen.

The next morning Rose made a very careful and elaborate toilette; and even John Morley, in the midst of his anxious Sabbath thoughts of her as one still upon the brink of eternal peril, could not check the pleasant and flattering admiration which her beauty produced in him. He felt inclined to believe, against all reason and revelation, that she was too fair to be doomed to any misery either in this world or the world to come. With her hand resting on his arm, he walked proudly up the old-fashioned street. The close carriage from Aston Court passed them by; and both he and Rose caught the eye and the hurried salutation of the great Mr. Waldron from his seat beside his daughter, who looked neither to the right hand nor to the left. The chapel was better filled than ordinary, and the minister preached with more than usual animation. At the end of the service, while all the congregation were standing up, but hanging back till the owners of Aston Court should take their departure, Mr. Waldron presented Mrs. Morley to his daughter, and said, in a voice loud enough to be heard half through the place, "Miss Waldron intends to call upon you at half-past eleven o'clock precisely on Tuesday morning next."

At half-past eleven o'clock precisely on Tuesday morning, Miss Waldron, attired in a gown of some dark brown stuff, with a brown bonnet and shawl to match, opened the door of John Morley's shop with such a jerk as to set the little bell tinkling furiously. It caused Mrs. Morley to jump up nervously in her costly and tasty drawing-room on the floor above. She had dressed herself and Hester in very becoming and very light morning dresses, of a pale tint, which would not have been unfit for the handsomest room in Aston Court; and, thus prepared, she awaited the announcement of her distinguished visitor. But Miss Waldron positively declined to penetrate farther into a tradesman's abode than the room which opened out of the shop. It was only because a religious conversation might be liable to interruption in the shop itself that she did not insist upon Mrs. Morley receiving her call there, as a protest against the wild supposition that there was anything like equality between them. But Miss Waldron had taken up her cross this morning, and was willing to bear it even into John Morley's back parlor.

Rose entered the dark, dull room to which she had been summoned with a pretty bashfulness, half matronly and half girlish; and Miss Waldron met her with an awkward embarrassment, for fear of this young person feeling too free with her. When the first stiff courtesies had been exchanged, Miss Waldron took her seat uncomfortably upon the edge of a chair, and looked steadily, almost sternly, into the smiling face of Rose Morley.

"I have called upon you," she said, in an exhortatory voice, "at the united request of my father, who is a deacon, and Mr. Watson, who is the pastor of the church at Little Aston. They desired me to see if anything could be done for you. You do not attend any of my meetings, so I have come to see you here."

"I did not know that you had any meetings,' answered Rose, apologetically; "but I do not think I should feel at home in any of them. I was not brought up to going to chapel"

She spoke nervously, and seemed on the verge of shedding tears. Miss Waldron felt satisfied that her very first words had made an impression upon this frivolous object of Mr. Watson's pastoral solicitude.

"Ah!" she said, "you were brought up in the darkness of the Establishment; but now you are brought to the light you ought to love the light. A very eminent minister told me that, by my birth and rank, I am set as a candle upon a candlestick, and not put in a secret place, or under a bushel, that they which come in may see the light."

She paused, and looked down into her satchel with a sigh, as if exhausted with shining too brilliantly; while Rose, puzzled and shy, could not think of anything to say in response, and Hester, from her usual seat in the old arm-chair, listened and looked inquisitively at their visitor.

"Ah! my dear young"--she was about to say "person," but her eyes fell upon Rose's sweet face and elegant dress, and she checked herself, leaving a blank in her address,--" I came here to-day, not out of idle compliment to you or your husband, but to awaken you to the danger of your condition. It has been well said that we who have the bread of life should not only invite our fellow sinners to partake, but should carry it to them and compel them to eat. You are perishing, you are famishing before my eyes for lack of food, and I must force you to take from my hands what will save you. It is a necessity which is laid upon me."

Rose's trouble and perplexity were increased indefinitely by this speech, and she looked from Miss Waldron to Hester, and back again to Miss Waldron.

"I scarcely understand," she said, blushing deeply; "you know I have always lived among Church people, and I never heard any one talk in this manner before. I am sure you are very kind, but I don't understand clearly about the bread and the light. I have been confirmed, and I used to take the Sacrament sometimes; always at Christmas and Easter. I am very stupid I know, but I scarcely understand you."

"Do you feel no unsatisfied cravings of your immortal soul ?" asked Miss Waldron.

"I don't know," answered Rose, with increasing shamefacedness; "There are a good many things I am not satisfied with. We never have any friends to come in and see us, and we never go out anywhere, except to Mr. Watson's. I expected to be a great deal happier, and more free, when I was married; but I am not so. Mr. Morley has no taste for company, and I am shut up here day after day till I feel more lonely than I could tell you."

"But do you not feel the load of your sins?" pursued Miss Waldron.

"I am sure I'm not very sinful," she said, pouting a little; "I'm not idle, or ill-tempered, or cross. Little Hetty knows that. Oh, no! Miss Waldron, I don't break the Sabbath, or steal, or kill, or--or anything else that breaks the Commandments. No; if I had any sins I would own them. But I am only silly. Yes; I know I am not the clever person Mr. Morley thought me before he married me; and he is disappointed, and I am very dull; I could not bear it but for little Hetty. Little Hetty, my darling, come and kiss me this minute."

In the presence of this strange visitant, who eyed her so coldly and rigidly, the poor, silly, little soul of Rose Morley felt a sudden need of having the warm arms of the child round her neck, and her fond young lips pressed to her mouth. Hester slipped down from her chair, and kissed her stepmother affectionately; then standing beside her, she turned her face towards Miss Waldron.

"Indeed she does not understand,' she said, quaintly and confidentially; "we two have talked about it often and often, and she does not feel like being a very great sinner. We know we are, because we've been taught it over and over again; but she does not. If we hadn't been taught it so often, we shouldn't have believed it all in a minute. You wouldn't believe you were the chief of sinners if nobody had taught you so, would you?"

A dull red flush suffused Miss Waldron's cheek and brow as she listened to Hester's explanation of her stepmother's benighted state. She could not meet the clear frank gaze of the child.

"I was once a sinner," she answered, "when I was a little girl like you; but I became a member of the church before I was much older than you are. Ever since I have had one single object in life--the good of my fellow-creatures."

She remained silent for a minute or two, with closed eyelids; while Hester, stroking her stepmother's hand gently, looked with a child's steady gaze into Miss Waldron's face. Rose Morley felt more bewildered and embarrassed than ever; and dismissed from her mind all idea of offering her guest any refreshment.

"I am going now to my tract district," said Miss Waldron, recalling herself to the present moment. "I trust you will think over seriously what I have said to you; and may the thorns not choke the good seed. Yours is a very interesting case. I have here a small book, written by myself, which gives an account of a young woman who died of a broken heart, but whom I visited on her deathbed, and brought to repentance. I will present it to you, Mrs. Morley. I am about to order a book from your husband, which you can bring down to Aston Court yourself, when it arrives. It will be a nice walk for you and Hester; and we can converse again upon this subject. I am always at home till eleven o'clock in the morning, for I employ two hours after breakfast in reading and meditation."

She rose to take her leave, offering her hand condescendingly to Mrs. Morley, who was in a flutter of amazement and timidity. If there was any doubt as to Rose's silliness there could be none as to the sweetness of her temper. She could pout a little, and she lost her buoyancy in the dull atmosphere of her new home; but there was no canker of ill-humor or pride in her nature. She was quite unconscious of any impertinence in her visitor, and was perfectly willing to carry anything down to Aston Court for her. In her simple heart she gave Miss Waldron credit for being as saintly as she claimed to be; and with a real hope that she might find in her a guide and friend, who would make clear to her the mysteries of her husband's creed, she looked forward eagerly to the opportunity of meeting with her again.

Whether Hester or Rose Morley felt the most childish pleasure in the prospect of a visit to Aston Court it would be difficult to say. The latter, with her sweet temper and imperturbable self-complacency, could not be sensitive to any impertinence which did not take the form of an open insult; so that she looked forward with delight to the moment she would find herself received upon any terms in the mansion of Mr. Waldron. Hester had been there two or three times at the annual treat of the Sunday scholars, and her imagination had been struck with the larger dimensions and greater magnificence of the house as compared with her own home, which she so rarely quitted.

The memorable morning came--a soft morning towards the end of September, with a fine and tender film of mist hanging about the autumnal trees, and hiding the distant prospect. Already the dark green of the foliage, which had grown almost sombre with the summer's sultry heat, was beginning to brighten with the tints of autumn. A thick, fine dew spangled the grass. The shadows cast by the trees were less clear and sharp than when the sun had shone through a drier atmosphere. There was a brisker activity among the birds, who no longer screened themselves from the heat amidst the innumerable leaves, but fluttered busily about; while the rooks from their rookery amidst the trees which surrounded Aston Court were winging their way in battalions towards the corn-fields, many of which were already cleared of their harvest sheaves. Here and there, from among the short stubble, started up a covey of birds, with a whirr of wings and a swift flight out of danger; while the hares crept timidly along the tall grass, which had shot up again in the rich soil of the park since the hay harvest in June.

To Rose and Hester, coming from the dusty heart of the town, which was nearly as close and crowded as the centre of some populous city, this park was a very garden of Eden; and they entered it with buoyant steps. The face of John Morley's young wife had put on its sweetest smile and fairest grace. There was not a line upon it to betray the weariness and growing discontent she felt with her dull life. In fact she did not feel it dull at that moment, and she was the creature of the moment. Her husband, and the new home of which she was mistress, were as completely blotted out of her mind as though they had no existence. The world consisted only of herself and Hester, and this beautiful park, bathed in the soft light of a September sun. She sang aloud and blithely as she trod lightly along the path, with Hester, as happy as herself, tripping at her side.

Suddenly Rose Morley stopped with an exclamation of surprise, and with a movement as if she were about to take flight--a pretty and graceful movement which, with her heightened color and parted lips, lent to her an additional charm at a moment when an additional charm was not needed. They had just turned a bend in the drive, which was hidden by a cluster of trees, and came unexpectedly upon a young man, strolling idly along with a gun upon his shoulder. Though he wore a velveteen shooting jacket and thick boots, and had no gloves on, he had an air of ease and rank, almost amounting to dignity, which often characterises those who have never been in a dependent position. He was handsome, and his appearance was well cared for. His face resembled a little that of Mr. Waldron; but he was only twenty-two years old, and his expression was more self-satisfied and careless than that of the busy great man. It said, as plainly as expression could say, that he did not like trouble in any guise. His motto would be, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die!"

"Rose!" exclaimed this young man, in an accent of wonder, as he came face to face with Mrs. Morley; and the next instant he stretched out his hands, and caught hers in them, as if to prevent her taking the flight which her movement seemed to threaten.

"Robert! oh, Robert!" she answered with a bright smile and blush upon the face she lifted up to him, in an attitude of childish and forgetful delight, while he spoke again in quiet and hurried tones.

"Whatever in the wide world brings you here?" he asked, and a fine ear might have detected a slight tone of vexation in his voice. "It is two years since we bade one another farewell forever at Oxford, and I fancied that you were still there. Are you angry with me yet, Rose? But no; you are too good, too amiable, to be angry long. You were never angry with me, I remember, when my behavior was worst. Rose, I never met such a dear girl as you!"

It seemed to strike him that he had never met with any girl as pretty, for he fastened his eyes upon her face, and his own assumed an air of pleasure and satisfaction.

"Upon my word," he continued, taking one of her gloved hands again in his, "you are prettier than ever, Rose. There is some change in you. What is it? You have lost that little governess primness I used to tease you about, which never sat well upon your face. And your dress is more tasty than it used to be. Have you come into a fortune? Has that rich uncle you told me of died, and made you his heiress? Tell me what wind has blown you into this part of the country?"

"I am married," said Mrs. Morley, with downcast eyes.

"Married!" repeated the young man, an exclamation which he followed by a low, long whistle, that brought his dogs bounding about him, but he kicked them away with something of peevishness and irritation in his manner. "Married, Rose!" he repeated, gazing into her conscious face. "Ah! well, we were no more than friends, you remember; and we can be that still. And who is the good man?" He tried to speak in an easy tone of indifference, but there was an air of chagrin upon his face, which escaped the downcast eyes of Mrs. Morley. She blushed, and stammered; but at last was compelled to speak reluctantly.

"He is a very good man," she answered; "his name is John Morley."

"John Morley the bookseller!" ejaculated the stranger. "Why, Rose, where are your old ambitions flown to? Do you forget that two years ago nothing short of some thousands a year would satisfy you, and I had not that to offer you? I, a poor spendthrift, with a hard-hearted father, and not even an entailed estate, so that he could cut me off with a shilling if he chose. Oh! what fools we were!" He spoke in mingled mockery and regret, with a smile of bitterness, which it was impossible for Rose to comprehend; for catching the brighter glitter of his eyes, and the curl of his lip, she smiled back again gaily.

"Ah!" she said, with one of her most childish pouts, "but nobody else cared a straw about me; and I might have remained a governess all my life."

"Perhaps so," he answered coldly; "but are you really the Mrs. John Morley I am running away from? Miss Waldron said at breakfast she expected you this morning, and I made haste to take myself off; never thinking--who could think?--that it was my old friend, Rose. We were no more than friends, were we? Do you remember our stolen walks together, when everybody believed you were safe in bed? Ah, Rose! you were not made to be a governess."

"No, I was not," she said; "oh! I remember well, But what brings you here, Robert? Are you visiting at Aston Court?"

"Ah!" he said, with some embarrassment, "you only knew me as Robert Hall; but my full name is Robert Hall Waldron!"

He tried to speak as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world to suppress one's chief name; and Rose, who was not critical, accepted the explanation with no other feeling than one of surprise.

"Then you are. Mr. Waldron's son!" she exclaimed. "Why you made me believe he was a shocking, cruel old ogre! Oh! for shame, sir! I have seen him, and spoken to him, and I like him very much; and I am sure, quite sure and certain, that he likes me. He was at our house yesterday, and he would make Mr. Morley call me to speak to him and he said he should like to see me sometimes at Aston Court, and he hoped Miss Waldron would be my friend. There now! And you always told me he was such a dreadful, bad, hard-hearted old Turk!"

"Ah, Rose!" said Robert Waldron, "you are the same sweet-tempered creature as ever. I could swear to that gay voice of yours amidst a thousand--so clear, and merry, and sweet. I should like you to speak to me for ever. Do you sing as you used to do? Will you sing for us at Aston Court? It will not be so dull there now you are near us. You must let me come and see you in your own home, or I shall never believe you are married. I cannot feel that you are John Morley's wife."

"But I am," she answered, with a clear little laugh "and I have a daughter, too, Mr. Robert Hall Waldron. This is my very own little daughter, sir! Hester Morley."

He had not been altogether unconscious of the child's presence before, for it had imparted to him a feeling of more ease and freedom in this unexpected meeting with Rose. But now he looked at her more attentively. The grave and noble face of the child was full of wonder, which had something of a vague sadness in it; and her large earnest eyes were raised to him with an expression of innocent reproach. He felt in an instant that he had wounded her, and it was no part of his nature to hurt any one intentionally. There was no malice in his temperament. He had spoken perhaps slightingly of her father--a slight which Rose had not felt, and he wished to efface the painful impression.

"Hester Morley," he repeated, as if long familiar with the name, "the little girl I have seen sometimes at chapel; Ah! I know you again, you see. Your father is quite a friend of mine, as well as your new mamma. Do you love her very much?"

"Yes, very much," answered Hester, earnestly; "and my father loves her dearly as well. We are a great deal happier than we were before."

She spoke with a childish fervor which touched the impressible nature of Robert Waldron, and for a moment made him feel hardly innocent in his interview with John Morley's silly young wife. Perhaps it would be better to let this first encounter be the last. Yet no harm could come of their intercourse except a little dissatisfaction and discontent on the part of Rose. There had been no positive love-making between them in the old times; but now that she was married, to a tradesman too, she might possibly compare him with her husband, to the disadvantage of the latter. Still, he did not quite like to lose sight of an old friend; and his own home was very dull. The decision was too much trouble for him, and he resolved to cast it upon a chance. If this grave and innocent child gave him permission to enter their secluded home, he would take it as a sign that no harm could come of it. He would not for the world disturb the peace of John Morley or his wife; but he could not quite make up his mind to see no more of Rose. Hester should decide it.

"May I come to see you at your own home, little Hester?" he asked, with his most pleasant smile and voice.

"Would you like to come very much?" she asked, with a wistful look into his eyes.

"Very much," he answered.

"Then we shall like you to come," answered Hester, holding out her hand to him, as if to assure him of a welcome. Robert Waldron clasped the little fingers in his own, with a strange feeling of reverence for the child's faith in him; and when he released them he took off his hat with an unaccustomed deference, and bidding them good-bye, pursued his way along the park, while Hester and Rose Morley went on to Aston Court.

Miss Waldron received them with a distant approach to cordiality, which was more than enough to satisfy Rose. She enjoyed being in the spacious rooms, with a wide garden and park stretching before the windows. There was nothing narrow, confined, or sordid in this place of wealth; and her spirit expanded in it. She felt more at home, even here in Miss Waldron's austere presence, than in the close, dark, built-in rooms of her husband's house. Happily, both she and Hester gave satisfaction, upon the whole, to their patroness. In the amiable yielding of Rose she saw material for moulding a Christian after her own model; and Hester would soon bud into an infant prodigy of grace. Mr. Waldron came in before they left; and Miss Waldron graciously seconded his invitation to come again soon to Aston Court. Naturally, the fresh charm of Rose Morley's pretty face had more effect upon the elderly hard-worked man than upon his daughter; but both were well pleased to have her appear occasionally to relieve the tedium of a country life.

The intercourse between Miss Waldron and Mrs John Morley ripened into a kind of intimacy which continued crude and raw at its nearest approach to mellowness; a sour grape which would have set on edge any other teeth than those of the dull and weary young wife. It was the first winter of her married life, and she seized eagerly upon every chance and every excuse for going to Aston Court. It was at least an opportunity for displaying the too costly and elegant dresses which were lost in the seclusion of her own home. Miss Waldron sharply reproved her for them, and Rose meekly promised to buy no more when they were done with; but in order to wear them out, it was needful to wear them, and Miss Waldron was compelled to acknowledge the logic of her argument. Mr. Waldron liked to see the pretty girl about his house, and to hear her pleasant voice, now speaking, now singing, just as he willed; while Robert, in sheer idleness and without thought, loitered at home, instead of going off on some autumn tour as usual, satisfied with the little ripple of excitement which the near vicinity of Rose kept stirring gently about him.

Nor was John Morley at all discontent with his wife's new friendships. They had restored her old brightness and buoyancy, and they afforded her a pleasant society without entailing upon him the dreaded necessity of receiving and entertaining guests in his own house; for it is needless to say, that it entered into the imagination of no one to conceive the idea of Miss Waldron visiting familiarly under the tradesman's roof. Robert Waldron came often; and Mr. Waldron, whenever he had business to transact with his brother deacon, no longer tarried in the shop, but entered the room behind; when by opening the door, and calling in sonorous tones for Mrs. Morley and Hester, he was always sure of securing a few minutes' lively chat, such as had a wonderful flavor for the dry, hard mind of the puritanical man. But Miss Waldron came never. Still, John Morley was not disturbed. He was too democratic to trouble himself with questions of superiority and inferiority in the social scale. He believed, and he had no reason to believe otherwise, that Miss Waldron was a young woman of eminent piety; all the church said so, and every word and look of her own asserted it. She was interesting herself in the conversation of his young wife, so beloved, yet so worldly, whose condition weighed heavily upon his spirit, and caused him hours of painful and accusing thought. He thanked God fervently for this intimacy; and a brighter glow of brotherly feeling toward the Waldrons was kindled in his heart.

About this time, also, there were new hopes cherished by Mr Waldron for his son. There had been such hopes before, brooded over and fostered in secret; but while they were still callow and unfledged, some fresh outbreak of Robert's had always caused them to perish. He was not vicious; he had never yet been guilty of any flagrant crime; and in the eyes of most fathers he would have seemed a sufficiently promising son. But Mr. Waldron, like John Morley, could not be content with anything short of a decided change from the careless freaks of youth to the complete devotion of himself to religion. He had put both his children under a forcing frame, and his daughter had bloomed into the blossom he had hoped for, though in his secret soul he marvelled at the scanty sweetness and beauty of the growth. But it was not so with his son. Instead of becoming the strong, staunch dissenter, he wished for, he had developed into a lax indifferentism, composed partly of indolence and partly of disgust. He had always been anxious to abridge his visits at home, and prolong those listless sojourns abroad which he professed to enjoy. But this autumn he seemed in no hurry to quit Aston Court. He submitted himself to the rigorous rules of his father's house, was quiet and thoughtful; attended chapel regularly every Sunday morning, and not unfrequently in the evening. In fact, his conduct was blameless, except that he would not listen to the exhortations and reproofs of his sister. In his secret heart Mr. Waldron foretasted the joy which the angels in heaven would experience over his son's repentance.

The visits of Robert Waldron to John Morley's house were ostensibly paid to Hester. The child attached herself to him with a very frank and very warm affection; and his easy nature, which found great delight in the admiration and love of others, returned her fondness. Never did a man--he was scarcely more than a boy yet--drift more aimlessly into a strong current of temptation. He very seldom saw John Morley, who kept close to his business; but Rose's drawing-room became his most frequent resort.

It was a Sunday evening in the depth of winter, with a keen, bitter wind whistling round the house, and moaning under the gables, and with a thick carpet of snow scarcely trodden, lying in the narrow street. John Morley was gone to chapel without his wife, who had been slightly ailing all the week; and Hester had stayed at home to be her companion. Both the servants were gone out also. Though she was really somewhat unwell, never had Rose look so pretty as this night, with a lace cap half covering her fair hair, and a bright-colored shawl hanging gracefully about her, and forming a strong contrast to the unusual delicacy of her face. The drawing-room, where she was sitting with Hester, was well lit up; and a passerby, if there were any, could not fail to notice the brightness of the light within, if he did not hear the tones of the piano which Rose was playing, not being ill enough to give up that pleasure. Apparently some one had seen the light, and heard the music, for there was a knock, twice repeated, at the house door.

Hester lighted a candle, and went downstairs alone, for she had promised her father faithfully not to let Rose be exposed to any cold air during his absence. The key was hard to turn in the lock, and she had to put both her hands and all her strength to it; but at last it yielded, and she opened the door cautiously. A tall figure, well wrapped up, and sprinkled with snow, stood upon the door sill; but Hester's momentary alarm was quickly pacified by hearing a friendly and familiar voice.

"Is your father at home, dear little Hetty?" inquired Robert Waldron.

"Oh, no!" answered Hester, still holding the door in her hand, and keeping the untimely visitor on the outside; "he went to chapel nearly half an hour ago, and he will not come home till late, because there is some meeting after the sermon. Do you want to see him very much, Mr. Robert?"

"Not particularly," he said; "only Miss Waldron, who is not able to come up to chapel to-night, told me to inquire how your mother is. Is she at home, my dear Hetty?"

"Yes," replied Hester; "did you not hear her playing before you knocked?"

"I suppose she is too poorly for me to come in and see her?" he said.

"Oh, no!" she cried eagerly, "if you'd please to come in. Only you must take off your great coat, for it is covered with snow, and you must not touch her with your cold hands. My father never touches her when his hands are cold."

She had admitted him into the old-fashioned entrance, which had a kitchen grate, and many doors entering into it, with the staircase running up one side of it; and she had already turned the key again in the lock, while Robert stood twirling his hat upon his hand, with an aspect of hesitating irresolution. Hester, after locking the door, approached to take from him his hat and coat.

"You are sure I shall do no harm by seeing your mamma. Hetty?" he asked, again leaving the decision of his conduct to the unconscious answer of the child.

"Oh, no!" she said gayly; "she is not so very poorly and she will be very glad to see you, and so shall I. Please to follow me upstairs."

She tripped up lightly before him, holding the candle high above her head, and looking back now and then with a half-childish, half-womanly smile. He was in Rose's drawing-room, speaking to her, while Hester held both his hands to prevent his touching her, before he had well collected his thoughts. He sank into the seat Hester placed for him near the fire, feeling himself in a kind of dream, in which his mind or conscience dare not stir, for fear of dispelling the fleeting vision. He was afraid to think; but from time to time he glanced, almost timidly, at the sweet pallor of Rose's face, and the clear but gentle lustre of her eyes. How much more lovely she was than when he had known her three years ago! They had not much to say to one another; but Rose sighed at times, and then his eyes were raised to her face with an air of perplexity and sadness. He took Hester upon his knee, and read to her that charming child's book, "The Story without an End." Though he read well, he was not conscious of a word beyond the title; but he knew that Rose was listening; and Hester's arm round his neck, and her soft cheek upon his shoulder, made him feel weaker than a reed, with some subtle and clinging influence winding about him he knew not how. The sound of his own voice was the only sound that could be heard; for if there were any footsteps in the streets on a Sunday night at this hour of Divine service, they fell noiselessly upon the snow. Suddenly, upon the utter quiet, there came the sharp and noisy bang of a door falling to in some part of the house; and Robert started nervously from his chair, and looked about him as if for some means of escape, or place of concealment.

"Why it is only a door slamming somewhere," said Hester, with a little laugh of amusement; "I must go and shut it, or else it will be frightening you again."

"Shall I come with you?" asked Robert.

"No, thank you," answered the child, assuming a fine tone of superiority, "I am not frightened. What is there to be afraid of? Besides, I must go and see that the kitchen fire is not gone out, and you must not go there with me."

She lighted a candle, and went out into the dark passage, screening the scarcely lit flame with her hand. Downstairs ran her small, nimble feet; and then Hester almost uttered a shrill scream of terror. In the middle of the lobby stood a bent and spare figure, more sprinkled with snow than Robert had been, and with a faint halo of light shining about it from a little lamp, which was on the point of dying out. In another moment she had recognized Lawson, whose sunken eyes were glancing restlessly around him, as he drew off his heavy boots, and set them cautiously on one side.

"Is that you, Lawson?" asked Hester, her heart still beating fast with fear.

"Yes, it's me," he answered; "I'm uneasy to-night, and I came down to see that all was safe. Let us look in here first."

Upon the other side of the lobby was a door into Mr. Morley's own room; and he stole noiselessly across the quarried floor, and opened it without a sound. There was the light only of a low fire, of embers glowing without flame, and everything looked dim and indistinct by it. He looked around the room eagerly and keenly, and then turned to Hester, who had followed him closely.

"Miss Hester," he whispered, in thick and hurried tones, "I thought I should find your mother here!'

"She is upstairs in the drawing-room," she answered, "only Mr. Robert is there, too."

"No, not her! not her!" he said impatiently, "I mean your own mother. Don't you know, deary, I've never set eyes on her since John Morley brought a strange woman into the house--never? Though my work all goes wrong, and my hand has lost its cunning, she never comes back to show me what to do. But to-night, while I was at chapel, it came all at once into my mind that I should find her sitting here alone in the house, crying and sobbing, with her face hidden in her hands. I fancied she'd be there in her own place; but maybe she is upstairs in my work-room."

"But didn't you know she was ill?" asked Hester, not venturing to call Rose "mother" in Lawson's hearing.

"No. Ill is she?" he said eagerly; "perhaps she'll die. Your mother died easily, Miss Hester. But I'm going upstairs. Will you come with me, little one?"

He called her "little one" in a tone of such strange and pathetic tenderness that Hester put her hand in his, though she was trembling with an undefined fear. They went out together into the snowy court first, to look up to the lattice window in the high gable. The snow hung about it with a ghostly gleam, and the moon shining wanly upon its diamond panes made them glimmer as if with some feeble, unearthly light within. Lawson lifted Hester in his arms and mounted the outer staircase, which led to the old printing-office. Passing through this they came to the foot of the attic steps, winding up into the pale darkness above. Still carrying her in his arms, Lawson ascended them swiftly but soundlessly, as if fearful of scaring away some timid and easily startled presence. The room was full of light from the moon, which shone directly upon the casement--a visionary light, in which the most familiar objects assume an unreal aspect. There stood his press, and his tools growing red with rust; and there the shelves of books, whose gilded bindings shone palely in the gloom. But the room was empty. There was no shadowy figure, sitting alone, with its tearful face hidden in the hands. Hester looked around with mingled dread and love of this unknown mother, so often felt to be present by the man whose heart she could feel beating strongly with anticipation. But neither of them could detect the form they sought in the dimness; and Lawson put down Hester and walked to and fro in the attic, with gestures of lamentation and despair.

"If she would only come again!" he cried, wringing his hands; "if she would but bring me back the cunning of my right hand! But I have lost it, and nobody can re store it to me, save her. Oh! come back! For the sake of your little child, come back!"

A fantastic paroxysm took possession of the usually silent and reticent man. He fell upon his knees, and prayed with groans and cries and strong wrestlings of the body, as if he could prevail by those. He called aloud upon the shadow to return and to take form again before his eyes. He bemoaned the loss of his art, as if it had gone from him forever, while Hester stood at his side, terrified yet brave, willing to welcome this vision, if his prayers should be heard and granted. But no answer came. The pale light fell steadily into the room, but it revealed no apparition. Lawson's voice grew faint, and his sobs feeble; but no spectral messenger came to assauage his passion; and at last, worn out and exhausted he clasped Hester's hand again in his own nerveless fingers, and descended the stairs in silence.

Upon the second floor there was a door of communication between the work-room and the rest of the house, and through this Lawson and Hester passed. A thin line of light from beneath the drawing-room door shone across the farthest end of the passage, and caught Lawson's eye.

"Miss Hester," he whispered, "just let me look into the other room, where the light is--the grand new room, you know."

"She is there," answered Hester, with a shrewd look upon her white face.

"Ah! but your mother may be there as well, who knows?" persisted Lawson: "You open the door quietly, and I'll peep in over your shoulder. I saw her as plain as could be only an hour ago."

Hester led him up to the door of the room, where Rose Morley was sitting, and turned the handle with the utmost caution. They gazed in together, unheard and unseen. To Hester's surprise, Robert Waldron was no longer there; but Rose sat in her chair before the fire, with her face hidden in her hands, and sobbing in deep drawn sobs. Lawson caught his breath, and grasped Hester's hand in an unconscious gripe of iron; but she did not utter any cry. They stole downstairs again into the lobby, and then Hester saw upon his face an expression of complete bewilderment and perplexity. Once more he peered into John Morley's dimly-lighted room; and then, shaking his head doubtfully, he opened the outer door, through which the snow came drifting in large flakes, and still with a troubled look upon his face he bade the child good-night, and went out into the quiet street.

Again the sunshine had forsaken the home of John Morley, or only visited it in uncertain gleams of fitful brightness. There were seasons when his young wife sought his dull room as if it were a safe refuge, or a holy sanctuary; and sat there silent and inactive in the great antique chair, where Hester's mother had been wont to sit and watch him with fond eyes, while he worked among his beloved books. Once or twice, in his absence of mind, he had spoken to her without looking up, and called her by the other name, still cherished and familiar in his thoughts, and then Rose had started up quickly, and fled from the room, while he had been all unconscious of the blunder of his tongue. It was a very troubled though profound love which John Morley felt for this girl, so much younger both in life and heart than himself; but it struck deeper roots into his nature every day, in part because it was so troubled. Hester's mother had been his equal, and they had confronted the difficulties of life side by side; mutual helpers, with the self-same thoughts and the self-same hope in the future. This love, which had possessed the equality of friendship, had been a strength to him--a serene satisfaction, which had been all-sufficing while it was his, but the loss of which had robbed him of even his natural energy and content. But for Rose he took the position of a protector and guardian; he stood before her to shield her from the unknown ills of the future. There was a charm and sweetness in this which had been lacking in the more equal marriage with Hester's mother. Even his anxiety about her spiritual welfare,--a little exaggerated by the speculative questions into which his mind naturally ran,-- invested her with deeper and more fascinating interest; and Rose herself would have been startled, and would have shrunk from him in dread, if she could have looked into her husband's heart, and seen how she engrossed his thoughts, his hopes, and his prayers.

She was standing behind his chair one morning, looking down, he could not see how sadly, upon his bowed head, where white lines were mingling with the dark hair. She laid her hand upon it at last, softly and reverently; and as he turned smilingly to her, he caught the expression, half sorrowful and half frightened, imprinted upon her fair face.

"Why, what ails you, my dear?" he asked, putting his arm about her, while Rose sank down upon her knees beside him; "what is the matter with you, my Rose?"

"Nothing, nothing," she sobbed; "only I am such a silly young thing, and you are so wise and good! There is such a dreadful gulf between us two; and it will always be there, forever, and ever, and ever! I shall always be silly and wicked, and you will always be wise and good. Oh, why did you ever marry such a creature as me?"

"Why?" said John Morley earnestly; "because I loved you with my whole heart; and I love you still more, Rose, if that be possible, now you have been my wife for more than a year. But it was selfish of me--a man's selfishness; and I do not know how to make you happy now you belong to me."

"No, no, no!" cried Rose, "it was not selfish. It was good, too good, of you! You said--or you might have said--to yourself, 'Here is a poor, giddy, thoughtless butterfly, just dancing and idling her precious life away; and I, a wise and good man, will take it into my own house, and give all my wisdom and goodness to the task of making it like myself now and in the world to come.' But you cannot; no, you cannot. I ought never to have been the wife of a good man! I ought never, never to have become the mother of little Hetty !"

"Yes, you ought," answered John Morley, stroking the soft hair and the burning cheek which would have dried up any tears, had any fallen upon it; "my house is not the same since you entered it, Rose. You have made us happy, Hester and me; more happy than we can tell you. Is there anything that troubles you specially, my love? Tell me, and if it be within my power the trouble shall be removed. And if it be not, we will pray God together either to take it away, or sanctify it for your good."

"No, there is nothing," answered Rose, kissing his hand again and again, "unless you could take me away from myself, unless you could make me somebody else but the silly, giddy, wicked, good-for-nothing creature I am! If you could only make me like Hester's mother! If you could only make me like Hester!"

Her voice died away in sobs, and her tears came in torrents now, while John Morley, distressed and bewildered, could only soothe her, as he would have soothed a child, till the first hysterical paroxysm had passed over, and he could place her in the old easy-chair, and hasten to bring some water for her to drink. She was very quiet and subdued during the rest of the day, and remained in the gloomy room with her husband, smiling faintly when ever she caught his anxious eye; but at other times regarding his grave face, and his hair streaked with grey, with an expression of mingled pity and dread.

It was only in the evening, when Hester's bedtime came, that she quitted her husband's presence to go upstairs to Hester's room; not to help her to undress, for the child had been long accustomed to do everything for herself, but to sit watching her, and waiting to kiss her when she was in bed. When Hester knelt down to pray, Rose bowed her head, and clasped her hands, as if joining in the child's inaudible petitions: a sign of grace which would have caused the heart of her husband to throb for joy. She laid her head down upon Hester's pillow with her lips close to her ear, after having put out the light, and spoke to her in the darkness.

"Little Hetty," she said, "would you rather live with good people, or with people you love dearly, dearly?"

Hester answered deliberately, after pausing to consider the question:

"I don't think I should love any but good people,' she said.

"But you love me," pursued Rose, "and I'm not good. Would you rather have me as I am, or a very good mamma, as good as Miss Waldron?"

"Oh, but you are good," persisted Hester; "and I'd rather live with you ten times better than Miss Waldron, however good she is. But if you're not quite, quite good yet, you've only to ask God."

"I have asked Him," sobbed Rose, "and I'm more wicked than ever. Oh, Hetty! if you had promised to live with somebody you didn't love, and there came afterwards some one you did love with all your heart, and wanted you to live with them, what would you do, little Hetty?"

Rose's cheek was crimson in the darkness, and her eye was burning, while Hester was silent again for a few minutes, coming to a careful judgment upon the case put before her.

"I should be very, very sorry," she answered at last, "but if I'd promised, I would keep my promise."

John Morley's second wife said no more to her little step-daughter; but she gave her a kiss as tender as her own mother could have given. Only had there been a light in the room, Hester would have seen a face wan as death, and blue eyes filled with terror, bending over her; and she would not have fallen asleep so peacefully as she did with pleasant dreams of her new mother!

A few days after this singular conduct on the part of Rose Morley, she received a letter, informing her that a distant relative, residing a long way from Little Aston, was upon the point of death, and wished to see her once more. John Morley opposed no obstacle to the fulfilment of this desire, and gave his wife every assistance in his power. Her arrangements for her absence were very peculiar. She gathered together every small possession of her own, every little trace of her dwelling there, scattered up and down the habitation, and locked them up in the drawing-room, which, as we know, had been renovated and furnished expressly for her own use. In this way there was no vestige left of her late presence in the home, except an ominous and most mournful void. When John Morley entered his chamber for the first time after her departure, he started, with a vague and sudden fright, at its emptiness; and his eyes sought in vain for some token of his young wife. There was the same sense of dreary chilliness as when all the mementoes of Hester's mother had been cleared away from the place which was to know her no more. Throughout the whole house it was the same; there was no hint left that Rose had ever been one of its inmates; except that an ever-growing gloom of absence and abandonment seemed to hang over every apartment. In his undefined uneasiness he thought of comforting himself with a glance at the gay, bright room, which was all hers; but the door did not yield to his touch. It was locked and the key taken away. The servant, who had some secret suspicions of her own, stole to the door, after her master had left it, and put her eye to the key hole. There was no ray of light in the room, though it was full day; it followed therefore, as a natural inference, that Mrs. John Morley had closed the shutters, and drawn the thick curtain, before she carried away the key, to insure no intrusion into her room during her absence.

She had set out early in the morning; and the day, long and dull, dragged heavily past, both for John Morley and Hester. From time to time her husband traced her journey, saying: "Now she is at such a place;" "At this hour she is waiting at such a station." As evening drew on he sat down to write his first letter to her; a tender yet stately letter, with none of the unmeaning expressions which a man of another stamp might have used. It was an epistle fit for publication, choice and elegant in its phrases; but it was no other than the transcript of his own orderly and elevated mind. Being also a religious man, writing to his wife, who would read the letter at the deathbed of a fellow-mortal, he added some thoughts, solemn, earnest, and devout, which surely could not fail to touch the heart of hearts, even of a giddy and careless girl. And his Rose was not that, he said to himself, with a quick and rare moisture of the eyes, as he recalled her kneeling at his side only a few days ago, with her humble confession of unworthiness; and from the very depths of his soul there went up a fresh cry to God, one of thousands, that He would turn the heart of his wife towards himself.

He directed the cover of his letter with a sort of pride in the characters which ran from his pen, "Mrs. John Morley." She bore his name, and belonged to him. The old glow came back as when in former days he had written the same name, though to another person. His wife! Wherever she went, or whoever admired her, she was still Mrs. John Morley. Good man as he was, he felt as much pride in her attractions as a more worldly husband would have done. It was not at all less sweet to him to think of her gaining homage and favor by her beauty and winsome ways. While he was writing to her the house did not seem quite so empty; there was as it were an affirmation that she had been there, and would be there again in a few days. There was a fine pleasure in having to indite one of his letters to her; and above all in addressing it to Mrs. John Morley. The man had a whole world of unconscious egotism in him.

He was called away abruptly from this agreeable duty by the intrusion of some country-folk, who had come to ask his counsel concerning some question which perplexed them. It was no unusual occurrence with him. Next to the rector, who also was a bookish man, and often condescended to enter his shop, though there was a church bookseller living in the Square, John Morley was reckoned the wisest man to be met with for ten miles round the town, whether in questions of law, physic, or religion. He was, moreover, more corteous than a doctor, less crafty than a lawyer, and more liberal than a priest. Whatever might be the vexed topic of the day it was necessary to discuss it with the well-read bookseller, and to see what new light he could throw upon it. It was a homage palatable to John Morley, even when paid to him by gaping rustics. But to-day, even while he listened, and advised, and adjudged, there was a calm sweet under-current of thought, following his young wife in the progress of her day's journey.

When the hour came for closing the shop, it brought also the time appointed for attending a week-night service at his chapel. He posted his letter on the way, with a silent blessing in his heart upon her who should open it. An unusual fervor was kindled in his spirit. He saw, close at hand, the answer to his many prayers. Rose would come back to him, from the solemn death-bed she was gone to witness, changed just as he would wish her to be changed, not in sweetness of temper, nor even in buoyancy of spirits, but weaned from the world, and purged from earthly tastes and longings. He almost regarded this death as being expressly ordained for the conversion of his wife. Wrapped up in the vivid realization of the scene now being enacted before her eyes, the words of the old preacher fell unheeded upon his ears, and when the hour's service was ended he awoke from his reverie with a start of surprise.

Mr. Waldron joined him on his way home, and having some subject of church discipline to discuss, in which they were both interested, he entered the house with him. A tacit and cool intimacy, rather closer than a mere acquaintanceship, had sprung up between them of late, which both would probably have been slow to admit. John Morley on the one hand, a scholarly, studious man, whose whole life had been given to dipping into varied studies; and David Waldron, on the other, a hard-headed, parliamentary debater, caring little for general literature, but living his public life for the sole purpose of protecting and advancing the interests of his denomination. Sometimes the latter picked up thoughts and arguments from John Morley, which told well in his own brief but weighty utterances in the House. So Mr. Waldron sat down familiarly upon the bookseller's hearth, and foot to foot, and elbow to elbow discussed with him the questions which interested him most.

The two men were so utterly absorbed in their conversation that neither of them heard a gentle rap, which was repeated two or three times, before the door was pushed open, and Hester appeared on the threshold. The little girl had been undressed, but she had put on her frock over her nightgown, and slipped her bare feet into her shoes. She stood still in the doorway of her father's room, holding a letter in her hand. It was a more extra ordinary apparition in the eyes of John Morley than of Mr. Waldron.

"What is the matter, Hester?" asked her father hurriedly.

"Come in, Hetty," said Mr. Waldron; "come here, and speak to me. Why I've had a little girl of my own, so you need not be frightened at me."

Hester advanced into the room, and shook hands with the great man; and then she went on to her father's side with the letter she was carrying.

"Father," she said, "I was just getting into bed when I found this letter on the pillow, and a slip of paper with it to tell me to give it to nobody but you. So I thought I'd better bring it downstairs to you at once."

It was directed to him in his wife's handwriting, but for an instant his mind was full of the argument with which he had been about to reply to Mr. Waldron. The child lingered at his side, with her eyes fastened upon the letter, waiting for him to open it; but not until he had finished his reasoning, and brought it to a triumphant climax, did he rise from his chair and take the letter to the lamp to read it.

"Hester," said Mr. Waldron, by way of improving the occasion, and speaking a word in season, "do you ever forget to say your prayers before you go to bed?"

"No," answered Hester, with a look of surprise, "never! Do you, Mr. Waldron?"

It is possible that he did. At any rate he did not reply with the same promptitude that Hester had done, and he answered only by another question.

"What have you prayed for to-night?" he asked.

"I asked God to-night," answered Hester, "to be good to all very wicked people, and change their hearts,--robbers, you know, and everybody who is very wicked. I used to wish that God would make Satan good. But I know better now."

The color mantled the child's earnest face, as she gazed pensively, and somewhat mournfully, into the fire. She had pushed back her hair behind her small white ears, and stood motionless, with her arms drooping, and her head bent in an attitude of dejection and melancholy, which touched even Mr. Waldron's blunt nature. He was searching for something to say which should chase the gloom from her childish face; when all at once, without sound or sign beforehand, John Morley fell heavily to the ground.

It was as if some mighty invisible hand had struck him down with a blow. He had fallen backwards, and lay apparently lifeless upon the floor, grasping tightly in his fingers the letter which he had been reading. His face, always pale, had lost all that looked like life, and from under his half-closed eyelids the glazed eyes showed themselves without lustre or consciousness. In an instant Hester was on her knees beside him,--neither helpless nor frightened, as other children might have been, but with the sad self-possession of a woman. She raised her father's head, and placed under it her little arm, looking up pitifully into Mr. Waldron's face.

"The servant!" cried Mr. Waldron, running to the door; "we must send for the doctor, Hester"

"There is nobody in the house but me," she answered, "unless Lawson is upstairs in the top room. Martha is gone out this evening."

"What can I do?" he exclaimed, running back again, and stooping over the lifeless man ; "I cannot leave you alone. Is it a fit of any kind, Hester?"

"I don't know," she said "but please put your arm here while I look if Lawson is upstairs." He did as she bade him, and she darted swiftly out of the room. Mr. Waldron's eyes strayed from the pallid face resting upon his arm to the half-unfolded letter still griped firmly in John Morley's stiffened hand. He had neither wish nor intention to read it; but three or four words caught his eye unawares, which sent the blood out of his shrewd, hard face, and set his calm, honest heart beating heavily, like the blows of a sledge hammer. He drew towards him a cushion and hassock, and rested John Morley's insensible head against them; while with some difficulty he loosened the closed fingers and released the letter. In his turn he carried it to the lamp, and held it with a shaking hand to the light. It began abruptly:-

"I am the most wicked and shameful woman you ever knew. Oh, why was I born so wicked? or why didn't I die when I was only a little child like Hetty?

"How good you were to me the other day! You suffered me to kneel at your feet, and kiss your hand,--only you did not know how wicked I was; and all the day long, while I sat looking at you, you never lifted up your head without a kind word and a smile for me; your head which is going gray, and which ought to be held in honor by everybody about you. Oh, why did you not choose a wife who could not have been so wicked as to bring dishonor upon you? You are so good and wise,--only not wise in loving a shameful thing like me. It is all like a dream,-- a very horrible and dreadful dream,--from which I can never awake, and find that it is only a wicked dream. If I could only be what I was when you married me! If I could only be what I was three months ago! If I could only have seen beforehand how I was being led on,--how we were both being led on by Satan,--oh, I should have turned back quickly, and found a shelter by your side. But it is too late now,--forever!

'I have gathered up everything which could remind you of me, and if I could I would have destroyed that room, which was mine, and which must remain under your roof. I did ask God if He could not destroy it, as He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha. But even God cannot separate good from evil,--even He cannot punish me and spare you.

"I do not go away to be happy. I go away because to stay longer in your home is to be guilty of a greater wrong against you. Robert takes me away with no thought of being happier, but because he can do nothing else. Oh, I pity you; I am angry for you; I could smite myself to death, if that would do you good. But after death is the judgment, and I am afraid of the judgment.

"Oh! why did you marry me? Hester told me once how his father, Robert's father, came to you, and exhorted you not to marry a godless woman. Yet you did. There was nothing in common between us. You took me out of the old, merry, careless life, and brought me into a new one, one where I could scarcely breath. It was all gloom, and darkness, and silence to me, till Robert came. And then there was a light which dazzled me, and I saw nothing. And now there is complete darkness, that utter darkness into which the outcasts are driven. Oh, God!"

"Oh, God!" echoed Mr. Waldron, with a groan. There was no other word added to Rose Morley's letter, and no other cry was uttered by the lips of the man who read it. He laid it down, and tried to think; but his usually clear brain was in amaze, and his confused thoughts resolved themselves again into the same simple, deep, unfathomable cry, which left everything to be divined by the heavenly Helper; and once more his quivering lips breathed, "Oh, my God!"

"What is the matter?" asked a voice beside him, and turning his gaze away from the letter in his hand, he saw Hester at his elbow, straining her eyes to read her stepmother's writing. Lawson was looking on with a wild, half-crazy expression, and he too came forward as Mr. Waldron remained silent and stupefied.

"What is the matter with my master?" he asked.

Before Mr. Waldron could frame any reply, John Morley gave the first token of returning life by heaving a profound sigh. Hester was upon her knees beside him again in a moment, pressing her small cold hands upon his burning forehead, and speaking to him in quiet tones. He lay still for a few minutes, but after awhile he pushed her on one side, and staggered to his feet. He confronted Mr. Waldron; and the two men looked speechlessly into one another's eyes, having no need of words. The crushed and torn letter lay upon the table in the full light of the lamp. Neither of them looked at it, though both saw it, and both, in their fevered brains, were repeating the words written in it. Mr. Waldron at last tried to speak, but twice his voice failed him; until by a great effort he cried, while still gazing into John Morley's face, "He is my only son."

"Leave me," exclaimed John Morley, awakening to the full shame and grief that had befallen him; "let me be alone! Why do you all stand staring upon me? Leave me to myself, I say."

"No, brother, no," answered Mr. Waldron, his voice broken by sobs; "God is our only refuge till this calamity be overpast. Let us pray together, brother."

He knelt down, and Hester knelt also. But Lawson remained standing near the table, where the letter lay open before him. John Morley himself had fallen back into his chair in a maze of anguish and dishonor. He could not pray yet. In the whole universe there was no one but himself and the wife who had proved unfaithful to him. If there was a faint thought of God lingering some where in the dark cells of memory, it was only of a Being, who either saw all these crimes without having the power to prevent them, or who was so far removed in a serene and selfish blessedness that He could pay no attention to the sorrows of His creatures. He felt as yet no need of prayer. But while he was thus lost in a stupor of despair, a prayer, mingled with sobs and tears, was being offered up for him by Mr. Waldron, who now for the first time realized how very near a brother John Morley was to him. When he had brought his broken supplications to a close, he rose from his knees, and clasped John Morley's hand affectionately and humbly. But "he spoke no word unto him, for he saw that his grief was very great."

A few minutes afterwards John Morley was left alone; and Hester was crying herself bitterly to sleep upon the pillow where Rose Morley's letter had lain hidden all day.

In the dead of the night the child's slumbers were suddenly broken by a light falling upon her closed eyelids. She awoke, and opened her eyes upon her father's face bending over her. He had placed his candle upon the chair at the side of the bed, and the light shone full upon him. His eyes were bloodshot and strained, and his face wore a scared and haggard expression, as if he was gazing spell-bound upon some horrible vision. He was grasping in his hand, which was already cut and blood stained, a sharpened razor, the hard, bright steel of which was gleaming brightly. Never had Hester seen him thus visit her in her sleep before. She sat upon her pillow, and looked earnestly into her father's face, until he seemed troubled, and turned away uneasily from her childish scrutiny.

But he spoke after a little while, in hoarse and tremulous tones:

"Child," he said, "it is sometimes better to die than to live."

"Are you very angry, father?" asked Hester.

He did not answer her, but stood looking down upon her with his bloodshot eyes.

"I don't know what is the matter," she said, lifting up her hand and laying it on his neck, while he bent lower to receive the rare caress; "I don't understand what has happened; I am only a little girl, but I am your own daughter; tell me what is the matter, father"

"She is gone away," he answered, trembling and shivering; "Rose has left me

"I know she is gone away," said Hester, drawing down his face to her lips, and kissing it; "but she only went away this morning, and she is coming home again soon.,,

"No, never!" he cried, falling down on his knees, as if his failing limbs could no longer support him. "I shall never see her again; she will never sleep again under my roof."

As he spoke of it, the extremest tension of his anguish gave way a little. He continued kneeling at Hester's side, repeating dully in a half whisper that Rose would never sleep again under his roof. The moment of temptation, in which it had seemed better to die than to live, was past; and with a man like John Morley could not return. He turned himself, with blind and dumb disgust, towards the life that stretched before him, which he must traverse, bowed beneath his burden of shame. He dreaded to open his eyes or utter a word, lest a full torrent of misery should break over him to overwhelm him at once. The image of Rose was before him, with all the fatal charms that had beguiled him into his second marriage; but behind it there rose a sweet, pensive, saintlike face, which had been fading from his memory, but now came back as if to reproach him. He felt that he ought to hate his second wife the more bitterly, because she had usurped and betrayed the place of Hester's mother.

"Hester," he said, "we must forget that this woman has ever lived with us."

As if he could forget! He laughed harshly after speaking the idle words. Would not the remembrance of her, and the shame which was the only dower she had brought him, be the food of his thoughts night and day? Would he not eat, and sleep, and read, with the remembrance of her infamy always before him? It was a horrible unheard-of thing to happen to him. He had known that such sins were, but only as a thinker and philosopher. He had contemplated them afar off, as one of the many social problems which were altogether apart from himself and which could never enter the sphere where he dwelt. It was a loathsome leprosy, to be looked at from a distance; but it had never entered his heart to conceive of the tainted hand touching his, or the foul lips breathing the atmosphere of his own home. He felt himself caught in the infected meshes. He abhorred himself, and his dwelling; that dwelling from which Hester's mother had passed peacefully away into her hallowed rest. This woman had dragged him down with her own fall; for he had made her "bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh."

He put away, but gently and reverently, Hester's arm, which still lay upon his neck, and he turned aside his face from her kisses. He identified himself so fully with the woman who had dishonored him, that it seemed to him sacrilege to suffer the innocent young lips of his little daughter to be pressed to his. The paroxysm of passion in which he had sought her room, resolved that neither of them should outlive the first night of his shame, was past forever; but none the less was his heart crushed down and hardened. A barrier seemed raised between him and his child. He had done her an irreparable wrong in putting into her mother's place a stranger, who had brought an ineffaceable stigma upon them both. For, in the time to come, he could foresee it clearly, the world would not be too careful to remember, that it was not her own mother who had fallen into the slough. The sting of that thought pierced him yet more poignantly than any other. Hester's mother would be dragged down from her fair and holy place in the heavens, and be confounded with this lost, false creature, who had sunk so low into the abyss, that even he, forced to gaze down into it, could not fathom all the degradation and vileness of it. Hester was looking at him with the clear, pure, sweet eyes of her mother, and he could not endure to meet them. He took up the light abruptly, and left her to weep and sob in the darkness.

For a whole week the house of John Morley was closed as if it had been the house of the dead. People who went by, and saw the shutters all up, and the light excluded, made haste to repeat to one another every detail which the town's gossip could supply. The servant of the desolated household had a few choice particulars to add to the common stock. John Morley had shut himself up in his office, and refused to see any one, even Hester herself. But, at night, when he supposed everybody else to be wrapped in sleep, he roamed to and fro restlessly in the house. It may be he sought then to discover if any trace was remaining of the residence of Rose in his home; but, if so, he found none. The only memorial of her presence there was the closed door of the room, the key of which she had carried off with her, and which he could only enter by a force and violence from which he recoiled.

When John Morley returned, as time compels all to do, to his ordinary life, there were some marked changes in him. Not only his face bore the scars of a mortal conflict, but his daily conduct still more plainly testified to the hard gripe of shame upon him. He withdrew peremptorily from every office in the church which brought him into prominence; and would occupy no position in it, except that of the humblest member. He declined to give his counsel, as in former times, to the numerous clients who had found it less costly and less formidable to turn into John Morley's shop than to seek the doctor or the lawyer. He ceased to care for his business, was apathetic and forgetful. The gravity which had characterized him was become an unbroken and joyless gloom, which took sorrow to its heart, and prostrated itself before despair.

On his part, Mr. Waldron also had suffered a severe shock; but the sin of a son is not equal to the dishonour of a wife. Religious as he undoubtedly was, a righteous man who strove to judge righteously, the world's estimate of his son's conduct could not fail to influence him, and to appease in some measure his anger and sorrow. Robert might at any time repent, shake off his sin, and come back to social life, to be welcomed there without reference to his youthful indiscretion. He might enter upon a public career as useful and more brilliant than his father's and not a voice would be lifted against him. Mr. Waldron mourned over his son, but there was no bottomless depth of anguish in his soul. He could gaze down into the gulf into which he had fallen, and see there a path, toilsome it might be, by which he could climb up again into reputation and honor.

Miss Waldron looked upon her brother's sin as a cross expressly constructed for herself and weighing more heavily upon her than upon any one else. She grew a hundredfold more terrific in her Bible classes and mothers meetings; and expatiated with extreme unction upon the judgments of Heaven. The religious poor generally enjoy being alarmed. They have been driven out of some of the strongholds of superstition, which are not without their charms; and they like to taste again the thrill and creep of awe, with which they were wont to glance back over their shoulders for the hobgoblins of former times. Miss Waldron invited them to peep with terror into the mysteries of Divine judgment; and she became popular with them. A great work began in her classes; and she said that her brother's fall had been the conversion of many souls.

Miss Waldron took a profound interest in John Morley and Hester. She felt it almost as a personal insult that the dishonored husband would not suffer her to probe his deep wound. It was a symptom over which she shook her head ominously. But Hester was easily reached. She even carried her down to Aston Court one day, when she met her going out for a walk, that she might have a long uninterrupted opportunity with her, and make such an impression upon her tender mind as time would not be able to efface. She set Hester on a high, straight-backed chair, opposite to the harsh portrait of Luther, and addressed her in deep and awful tones:

"You have lost your step-mother," she began.

"Oh," interrupted the child eagerly, "tell me what has become of her, and what she has done. Nobody will speak about her to me, and they say I must never, never mention her name again."

"She has done," said Miss Waldron, in a tone of concentrated bitterness, "the greatest, vilest, foulest sin a woman san commit. She will never come back, and if she did, none of us ought to look at her, or speak to her. In olden times she would have been stoned to death; yes, stoned to death; and you and your father would have been the first to cast a stone at her."

"No, no," cried Hester, bursting into tears: "I know now what you mean. She is like that poor woman who was very wicked, and they brought her to Jesus; and He said, 'Let him that is without sin first cast a stone at her. And not one of them could cast a stone at her. It would be the same now if she was here, and Jesus Christ. There would be nobody that would dare cast a stone at her; not even you, Miss Waldron. And now, if you please, I should like to go home."

Hester did not linger for permission, but walked straight out through the glass doors, and along the terrace, and up the park, her heart swelling with childish grief and indignation. When she reached her father's house, she crossed over to the opposite pavement, and stood for a minute or two looking at it with tearful eyes. It had always been a dull, gloomy, low-spirited looking house; but now, with the large casement on the upper floor closed with shutters, it seemed more cheerless than before. The faded books in the shop windows, which had not been moved since Rose had fled, and the panes stained with the dust and the rain, were very mournful to look at and they affected Hester as if they had been living things, conscious of neglect. Her feelings were not very definite, but there was a sort of yearning pity towards the deserted old place, which seemed abandoned by the sun and all cheering influences. She wished to herself that she could comfort and revive the poor, decayed dwelling; yet it required an effort to cross over again, and enter it as her home. There was not a sound to be heard within. She peeped into her father's room, and saw him sitting there in grey and grim silence, with his arms crossed upon his breast and his head drooping; awaiting in this attitude the entrance of any chance customer, which disturbed him but seldom, as his neighbors yet shrank from intruding needlessly upon his grief. Hester closed the door gently, and stole up the creaking old staircase, and through the empty rooms to Lawson's attic. He was stooping over his press in the window; but the ardor with which he had formerly pursued his work was dead, and his withered face was wrinkled with anxiety. Hester mounted to her old seat, which had been so long deserted, for while Rose had lived in the rooms below she had rarely ascended to Lawson's workshop, and never stayed there long. She wished Lawson to be the first to speak; but he was in a silent mood, and for some time his work went on, without a word being spoken on either side.

"Lawson," asked Hester, after a long perseverance in silence, "what do you think about my mamma, my stepmother, you know?"

"Don't trouble your little head about her," answered Lawson; "you just think about your own mother. I'll show you her picture again."

"No," interrupted Hester, as he was about to reach down the portfolio, "I want you to tell me truly why people talk so about her. They point at me in the streets; and I heard a woman say: 'I hear that's her little girl, poor thing!' I wish to know what it is all for; and I mean you to tell me, Lawson," she added imperiously; "how am I to know what I ought to do, if I don't know what she has done? She was just as kind, and as good, and as pretty when she went away that morning as she ever was. Tell me directly, Lawson."

She had descended from her seat on the step-ladder, and was standing before him drawn up to her fullest height, with her head thrown back in an attitude of childish authority at once amusing and graceful. Lawson sat down on a high three-legged stool, which was his ordinary seat, and confronted her, his sallow skin flushed with a dull red, and his eyes not meeting hers, but fixed upon some point behind her, as if he saw, and was speaking to, some person who stood at the back.

"I'd tear my tongue out,'' he said, ''before I'd tell the child. But if I knew where that woman was, I'd follow her to the world's end, and strike her down dead. As long as she's alive, she's the master's wife, and I know you cannot come back till she is dead. Only give me time, and I'll see her dead at my feet."

"Lawson, Lawson," cried Hester in affright, "Who are you speaking to? What are you speaking about?"

He lifted himself up slowly, and set doggedly to work again, turning a deaf ear to all Hester's questions and entreaties. Before him on the press was a volume bound in purple morocco, the title of which he was lettering in gold. One after another, he took up mechanically his stamps of old English characters, and pressed them upon the gold leaf. He did it carefully, yet with an air of abstraction, and his thin lips moved, as if he was muttering to himself. Hester had stolen away sobbing, and the attic was his solitary abode once again. When at length he polished with his burnishing tool the title he had printed upon his work, he found there the single word, "Adulteress." An extraordinary and ghastly smile played upon his features, and he rubbed his hard yellow hands together with an air of satisfaction. But the costly binding was spoiled, and as he undid his own work an expression of perplexity and disquietude returned to his withered face.

The brief season of Hester's childhood was ended. By small degrees household cares thrust themselves upon her; and at a time when the daughters of other homes were still careless and irresponsible, she had begun to busy herself quietly about her father, watching for his wants, and providing beforehand for them. The old servant gradually lost her importance, and finding herself no longer regnant, she abdicted indignantly, and Hester, a woman already at the age of fourteen, supplied her place, without troubling her father with the matter, while he seemed unconscious or the change.

As for her education, that was self-directed, and almost self-acquired. She had gone to no school; for if ever the thought of it had been pressed upon John Morley, he had thrust it away with impatient agony. For the only good school in the place was the one in which Rose had been governess, and he would have felt less emotion in seeing his child dead in her coffin than in knowing day after day that she was gone to that school. He allowed her to choose and engage her own masters; and they came and went, and she received them and their instructions with a quaint, shrewd, old-fashioned womanliness, which often threw them into doubt as to whether she was indeed the young girl she seemed. It was an isolated life; and Hester grew so used to he shadowy, colorless tone of the old house, that she felt afraid of venturing out into the brilliant light and ceaseless stir of the outer world.

In this heavy and stagnant atmosphere Hester's young nature was compelled to unfold all the graces of girlhood which could struggle into existence. The blossoms were but pale and few, but they were very sweet, had there been any one to take pleasure in them: a quaint, quiet, demure, and pensive girl; her heart feeding upon fancies half romantic and half religious. One thought and memory lived within her--the memory of the fair young stepmother, and the thought of her mysterious crime. There was a memorial of Rose's brief sojourn under their roof, which was more directly beneath Hester's notice than her father's for the closed room, the key of which the unhappy wife had carried away, was opposite to her bedroom, in a part of the house which her father never entered. Since the night after his wife's elopement, John Morley's foot had never ascended the two or three steps leading to Hester's chamber, and the locked door, behind which were hidden all the mementoes of Rose. This room was like a grave in the house. Never did a sound come from it, though Hester, while yet a child, had sometimes sat up in bed at nights, holding her hand against her throbbing heart, and listening, as if some one might be moving about that mysterious room. No light could penetrate into it; and the shuttered windows looked blankly out upon the sky. She was not afraid of the place, but she was awed by it: the prevailing gloom and stillness of the whole house seeming to centre there in a perpetual silence and blackness, which was the monument of Rose Morley's guilt. So long as that heart of darkness remained, the sun could not shine very brightly into any other nook of the dwelling. It was the eye of the house; and that eye being darkness, how great was the darkness!

The years glided by, strengthening the fixed customs of the household. John Morley became formal and automatic in his habits. At a given moment of the morning his clouded and sad face and bowed figure emerged from his chamber, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left, and glided, shadowlike, into his sitting-room, where his solitary breakfast awaited him. From that time until seven in the evening he remained brooding over his lot, with no distraction except the entrance of his few customers. His business declined slowly but surely, yet he scarcely perceived it. In the almost sublime egotism of his grief, he was conscious only that time did not dissipate the clouds about him, but rather drew their sombre curtains more closely and thickly. At length, in the course of years, the sole custom left to him was that of the people of his church, most of whom were poor and little given to reading. It seemed also as if the fire of Lawson's genius was for ever quenched. The aristocracy of the country trusted no more rare and costly volumes to John Morley's binding-office. Now and then Lawson achieved a triumph, but success came only to him as a chance. Yet, in a little measure, his cunning returned when Hester brought her sewing upstairs into the sunny attic and sat in the obscure window by his press, plying her needle busily, though with few words passing between them. Sometimes she set her own hands to the work, under his directions, and gained a rare skill in it. But, for himself, his trembling fingers could not regain their delicate workmanship, and he felt that his occupation was gone from him. However, the current of life had drifted him into quiet waters, which, if they were not sunny, seemed very safe; and the sweet young face of Hester, not quite round enough or rosy enough for her years, was a hundred-fold dearer to him than it could ever have been in the brightness and gayety of a happier girlhood. The chief changes in Hester's own existence were regulated by the sessions and vacations of parliament. When Mr. Waldron rested from his parliamentary duties in the seclusion of the country, Hester's religious duties became a little severe, for Miss Waldron expected her to attend punctually all the meetings for females, as well as occasionally to visit Aston Court for more private and personal instruction. Miss Waldron never forgot, and never suffered Hester to forget, that their spheres in life were totally different. She gave Hester gooseberries to eat, while she regaled herself with grapes. It was something after the same fashion that she fed the souls of her scholars. There were promises and experiences too luscious for inferior palates; grapes of Eshcol, belonging by right to the aristocracy of the church, among whom she was numbered by every claim which it is possible to possess. By birth, by rank, by wealth, by early membership, by unremitting attendance at public worship, by indefatigable labors, and by every other qualification which the most exacting church could require. Miss Waldron laid claim to the finest of the grapes; and they were adjudged to her without a single dissentient voice.

Hester's eighteenth birthday was come. It was noticed by no one but herself, and she kept it by buying a new bonnet in the place of an old one, which had seen long and hard service, and by contemplating her own face a little longer than usual, as it smiled and blushed back at her from the small round mirror which hung over her dressing-table. It was a spark of vanity quickly put out by the reproaches of her morbid conscience, and she went downstairs to fulfil the duties of the day more in the spirit of eighty than of eighteen.

This same day Mr. Waldron found himself hovering about John Morley's shop, passing and repassing it in a singularly embarrassed and irresolute state of mind. There had not been much intercourse between them since the wrong committed by his son. John Morley had shrunk from all contact, and he had respected his feelings, though he could not sympathize with them. Sympathy was not Mr. Waldron's forte. He argued that if he had been able to support the thought of his son's sin, and, while deeply mourning it, still not to suffer it to interfere with his faithful discharge of public duties, both in the church and world, John Morley ought also to have proved himself superior to his sorrow and disgrace. He had been a perpetual and jarring memorial of the past, with his grey face and white head; and Mr. Waldron had been naturally irritated by him, whenever he was residing near Little Aston. To day he felt it an awkward thing, though he was a great man and member of parliament, to enter John Morley's shop, and give utterance to the words he had carefully meditated beforehand. At last he marched boldly forwards, ringing the shop-bell furiously with his quick entrance; and John Morley, gaunt and melancholy, the wreck of the handsome man he had once been, met him and looked him in the face with sunken eyes, which glowed with a dull and sorrowful flame.

"I wish to speak to you alone, brother Morley," said Mr. Waldron, offering his hand, which probably John Morley did not see, for he did not take it.

"We are alone here," he answered.

"No, no," replied Mr. Waldron, "we are liable to interruption here, and I have much to say to you."

"Father," said the voice of Hester from the room within, "come in here."

John Morley complied by a silent gesture to his guest to enter, and he, removing his hat for the first time, passed in, and saluted Hester with the air of old-fashioned gallantry he had been wont to display towards her pretty stepmother nine years before. She had been sitting in her great chair, which stood summer and winter in the same spot on the hearth; and as soon as her quiet reception of the visitor was over, she resumed her seat, and took up her work again. Mr. Waldron stood opposite to John Morley, neither Hester nor her father asking him to be seated. The elder man, with whom life had been a prosperous thing, looked ten years younger than he upon whom had fallen perhaps the heaviest burden that can crush the spirit of a man.

"Brother," said Mr. Waldron, in a voice which faltered more than it had done when he had addressed his maiden speech to an inattentive audience in the House of Commons, "I am come here to ask a great gift. If the choice had been given me, there is nothing I would not have done to spare you and myself the pain we must bear today. But my duty lay here and with you. Will you let me speak to you?"

John Morley bowed his head as his only reply.

"My son," stammered Mr. Waldron, and John Morley shivered and shrank back, as if recoiling from a hand raised to strike him, "my son Robert, whom I have banished from my house these nine years, is longing to return. He is ill and penitent; penitent almost to despair. He implores to be no longer an outcast from his own home, and the place which will be his at my death. He is my only boy, and I am getting well into years, and my heart yearns towards him. When Absalom fled to Geshur after the murder of his brother Amnon, he was an exile but three years, when his father's soul longed to go forth to him. Do you hear me, brother Morley?"

"I hear you," he murmured in a hollow and almost inaudible tone.

"Oh, let me bid him come home!" said Mr. Waldron urgently; "his sin was great, but it was the sin of a young man. It has been punished enough. For your sake, and for righteousness' sake, I have never received him under my roof since then--my only son! It would be unnatural unmerciful, unjust, if I refused to let him come home, now that he is broken in health, and contrite in spirit. My house is empty and desolate without him, and he is my heir. He will take my place when I am gone."

There was no answer when Mr. Waldron ceased to speak. John Morley stood with bowed shoulders and bent head, while his frame trembled like a child's who knew not how to escape from the presence of some cruel tyrant. Hester's work had fallen from her hands, and the faint color in her cheeks, which was never deeper than the delicate tint of a wild rose, faded altogether away.

"Do you hear me?" asked Mr. Waldron, when the silence grew insupportable.

"I hear you," muttered John Morley again.

"Then why do you not answer me?" he cried impatiently. "I am not dependent upon your permission. I need not have spoken to you at all about my son's return. But tell me that you will give your consent to his coming back to me, after all these years."

"And she?" whispered the husband, with bloodless lips, and a face as of one upon the point of death from some slow torture.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Mr. Waldron, "he knows nothing about her. They parted, did you not know it? only a few months after she fled. He has been alone; he is alone now,--ill, repentant, suffering in mind and body. You have been well avenged, John Morley."

"But the woman?" he breathed, with scarcely a motion of his wan lips.

"I know nothing of her," was the short answer. "I am not talking of her, but of my son"--He paused suddenly, for Hester had left her seat, and placed herself at her father's side, with her hand resting fondly and protectingly on his arm.

"You are talking of your son," she said in hurried tones, "and of your own desolation; but you do not think what it has been here, in this home, to me, to my father. You have no right to speak of desolation to us; you, who have had your duties and your pleasures as before. Look at my father if you wish to see what your son has done. Look at me. We have had no laughter, or smiles, or joyful words, not one, these nine years. If he is to come home again why may not she! Has she not repented, do you think? Would it be impossible to bring back our banished one as well as yours?"

"It would be impossible," answered Mr. Waldron, in a low voice.

"Would it be impossible, father?" she continued. "If she came back, as his son comes back, penitent, and suffering, and broken-hearted, could we not take her in, the poor, contrite creature? I think of her often," and Hester's voice almost failed her. " Is it impossible?"

"She can never come back," replied John Morley.

"Oh! it is not right," cried Hester, in her young energy of passion; "why should you receive your son back, if we cannot forgive her? If he comes back forgiven, why should not we open our door to her?"

"You are a child yet, Hester," answered Mr. Waldron.

"Yes," she said, "but there are some things hidden from the wise and prudent, which are revealed to babes. I would not receive one, and cast out the other. If she should ever come back, broken-hearted and penitent, be sure I will not turn away from her."

She spoke with a kind of gracious hardihood at which Mr. Waldron would have smiled any other time, but he was too deeply in earnest just now to be moved by anything apart from his purpose. He had made it a point with his conscience to obtain John Morley's permission for the return of his son; and as yet he had said nothing which could be construed into consent.

"Hester," he said, for John Morley looked like one half stupefied, "my son is truly repentant, and he implores your father to forgive him, and to suffer him to return home. He knows nothing, and has known nothing for years, of that unhappy woman. If we could discover her we would do everything in our power to repair the past, as far as it ever can be repaired. Tell me, Hester, is your father merciful and Christian in prolonging the exile of my boy?"

His voice and attitude were full of entreaty, which had relinquished all the harshness of a claim. He listened for Hester's answer as for a sentence which would be the doom of his son. John Morley himself raised his lustreless eyes, and fastened them upon his daughter.

"My father will not banish him from his home," she said, with a singular and solemn sweetness in her tone; "what are we that any of us should refuse mercy to another? Are we not bound to forgive, who have been forgiven of God?"

"No, no!" cried her father, "you do not know what the wrong is, Hester. I cannot do it. He has cursed all my life. They have almost, if not quite--I do not know yet whether they have not quite--destroyed my soul! These nine years I have caught no passing glimpse of God's mercy. I have been the song of the drunkard; I have been exceedingly filled with contempt. Do not let me see him, Hester; I could not look into his face, and both of us live after it."

Like Mr. Waldron, he was appealing to Hester, as if upon her depended the sentence which would be final. She stood silent for a minute looking tenderly into his face, with tears in her clear, grey eyes; and when she spoke there was a scarcely perceptible tremor in her voice, though her answer was steady and definite.

"He must come home," she said; "he would come, sooner or later, if you withheld your consent. But he must not run the risk of meeting you. He must promise never to enter our chapel, or pass up and down this street and then you will never see him. Let him come home, if he will, but he must not intermeddle with us. You would consent to that, father?"

"Yes," he answered, reluctantly.

"And you, Mr. Waldron?" she continued. "Do you understand our condition, and will you agree to it? If he will but keep away out of our sight he will not greatly stir our old grief. You agree to it?"

"Yes, yes!" he replied, eagerly; "he shall never come across your father, Hester. God bless you, child! But shall we never see you? Will you not come down sometimes to see us, as you used to do? Could you not forgive my son well enough to speak to him, and tell him that you have forgiven him? You remember him, Hester?"

"I remember him well," she said, sighing; "I have not much to remember. Yes, I forgive him, and I forgive her also. Only I do not wish to see him again. But if I knew where she was, I would seek her out, and let her know that I had not deserted her."

"You will feel differently when you are a woman," said Mr. Waldron.

Hester shook her head, with a faint smile in her eyes, and went back to her chair and her sewing. There followed a silence which told Mr. Waldron plainly enough that it was time to go. He looked round the room, dark, shabby, and bare, with the wear of nine years upon it since he had last stood within its walls. He glanced at John Morley, upon whom a premature old age had fallen, more decrepit than that of years. Hester herself, pale, subdued, and womanly, bore a burden of years which had pressed hardly upon her in the passing. He saw the work of his son for whom he had been pleading; and his heart felt heavy in spite of his success. His own home might lose the light cloud which had overshadowed it, but what could ever chase away the thick gloom which had fallen upon this hearth? He had attained his purpose; but he went away saddened, and occupying his shrewd head with schemes for the welfare of John Morley and Hester which had little chance of fulfilment.

Robert Waldron's long banishment of nine years had not been without alleviation or enjoyment. He had satiated his restless love of travel, which had been the fever of his youth; and now, at the age of thirty-three, he felt quite willing to settle down into the luxurious order of an English home, and to enter upon the pleasant occupations of an English gentleman. His father had by no means misrepresented wilfully his condition as one of remorse and contrition; he was convinced that his son was repenting in sackcloth and ashes for that long past sin, which was kept so vividly in mind by himself and John Morley. Nor had he been altogether deceived in this matter. There were seasons when Robert Waldron's volatile nature was plunged into profound depths of self-reproach, very closely allied to repentance. At these times, having no reticence, he appealed to his father for sympathy, and made him the confidant of all the prickings of his conscience. But it was many years since he had seen Rose; and but for the mystery of her utter disappearance, which kept alive a sort of interest in her fate, he would long ago have ceased to think of her. He wished to be at peace with both the world and himself; and therefore the recollection of his former folly stung him at times into a kind of paroxsym of regret and compunction.

The difficulty of obtaining permission to visit Aston Court served to aggravate his home sickness. He very well understood the point his father made of asking John Morley's consent; and in this he had more consideration for the injured husband than had Miss Waldron, who felt her dignity infringed by the idea that her family should stand upon such terms with that of a tradesman. Readily enough Robert acquiesced in the conditions laid down by Hester. He promised to avoid any contact with John Morley, and never to go to the chapel where he worshipped, nor into the street where he dwelt. Having bound himself by these promises, he turned his face homewards with all the gladness which his emotional temperament experienced in at last gaining a long-delayed pleasure.

It was with a very keen feeling of delight that he caught the first glimpse of the formal front of his father's house, with its dark back-ground of trees. Mr. Waldron, a sturdy, hale old man not much aged since he had seen him last, was walking up and down the terrace in expectation of his arrival, and Robert called impetuously upon the coachman to stop, and sprang from the carriage to receive his welcome. The father and son held one another's hand, in the strong, stern grasp which is the acme of British emotion, and gazed without speaking into each other's face. Mr. Waldron could not suppress a thrill of pride in this fine, handsome man, no longer a youth, whom he could call his son; and for a few minutes his satisfaction was both profound and untroubled. Yet, as second thoughts came, he felt a little disconcerted, for he had been picturing to himself a feeble, broken-spirited, shamefaced prodigal, coming back with the mournful confession in his mouth, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee." True, there was a moisture in Robert's fine eyes, and his mustache rose and fell with the tremulous motion of his lips; but there was the rude glow of health and the sun-burnt hue of travel on his face. Beyond this and below it there was an indefinable air of general self complacency, not in offensive obtrusiveness--it was no more than the gentlemanly self-approbation of one who for the time being has no special reason for diffidence---' yet it was certainly very far removed from the mien of the prodigal, who needs the best robe brought forth, and shoes put upon his feet, and a ring on his hand. All these Robert had supplied for himself.

He embraced his sister with the same affectionate agitation which he had shown in meeting his father; and he expressed with warm, quick feeling his delight in being at home. There had not been so lively a dinner hour at Aston Court since he had left it. Miss Waldron herself became almost gay, and laughed short little spurts of laughter, like the first efforts of a fountain to play, after its pipes have long been closed up. Mr. Waldron found his taste and enjoyment of humor and repartee returning, and forgot that his son was a sinner, until Miss Waldron left them alone in the dining-room. They drew up their chairs before a comfortable fire; and then there came one of those pauses full of satisfaction, when the heart is gathering to itself all the pleasures, rare and fleeting, of the first moments of reunion. Robert's face was shining with unclouded happiness, when his father broke the pleasant silence.

"Robert," he said, sharply; and the son looked up to see his smile vanished, and his face overcast.

"Yes, father," he answered, in some amazement.

"Robert," repeated Mr. Waldron, "I was not prepared to see you so light-hearted. This is not what your letters led me to expect. I have a hard question or two to ask you, my boy, and it is as well to ask them first as last."

The air of gay and tender sentiment fled from Robert's face, which he turned partially aside from his father's keen scrutiny.

"First of all," he said, "you must tell me truly, Robert, what has become of that poor girl?"

"Father, I don't know," answered Robert, in a tone of irritation; "I can only repeat what I have said already. She left me at Falaise, five months after we went away, and I have never heard a word from her or of her since. I have done everything a man could do for my own peace of mind; but I could never find the slightest trace of her. It was not that I wanted to see her again--we had been too miserable together for that--but I wished to make a provision for her. I would have given a good deal, either of time or money, to make sure she was not in want."

"Robert," remarked Mr. Waldron, after a pause, "I thought you were a repentant man."

"So I am," cried Robert, hotly; "there are times when I could cut off my right hand, if that would undo what I did. But I cannot feel like that always; it would have been unnatural to feel like that to-day, when I see you and my sister again. Perhaps to-morrow I shall have one of my fits, and then you will see if I am not repentant. Why will you not let me enjoy myself while I can?"

"But I do not understand fits," said Mr. Waldron, who had pursued an even tenor of unemotional life, both public, social, and religious; "a man is a penitent until he obtains pardon. Then he becomes a religious man and a member of the Church, and steadily fulfils his duty towards God and man. There is no need of fits. Are you seeking pardon?"

"Not just at this moment," he answered; but his light tone changed to one of respect, as he caught sight of Mr. Waldron's anxious face. "Dear father," he added "I never was anything but a graceless fellow, not worthy of your anxiety. But if you mean, have I ever prayed to God to forgive my sin towards Rose, and to save her from further evil--why, there have been whole days when that prayer alone has gone up from my heart to Him."

His voice faltered, and his changeful eyes were filled for a moment with tears.

"I wish to Heaven," he cried, as he recovered from the transient sadness, "I could do some tremendous penance, and have done with it. But what will satisfy you,-- you and God? I have been away nine of the best years of my life, and I have done all I could to atone for my fault; and I am ready to do everything you can suggest. Why cannot we let by-gones be by-gones?"

Mr. Waldron sighed heavily. This was not the repentance he had looked for, the repentance which was seemly in his son, the repentance of which he had spoken almost vauntingly to his minister. There was a doubt in his mind that Miss Waldron would be no better satisfied with its quality than himself; and Miss Waldron was something like a domestic pope--infallible and autocratic. Robert was settling down again into a quiet and self-sympathizing mood, which could look, through the mist of years, at the other actors in the sad drama of the past.

"Poor Morley!" he said; "what has become of him?"

"He is a ruined man," said his father, sternly; "you should see him to know what you have done. He is ruined in all senses; for I hear that he has no business, and is verging towards bankruptcy."

"We can help him there," exclaimed Robert, with impetuosity; "we must save him from that!"

"John Morley," said Mr. Waldron, dryly, "unless I mistake him greatly, will take no help from our hands. We are not in a position to do him any favor."

It was a point of delicacy which the elder man could comprehend, while the younger could not. There was a vigorous hardness and manhood in Mr. Waldron's nature, which would have rejected indignantly the aid of a dishonored hand; while his son would have seized the meanest help which would deliver him out of present difficulties.

"There was a little girl," said Robert, in a tone of musing.

"Hester," answered Mr. Waldron, "the sweetest girl I have ever seen. She has the face of a saint--an angel, I was going to say. I often watch her as we stand up to sing, and I have sometimes thought how greatly I should have rejoiced had God blessed me with such a daughter. Not but that Miss Waldron is everything a father could wish; I have never found any fault in her. But Hester--she used to come here occasionally--is so sweet and tender and gentle! Ah! John Morley is not altogether lost while he possesses a child like Hester."

"Little Hetty?" said Robert, absently; "I remember her now.' And she comes here sometimes?"

"Not while you are here," replied his father; "I shall see her only from my pew; and Miss Waldron will meet her at her classes; that must suffice."

The old man sighed, as if over a lost pleasure; but he smiled once more as he looked at the face of his only son. The hard questions he had intended to ask, if there were any more, had slipped out of his mind; and Robert was not one to remind him of them. The evening took again the brightness of its first welcome; and the welcome of the prodigal was not further clouded by ill-timed retrospections.

For a few days Little Aston was busy with the return of Robert Waldron. The old story was raked up and sifted with keen comments and discussions. Already the details of the ancient scandal were almost lost in obscurity; and some persons were not sure that it was merely the step-mother of Hester Morley who had left her husband's house, and never been heard of since. But Robert Waldron, handsome, young, and rich, could not remain under censure. His father had never been a favorite, for he had come among them as a stranger and dissenter, and had held himself aloof from a town in which he had no manner of interest. But the young squire, as Robert was called, had been a boy in their streets, had frequented their shops, and had made boyish acquaintance with many of them. It was natural to him to make himself popular. Besides this, now he was come back after his long absence, he attended the parish church, instead of going to the chapel, to which Miss Waldron's carriage drove every Sunday in irritating pomp. The vicar, with his three elegant and marriageable daughters, welcomed him cordially. The small gentry of the neighborhood paid him homage as the most travelled, the most cultivated, and the most agreeable personage in their narrow world. He was no longer one among the million, as when he was swallowed up in the gulf of London, or in the stream of tourists which flooded the continent. He found himself the chief man of the place; and he enjoyed the distinction.

For a few months, the pleasure of being flattered and courted by all about him was sufficient for Robert Waldron; and he gave himself up to it with the zest of one who had for some time been a stranger to such tokens of esteem. But there was a secret fetter chafing him. He could not bear to think that there was one street of the town where he must not set his foot, and one house which he must not pass. There was the galling and bitter feeling of not being free to go where he would. He had his hours of sentimental memory, and moments of regret which would not die, though it slept for long periods; and in both of these moods he longed to see again the house where John Morley dwelt, and from which he had stolen away Rose. A feverish desire possessed him from time to time to meet John Morley himself, and to judge with his own eyes whether he had wrought so great a wrong to him as his father described. Hester, too, stood before his memory as the grave, fair, pleasant child, of whom he had been so fond, and who had loved him with such childish devotion. The mere fact that he was prohibited from entering the chapel where his father and sister worshipped made it seem the most desirable place to attend; and he chafed every Sunday when they set out to their early service, leaving him behind for the later hours of the church. He grew to listen with morbid attention to the tittle-tattle of chapel affairs which had formerly bored him so much, that he might catch the name of John Morley or Hester--names which stung him with a not altogether unpleasant pain.

It was not in Robert Waldron's nature to resist and master the inclination which had taken possession of him. He had never conquered any caprice. He began to haunt the street stealthily in the long dark nights of winter, after the shutters of the houses were put up, and there was no light except that of the far-apart lamps. It was an old-fashioned street, reminding him of those in foreign towns; and at night, when he was recognized by none, in his great coat buttoned up to the chin, and his felt hat drawn over his face, he came now and then upon the scenes which amused him, and enlivened the dull routine of his country life. But of the home of John Morley there was nothing to be seen except the dark walls and closed doors and windows. It stood in the darkest part of the street, in the middle distance between two lamps, and never did a single gleam of light appear upon its black front. Sometimes he remained in the doorway of an empty house opposite, smoking his cigar, while he awaited some token of the interior life; but there came none. All was black and still as a grave. It became at length a necessary penance to him to haunt the mournful dwelling, and keep a sentinel's watch upon its doors and windows. He would leave the comfort and repose and shelter of his father's house to march with heavy steps to and fro before this house which he had made desolate, with a vague sense of atoning for his sin by his voluntary exposure to discomfort almost amounting to pain, at the same time that he was satisfying his own capricious curiosity. It was little else than the purposeless disquietude of a purposeless nature.

The habit grew upon him so strongly that when Mr. and Miss Waldron went up to London, upon the re-opening of Parliament, he stayed behind--for a few days only, he said, not caring to confess to himself the whim that bound him to the place. He soon fell into a daily routine, ending every night, when it was darkest, in patrolling the forbidden street, and smoking his cigar under the closed window of the room where Rose had left all the traces of her habitation in that house. The shutters of that window were always closed, but Robert knew nothing of that. He could not run the risk of passing it by daylight.

He was sauntering past the silent house one night, a little later than usual, dreaming vaguely as he was wont to do of the life within, with his arms folded, and his head bowed down, when there fell suddenly upon him, how or whence he knew not, a blow which felled him instantly to the ground! He made a faint effort to defend himself and to cry for help; but before he could do either, the blow, savage and revengeful, fell heavily upon his head, and he felt nothing more. He lay motionless and lifeless upon the pavement in the dark corner where John Morley's house stood, and at an hour of the night when there were few passers by. When Robert Waldron opened his eyes again, feebly and with pain, he saw only a strange room, dimly lighted by a shaded candle set upon a table at the foot of the bed upon which he was lying. A face he did not know was turned towards him with the evident solicitude of one who was watching for the first sign of returning consciousness. It was the face of a young man of about four-and-twenty, frank and pleasant, with a professional look upon it that spoke unmistakably of a medical student. Asmall case of instruments lay upon the bed close to his hand, while his fingers gently pressed Robert Waldron's pulse. He closed his eyes again in a stupor of bewilderment and exhaustion, but in an instant a cup was held to his lips.

"Drink," said an authoritative voice; "it is a cordial that will revive you."

The draught fulfilled its work so well that he reopened his heavy eyelids and gazed vacantly about him. He was lying in bed in a large low chamber which he had certainly never seen before; his head was bound up tightly with fillets of linen, but when he attempted to raise his right hand to feel it, he was compelled to relinquish the effort, with a groan of pain.

"A dislocation of the shoulder," said the stranger, as if replying to a question, "and some heavy contusions about the head; done with a blunt instrument, a poker or large hammer. Do you think you can speak to me now?'

"Yes," answered Robert, faintly.

"You ought not to speak at all," said the young medical man, in a tone of regret; "but I'm only passing through this town, and I must go on in the morning. So we must make the best of our circumstances. Tell me all you can recollect before this blow."

"Where am I?" asked Robert.

"Can't tell you," was the reply; "I found you on the pavement, and I knocked at the nearest door to ask for help. The people here don't know you. Are you a stranger, like myself?"

"Stop a moment, let me think," said Robert.

It seemed an almost insurmountable difficulty to recall the events of the night; but after a while he remembered where he had been standing when the savage and sudden attack was made upon him from behind. He tried to turn his head upon the pillow so as to bring his mouth nearer to the stranger's ear.

"What is their name?" he whispered.

"I don't know," said the stranger; "there is an old man, and a girl,--very good-hearted people. They don't know you; so most likely you don't know them."

"Couldn't you find it out?" he asked, feverishly.

"Well, there are some book-shelves yonder," replied his attendant, "and I'll look to please you. But you must keep your strength to tell me what complaint to make at the police-office. You must have been set upon savagely."

"Find out the name," urged Robert, faintly.

His brain ached too much for any clear thought; yet he watched eagerly while the stranger took a book from the shelves upon the wall and brought it to the light. It was bound in crimson morocco, richly embellished, with the edges of the leaves gilded; but upon opening it, it proved to be nothing but an old dog-eared fairy book, with some of the pages torn, and all of them soiled with frequent reading.

"This is odd," said the student; "they must be lavish with their gilding and book-binding here. There is no name in it; but I'll find another. I chose one of the handsomest-looking."

He brought a second volume to the light; a Bible, fastened with silver clasps. He opened the front page, and read in a cautious undertone, with a glance towards the closed door, "Hester Morley, from her loving mother, Rose Morley."

Robert Waldron shut his eyes, and turned his bruised and aching head towards the wall, trying to realize his position; but thought was impossible to him. There was only one thing clear to his mind, that nothing must be found out about him either in the house or the town. He slowly gathered together his strength, and without turning to the medical student, he asked, "Shall I be laid up here long?"

"That depends upon yourself," was the answer; "be calm, and a few days may see you well enough to give your evidence safely. Fret and fume, and you'll have brain fever. In the meantime, what shall I say to the police?"

"Nothing," said Robert.

"Nothing?" repeated the stranger; "you were all but murdered, man! You'll have a near touch yet; I wish I could stop and see you through it."

"Stop!" said Robert; "I'm rich enough to make it worth your while. Say nothing about me in the town, and don't let anybody, doctor or nurse, come near me. I must not be known here. Do you understand? Not a soul must know about this."

He spoke with violent and warning pains in his throbbing temples, but he uttered these sentences emphatically and with intense anxiety. The young man had leaned over him to catch his labored tones, and continued to look searchingly into his face when he had done. "Ah!" he said, "some mystery, is it? Well, well, I'm willing; so set your mind at ease. You'll have enough to do to keep yourself calm. Neither doctor nor nurse shall come near you, unless there is more danger than I foresee. And your own mother would hardly know you. There,--be satisfied. I'll take care of you."

Robert Waldron scarcely heard the end of this speech, for a heavy stupor, whether of sleep or insensibility, crept over him again. There were intervals during the next forty-eight hours in which his mind tried to struggle towards some lucid thought and memory, but all in vain. He had a dim perception of seeing always the same goodtempered, masculine face about him and of hearing the same gruff but not unpleasant accents whenever a voice penetrated to his brain; and he felt himself handled by strong skilful hands. But as to where he was, or who he was, or how he had been brought to this condition, or how long he had been in it, not a single ray of intelligence came across him. With no sensation except that he was all head,--and that a bruised and aching head,--Robert Waldron lay under John Morley's roof; while the house keeper at Aston Court ascribed his absence to one of his sudden whims, and his father and sister believed him quietly and safely at home.

The monotony of John Morley's household had been exceedingly disturbed by this strange incident, surpassing all the fanciful events which Hester sometimes allowed her imagination to invent. That such a dark and villainous crime should have been perpetrated at their very door, in the secure streets of an English town; that an assassin should have been lurking in the shadow of their walls, seemed too incredible for belief. Yet there lay the intended victim in her own chamber, the only one which had been ready for his reception; and the other stranger, who stated frankly who he was, and where he came from and was going to, was watching over him with the patient fidelity of an old friend. He had told her that the almost murdered man desired to keep the crime a secret! but this only increased her amazement. John Morley had been scarcely moved from his imperturbable gloom, and appeared willing to accept the event as one of ordinary occurrence. He considered it his duty to appear every morning at the door of the patient's room, to inquire how he was getting on; when his voice seemed to have a troubling effect upon the almost insensible form of the sufferer. But having discharged this duty, he did not care to discuss the circumstance as Hester would have liked. He told her she must wait for the stranger's recovery before her questions could be answered; and then he hastened to shut himself up with his books. He was no more communicative with the neighbors, who hearing various confused rumors, found some excuse for invading his solitude. A gentleman, who was a stranger to him, had met with a serious accident at his door; and a friend of his had asked shelter and help for him. That was all he knew, said John Morley. Neither had Hester an opportunity of talking over the marvellous occurrence with Lawson, for he had been unaccountably absent from his workshop for two days. Such a thing had never happened before in Hester's memory; except about six months ago, when he had travelled to Southampton to meet his mother, who had lived till then with her only daughter in a small town in Burgundy. The third morning, when she found the attic empty, she resolved to seek Lawson out in his own home and ascertain the cause of his absence. She had never been to Lawson's dwelling, and, strange to say, scarcely knew where he lived. She had been so accustomed to know that he was upstairs in the attic the first thing in the morning and the last at night, that she had hardly ever thought of where he went to when he left the house; while he had never mentioned his own affairs, more than to tell her that his mother was coming over to him now her daughter was dead. All that Hester knew was that they lived somewhere in a court, which had its entrance nearly opposite the chapel at the top of the old-fashioned street.

She found admission to the court by a low narrow passage between two shops, where she had to walk carefully in semi-obscurity, until she came to a long close strip of rough pavement, around which were built tall thin houses, three stories high, and but one room in breadth. A dull and murky winter sky seemed to lie flat upon the roofs, closing them in with its gray and cold covering. Most of them were untenanted, as was plainly shown by their broken panes and rotting casements; and Hester directed her steps towards a door which had "Public Bakehouse" painted above it. There was a small bankrupt-looking shop on the ground floor; and, as Hester entered it, a middle-aged woman, wiping the dough from her hands, came forward to attend to her.

"Can you tell me where Lawson, Mr. Morley's book binder, live?" she inquired.

'He lives here, Miss," she answered, "in the top story, both rooms, he and Madam. You don't know Madam, perhaps, Miss?"

"Not at all," said Hester, with a new sentiment of curiosity.

"She's a foreigner," continued the woman, mysteriously. "I charge half-a-crown more a month for that. Not that she's like a good many of them French. She's as clean as a nut; but she's queer. She has wood-ashes out of my oven, and puts 'em in a box, and sets it under her petticoats, instead of having a fire; which she'll be burned to death some day. It's six months since she's been here, and she's never set foot out of doors yet. She hasn't got a bonnet, I think; only a queer tall cap, as sets all the children to laugh. She can't speak a word of English, nor we a word of French; so we can't have much to do with one another, you know."

"She must have been very dull and lonely," said Hester, self-reproachfully.

"No, bless you, Miss!" answered the shop-woman "she's as gay as can be, and sings like an old canary. You just hark up here."

She opened a door at the foot of a flight of steps which was profoundly dark, and Hester heard a clear, pleasant old voice, failing a little in the higher notes, but set to a merry tune.

"That's the way up, Miss," said the woman; "but as you've never been before, I'll go on first and show you the room."

Besides being in dense darkness, the staircase was a winding one, with no single step straight, and a thick rope, rather sticky and dirty to the touch, served in the stead of bannisters. Beyond a faint glimmer from the open door below, there was not a gleam of light; and Hester only knew she was getting near the top by the increasing shrillness and vigor of the cheery song."

"I forgot to ask you if Lawson was at home," she said, checking her guide as she was about to knock at the door of the room from whence the sound proceeded. She had learned French from a master, and could read it fluently; but she was a little afraid of encountering some living Frenchwoman, who, no doubt, could speak only in an unintelligible patois.

"Oh, he's at home," was the answer; "he's been at home these two or three days, ill. Mr. Lawson, here's a young lady come to see you and Madam."

The song ceased the instant the door was opened; and a small, round, comely old woman met Hester, with a face as clear-cut and fresh and free from wrinkles as her own. She was curtseying, gesticulating, and talking with as much ease and fluency in her limbs as in her tongue. Hester stood confused and abashed, but as she advanced farther into the room, the familiar voice of Lawson made itself heard.

"It is Madame, my mother, Miss Hester," he said; "she is telling you that you are welcome."

He was seated near an open hearth, upon which burned a few smoky coals, held together by rusty hand irons. The room, to English eyes, looked comfortless, even for the abode of a workman. The only good piece of furniture was a bed set in one corner, which was covered with a handsome counterpane of some scarlet stuff, with a large square pillow the cover of which was as white as snow, resting upon it. For the rest, the chamber was poverty-stricken and squalid. A small window looked out upon the court, and in two other places in the sloping roof, a pane of glass had been let in, through which the gray cold canopy of the sky could be seen. Three small crucifixes ornamented the bare mantel-shelf, and a chaplet of brown beads hung on a wall near them, balanced on the other side by a portrait, painted in showy colors, of a French actress in her theatrical costume.

Hester could not make all these observations at once, for her attention was concentrated upon Lawson. He looked ghastly, his face being more meagre and bleak than ever. He could scarcely raise himself from his seat, for his limbs trembled like those of a person barely recovered from some severe shock; and while he stood, he was obliged to support himself by the back of his chair.

"I'm not ill, Miss Hester," he said hastily; "it's only upon my nerves. I shall be all right in a day or two; but it was of no use coming to my work when I could do nothing. Look here."

He tried to hold out his hand, but it shook as if stricken with palsy; and when she looked him in the face, the tears were rolling fast down his hollow cheeks.

"Lawson," she said, sorrowfully, "you have been taking opium again."

"It's only on the nerves, Miss Hester," he sobbed; "try to talk a bit to Madame, my dear."

She turned away to look again at Lawson's strange mother. The old Frenchwoman was dressed well and tastily, though her clothes were poor; and she wore a picturesque cap, rivalling the pillow-case in whiteness. All her gestures were lively and flexible, as if nothing of the rigidity of old age had seized upon her joints. She motioned to Hester to take a seat beside her, and chuckled merrily to herself as she complied.

"If you would talk slowly," said Hester, trying timidly her own powers, "perhaps I could understand you a little."

"Seigneur!" she cried, "you speak my language! Ah! it is well; very well. Oh, what happiness! I will speak to you very slowly in my own tongue."

The clean old face, with its complexion as soft as a child's, was flushed with a bright color; and her plump, shapely hands were raised in astonishment and delight.

"Ah, chère Mademoiselle!" she exclaimed, beginning slowly, but falling quickly into a rapidity of utterance which bewildered Hester; "it is these six months that I have been here, and I have never heard a word of my own language except from my son; never, never! Ah! but it is triste; but when I feel ennui, I sing a little song to myself, or I say a little prayer to one of the dear little saints, and it is past, quite past, I assure you. My son is very good to me, and he earns a great deal of money in the service of Monsieur, your father: twenty francs a week, and sometimes twenty-five."

"Do you like England?" inquired Hester, who felt her conversational powers limited, and was glad to ask any question which could show an interest in the foreigner.

"Bah!" answered Madame with a grimace, "I was too old to leave my country for another. I never thought of quitting France, though I married myself to an Englishman. Iwould not come with him when he left Paris; but when my daughter was dead, I came to finish my life with my son, or take him back with me to Burgundy, where the sun shines and the grapes ripen. Here the sun never shines, but it peeps out sometimes in the summer. My son has put that glass in to catch the sunshine for me; and when we are rich we are going home to Burgundy."

Lawson shook his head furtively, as if saying, "No."

"Yes, yes, yes!" cried the old lady, whose quick eyes caught her son's by-play. "I say, yes. I will not die out of Burgundy. I could not bear to be shut up here, but for that."

"But why do you shut yourself up?" asked Hester.

"Why go out?" she said, shrugging her shoulders; "no sun, no warmth, no friends, no gayety. The bad children laughing at me! All the world strange, and nobody to speak a word to me. No, no; I can sing to myself here, and be as gay as I please all day long. Shall I sing a little song to you, my dear?"

She settled herself upon her chair, so as to give her hands free scope to accompany her song, with appropriate gestures. A hundred little wrinkles as fine as thread, puckered about the corners of her eyes, and her tongue so thrilled and quavered and shook between her almost toothless gums, that Hester watched its rapid movement with amazement. When her song was ended, she clapped her own hands in applause, and hugged herself with her old arms, while she laughed and nodded merrily.

Madame Lawson presented so strange a contrast to her son that Hester was almost lost in wonder. Lawson had partially recovered himself, and was looking towards her with an expression which plainly enough asked the meaning of her unexpected visit. She was glad to regain the free use of her own tongue, and she spoke in her turn with a volubility and fluency to which the Frenchwoman listened with marks of lively astonishment and admiration.

"Lawson," she said, "have you heard nothing of what happened to us two nights ago? Do you know that some stranger, a man, was found almost dead at our very door? Have you heard nothing of it?"

"No," he answered, still apathetic from the use of the drug he had taken; "what became of him?"

"Another stranger who was passing by found him on the pavement, and brought him into our house. My father and I did all we could to help, and we carried him upstairs to my room. The other stranger--I know his name now, Mr. Grant--is a surgeon, and knew exactly what to do, and he is staying with him still. Isn't it very strange, Lawson?"

Lawson's eyes regained more brightness as Hester spoke, and he appeared to shake off a little of his lethargy as he tried to ponder over the news.

"Do you know who it is?" he asked.

"No," said Hester, "he is quite a stranger to us; a man with a thick brown beard and mustache; he looks a little like a foreigner. My father knows nothing of him how, should he?"

"How often has he seen him?" inquired Lawson, in a sharp, quick tone of interest.

"Only when he was carried in almost dead," she replied; "neither of us have seen him since. Mr. Grant does everything for him. But, O Lawson! it was a dreadful sight. I should have thought such a thing could never have happened in our town. He was nearly, very nearly, killed by some murderer."

Hester stopped, shuddering at the recollection, and Lawson did not speak for a minute or two.

"The master was at home when it happened?" he asked.

"He had come in only a few minutes before," said Hester; "he says he did not see anybody lying or the pavement then; but he would never see anything,--my poor father! Besides, it might have been done after he was in the house; nobody knows. And, Lawson, what do you think? he is not going to let the police know any thing about it."

"Not let the police know!" echoed Lawson.

"No; Mr. Grant says he knows who struck him, and he wishes to screen him, and keep it all a secret."

"He is getting over it, then," said Lawson.

"Yes; Mr. Grant says he will be able to get up in a few days. I shall see him then, and try if he will not tell me more about it. I am very curious, and I never knew what it was to be curious before."

Hester shook her head sagely, and laughed a little at her own unusual state of mind; but Lawson remained plunged in thought for some time. At last he looked up into her face with an air of deep anxiety.

"Miss Hester," he said, "don't you try to find out anything. There's many a thing had better remain a secret to you all your life. I should like to know who this man is; but don't you go asking him, or Mr. Grant either. Leave well alone, Miss Hester."

She was neither inclined nor prepared to obey him; but she did not provoke any further remonstrance by putting her dissent into words. In her solitary and self-directed life, Hester had learned to choose her own path without looking to any authority. She rose to take her leave, promising the old woman to come again soon to see her, and submitting with a rare and sweet smile to being kissed by her upon both cheeks, though her color came and her face burned. It was so many years since any lips had touched her cheek, and then it had been Rose who had kissed her. Lawson preceded her down the winding staircase, and up the narrow entry into the street.

"I shall be back at work in the morning, Miss Hester," he said; "and I should very much like to set eyes on this gentleman."

"Little Aston, Feb. 21. 186--

"Dear Carl--'Where is Little Aston? and whatever is Grant doing there?' you are asking at this moment. Little Aston is a very small town, noticeable chiefly as a junction on the Midland Counties Railway, the town being nearly a mile from the station. Grant is being head-doctor, nurse, and general valet de chambre for a stranger who narrowly escaped assassination in the streets of the same small town three night ago. I must explain to you how it all came about. You are aware that it is my usual luck to miss my train at a junction; and this luck threw me, at nine o'clock last Wednesday night, upon the tender mercies of the good innkeepers of Little Aston. As I am not rich, I sought a more humble tavern than the great hotel in the square, and I turned up a narrow, old-fashioned, dimly-lighted street in search of one. Here I stumbled against a man lying across the pavement, who, on examination proved to be not drunk, but half dead. There was not a sound to be heard in the street. I have learned since that every other night the police are sent out of the town into the country in pursuit of poachers! an admirable arrangement! I knocked with all my might at the nearest door, and as soon as it was opened, I carried in my man, and examined the extent of the mischief done. He had been wounded within an inch of his life. As he had neither blood nor time to lose, I demanded a room and a bed, which were immediately put at my disposal; and here I have been ever since.

"The whole affair is queer, excessively queer. The gentleman,--he is a gentleman, there is no mistake about that; dress, jewellery, etc., are first-class, and his voice and language those of a well-born man,--as soon as he recovered a little consciousness, begged me to keep this assault upon him a secret, and to remain with him until he can go away in order to avoid calling in a doctor and nurse. I have not any very particular business demanding me in any other part of the world, so I agreed to stay and bring him through it alone if there were no access of danger. I was anxious for the first forty-eight hours, but my anxiety is over now. He will do, and in another few days he and I may go on our separate ways; though I rather expect the 'Good Samaritan' will get a handsome fee for his time and trouble upon this occasion.

"The household subjected to this unpleasant invasion is as interesting as my patient. It consists of a father and daughter, with one very ordinary maid-of-all-work. I wish you could see them, Carl. Don't let Annie read this letter. The girl--her name is Hester--is different from any young creature I have ever seen. She produces upon me the impression of having always lived in moonlight, and having never seen the sun. She reminds me of primroses with the scent of spring in them, but which one knows will die before the summer sun comes. Or she is like her namesake, Queen Esther, stately, austere, and beautiful, but with the pallor of famine in her cheeks as she stands meekly in the outer court before the king has stretched out his royal sceptre to her. See how poetical I grow? But this girl has been starving all her life. There has been a famine of sunshine and laughter, and music; and she has grown up sad and pale. I should like to see her brought out into the full light; but I do not know how she could bear it.

"The father is a man bordering upon fifty, but he looks sixty, for his hair is snow-white, and his face seamed with lines. It is a gray mask, a dull, unnatural gray; but it lights up at times as from some smouldering flame behind it and you see intense light and heat in his eyes. Do you remember that story we read when boys of the Hall of Eblis, where each tortured ghost walks solitarily, with his hand pressed upon his breast, and whenever the hand is raised, one can see a heart of fire beneath? I have thought once or twice, when I have come unexpectedly upon this man, that he was about to show me his heart on fire. He would perhaps do it to you, Carl; but you will never come across him. He is a bookseller; but reads more books than he sells. It is evident that money is scarce here. But who knows? perhaps this stranger, who tells me he is a rich man, will lift them out of their poverty. Perhaps he will fall in love with Hester. If I were he, and if I had never seen thy sister, Carl, I would woo this girl, and take her out into the fullest, brightest sunshine of fortune. She shall see him soon, and help me to nurse him; and--who can tell?

"I had written so far when I made the acquaintance of another member of this strange household. I was building a castle for my hero in bed here and my pale young heroine downstairs, when I heard the door very warily turned upon its hinges, and a new face peered round it. My patient had fallen asleep, and I beckoned angrily to the intruder to go away. Instead of doing so he entered on tiptoe, with his finger to his lips, and advanced into the middle of the room, steadfastly regarding the face of the sleeper. It was a small, shrunken man wearing a linen apron and a brown paper cap. He glanced at me deprecatingly, but persisted in disregarding my gestures until I took him by the arm and led him to the door. He submitted meekly enough; and as soon as we were in the passage outside, I whispered in a passion (forgive me, Reverend Carl), What the devil brought you in there?

"'Do you know who he is?' he asked, in a whisper also, but in a tone of horror which aroused my curiosity.

"'No, I said; 'not the gentleman I have just mentioned?'

"'As bad!' he answered, with the same mysterious horror in his voice.

"' No!' I exclaimed.

"'He ought not to be in this house,' he continued, energetically; 'not in the same house as the master and Miss Hester, of all places in the world. He ought never to have been brought in here, and he must be taken away at once, or worse will come of it. Everybody would say the same.'

"'Tell me why,' I said.

"' Who are you?' he asked.

"'A stranger; my name is James Grant, and I am a surgeon by profession.'

"He looked at me searchingly--it was like being scrutinized by a sparrow--and nodded. 'Come to my room,' he said.

"My patient was sleeping quietly, and would probably sleep for an hour. I followed the little man through three or four black-looking rooms which had formerly served as printing-offices for there were some old presses still left, till we reached a large and light garret. Upon some shelves there were specimens of bookbinding which would have charmed your heart, and all other biblio-maniacs; but my new friend did not draw my attention to these.

He gave me his stool to sit upon, and placed himself upon a heap of books. There was a chair in the window, but he did not offer it to me.

"Then, Carl, he unfolded to me a story. The man, whom I found well-nigh murdered, is the only son of that David Waldron who is one of your greatest men, and a trustee of your college. Ten years ago, he, the son, ran away with the young wife of the man whose home he is now in, and the husband has never since lifted up his head or let a smile dawn upon his face. He is here, sheltered by the roof he has dishonored; owing his life to the prompt humanity of the household he has wronged.

"My mind stopped there suddenly. Who, then, was the enemy that struck the blow--the deadly blow which nearly killed the man whom John Morley must needs hate? It seems that young Waldron only returned to his father's house a few months ago, on condition that he never set foot in the street where John Morley lives. What then brought him where I found him, at their very door? Whose hand but John Morley's own could have been lifted against him?

"'He must be taken away,' said the little man, trembling with excitement; 'you must get him away at once. Suppose the master should see him again, and know him! or Miss Hester!' Just then we heard the rustle of a dress on the staircase, and a step so light that we could hardly hear it. The workman rose hurriedly and placed a gorgeous book in my hand. It was a marvel of curious binding, with gilding as fine as gossamer and as rich as lace.

"'Yes,' he said, as Hester glided softly into the attic, 'it is very costly. Ah, Miss Hester! this gentleman is looking at some of my old work. But I can't do anything like this now, sir. My hand is not steady, and my eyesight is growing dull'

"'I am learning this work myself,' she said to me, with a faint smile; 'but are you able to leave your charge? Is he so much better?'

"'He is going on well,' I answered; 'so well that he will soon be able to tell us something about himself. Your father and you must wish to know who he is?'

"The workman looked at me over her shoulder with an air of warning and entreaty.

"'I wish to know,' she said, 'and so does Lawson here, but my father cares very little about anything. He inquires after him, as you know, every day, and that is all.'

"I understood perfectly this absence of curiosity in John Morley.

"Do you know who he is yet?' she inquired.

"He has not been well enough for me to ask him any questions,' I answered, 'and he is quite a stranger to me. But I will ask him soon. He ought to communicate with his friends.'

"'It would be well,' she replied, with that dignity which reminds me of Queen Esther, and then she unfolded a large apron and sleeves, and attired herself in them for her singular occupation. I remained a few minutes watching her. I took up mechanically a short but heavy iron bar, technically called a pin, with which the binder screws and unscrews his press. It crossed my mind that such as this might easily be the blunt instrument with which Waldron had been struck. I threw it down hastily and returned to my patient.

"He was lying awake, and looking more collected than he had done since his accident. His eyes were clear his pulse steady, and his face, though colorless, perfectly calm. As well as he could, he was promenading his regards, as the French say, about the room. It is a pleasant, simply-furnished chamber, with no ornament except the splendidly-bound volumes I have already mentioned. He was in a mood for talk; and Itold him at some length who I am, and how I came to be at Little Aston in the right nick of time for him.

"'Do you see much of the people of the house?' lie inquired

"'Not much,' I answered; 'they are poor, and we give no little trouble in the house. They keep only one servant, and Hester has to work hard herself; especially since we two have been here.'

"'Hester!' he repeated, in a low tone; 'is she a little girl, demure, but merry at times? I fancy I know something of her and her father. Have they seen me, either of them?'

"Yes,' I said, 'they have both seen you, and say you are a stranger to them. But Hester is not merry. Merry! she has not laughed these ten years, I should judge.'

"He winced, and turned his head away uneasily.

"'I want to see her,' he said, fretfully, and as if speaking to himself. 'I must tell little Hetty who I am. I could tell it to her; some good might come of it. Besides, I must see her; I have thought of nothing else since I knew where I was. I must and will speak to Hester.'

"He did not talk any more, but fell into a restless sleep, muttering to himself that he must see Hester. I am watching beside him now. The night is come on, and the house is as silent as a grave. I long to stamp heavily down the stairs, slam the doors, and whistle loudly; but the instant I set my foot out of this room the gloom conquers me. I tread on tiptoe, and close the doors as quietly as if some one lay a-dying somewhere. It has been a long dying here, Carl,--a lingering death of ten years,-- and it is a man's heart that has been slowly breaking. It would have been more merciful to have killed him at once. I pity greatly John Morley.

"Good-bye, old fellow. Write me a sermon for my romance. We ought to go through life together, you and I,--to you the souls, to me the bodies. Together we might heal many sicknesses.

"Grant."

While Robert Waldron had been lying in a state of stupefaction bordering upon delirium, he had possessed a dull but constant realization of the fact that he was in John Morley's house. There was, it is strange to say, a species of satisfaction to him in this. The place which he had been forbidden to approach had become a shelter to him, and had received him into its most intimate recesses. He could hear, night and morning, John Morley's footsteps upon the stairs; and he listened with a thrill of interest and a momentary triumph that he could hear it. The soft sweet voice at his door was the voice of the little Hester whom he had loved with the delicate and chivalrous fondness which young men sometimes feel for children just entering upon girlhood. There was a vague, weak gratification in knowing that he was with them,--in the house where he had come and gone as a familiar friend in the days long gone by. In his stupor, he was not sure that that time was quite past, or that Rose herself might not come to his side and lay her cool hands upon his burning head. The past and present mingled curiously in his mind; and, upon the whole, his feeling was one of contentment in being where he was.

But when that lethargy was ended, his memories and fears awoke strongly within him. It was impossible to drive away the suspicion, soon ripening into conviction, that it was John Morley's own hand which had so nearly deprived him of life. He had no other enemy; there was no other fellow-creature to whom he owed such a debt, which only revenge could pay. He did not blame his assailant: he rather owned that it was no more than he deserved. But if this were true, then John Morley knew him to be lying helpless, and within his power. He was in the hands of a deadly and stealthy foe, with no protector but this stranger who had chanced to find him bleeding to death in the street. He began to be suspicious of the succor given to him. What could it all mean? Was it an artifice to avert suspicion? Or did John Morley wish to keep him yet within reach of a subtle vengeance? The more he pondered over his position, the more bewildered and disquieted he became.

In his perplexity, he at last came to the resolution to see Hester, and trust himself to her; and for that reason he endeavored to gain and preserve the calm which Grant assured him was essential to his speedy recovery. There were three wills at work in the house: Robert Waldron had resolved to see Hester, and speak with her; Grant was decided that it would be best and wisest to get him away from the place without letting her know who had been their guest; while Hester herself, in the newly-awakened stimulus of curiosity, was bent upon discovering all she could concerning their strange inmate.

At last the day came when Grant announced to Robert Waldron that he was well enough to spend an hour or two in another apartment. He shuddered at the idea of entering once again the room where he had spent so many hours with Rose. But Grant was not the man to whom he could confide his story with its episode of guilt. And had he not longed to see the place again? Had he not thought it might be part of the penance which, in some measure, by its sharp pang, would atone for his sin? He strung up his nerves, bade his heart be strong, and leaning tremblingly upon Grant's shoulder, left the chamber where he had been lying, half unconscious, on the edge of the grave.

The room to which he was conducted was scarcely larger than a closet, and contained only a very small table and two chairs: one of them the large antique chair, with high back and sides, which had been bought years ago for Hester's mother, and which had never since been moved from its station on John Morley's hearth. He sank into it exhausted. It was not until Grant had left him, asleep as he supposed, that he opened his eyes again, and gazed about him anxiously. His seat was set opposite to a small window, the view from which was dismal: an outer staircase, black with smoke and rot, leading up to a discolored door, about which clustered some dingy ivy-leaves. This closed door, and the mournful leafage about it, fascinated him. It seemed to fill the little casement; for without going closer to it, nothing could be seen but this one gable with its blackened and worn-out steps leading to it. He could see, by the rust upon the handle and by the overgrowth of sickly tendrils stretching across the doorway, that it was a place fallen into disuse--a mere lumber-room shut up for long months together, and left to the dust and mildew; yet none the less did his mind, weakened and dizzy, imagine that there lurked in it some scene which it was necessary for him to see, and which would all lie before him, plain and intelligible and full of interest, if only the rotten panels of the door would give way. Somewhere outside the sun was shining, and in the grate a cheerful fire was crackling; but in spite of the light and warmth, he shivered as one shivers sometimes at a ghastly thought in the depth of a winter's night.

Day and night John Morley's house was a haunted house for him.

Robert Waldron started with nervous and guilty dread as the latch of the door clicked softly before it was pushed quietly open. He turned his eyes, large and sunken with his illness, upon the doorway, wondering who might be about to enter; for it was never with this slow caution that Grant came in. A girl's face looked in for a moment before advancing: a fair, grave face with a color upon it soft and clear and delicate, and a light in the large gray eyes, like the shining of the spring sun behind a thin veil of mist. This surely could not be Hester, the little child whom he had been wont to nurse upon his knee, and to whom he had read fairy stories. Yet it could be no one else. He felt the sudden sting of hot tears under his eyelids. It was Hester--little Hetty--whose whole life he had clouded and saddened. He attempted to rise from his chair, but he found himself powerless and speechless. It was with an almost superhuman effort that he restrained himself from breaking out into loud and bitter weeping.

"I am Hester Morley," she said, advancing towards him, and speaking in a low and measured voice, which was somewhat monotonous in its accents, yet all the more soothing to him. "Mr. Grant told me you were going to sit here for an hour or two. Can I do anything for you? Shall I fetch you anything?"

"Stay with me a little while," he answered, stammering and hesitating; "I have something to tell you."

"Do you feel strong enough yet?" she asked, looking at him with an expression of grave anxiety. "Mr. Grant does not know I am come, or he would not let me be here; but I wished to tell you that you are among friends, and you need not hurry yourself to go away. We are your friends though we are strangers to each other yet. It would not be possible to watch over any one and think about them night and day, and pray to God for their recovery, without feeling that they are friends. I want you to feel this too.

The words were spoken softly, with that faint languor of a voice which had never been quickened by either mirth or passion: but they smote upon Robert Waldron with the keenest tone of reproach. He looked up speechlessly into her face; and her clear eyes, from whose grave scrutiny he shrank, looked down pitifully upon his agitation.

"Nay," she said, "I must leave you if you will excite yourself. I told you Mr. Grant does not know I am at home, and I think he would be displeased if he found me here. So you must be calm, and prove that I do you good and not harm, then he will let me come again. My father is John Morley, the bookseller; do you know us? He thinks of coming to see you this evening; do you know him at all?"

"I used to know him a little," answered Robert Waldron.

"Every one knows my father," said Hester, with a sad smile; "so you see you are not among strangers, and you may feel quite at home in our house. I do not know many people, for I have never been out of Little Aston, and it is no wonder that you are a stranger to me; yet I do not feel as if you were really a stranger. I suppose it is because I was afraid you were going to die here; and nobody has died in this house since my mother, nearly nineteen years ago."

She stood within reach of his hand if he had dared to touch her with it, a subdued and quiet girl, as if she had grown up in the shadow of her mother's death; but he knew well that was not the chill and the darkness which had fallen upon her life.

"Your father married a second time," he said, almost in spite of himself, and shuddering at the answer he had invoked.

"You know it," she said, "if you know my father."

"I have not seen him," he answered, laying his hand upon his heart, "these ten years."

"You would not know him again then," said Hester, mournfully; "he is an old man now, broken down and infirm; are you sure you never heard of our trouble? Everybody knew it."

He did not answer; but Hester, in the dead silence which followed, could hear the heavy throbbing of his heart. She was about to call Grant, when he stretched out his hands to her.

"I am very ill," he muttered; "hold my hand in yours for a moment."

Hester took it between both her own and held it in a firm warm clasp, waiting for this paroxysm of weakness to pass before she hastened away. The tears which had been burning under his eyelids fell in torrents; and at length Robert Waldron bent down his fevered head, and rested it upon her hand.

"Don't you know who I am Hester?" he murmured.

A slight shiver ran through Hester's frame. There was something in his tone now which startled her memory, and she tried to free her hands from those which held them; but he was grasping them too tightly for her to disengage herself.

"Hetty!" he cried, and no one had ever called her by that name since Rose had fled; "little Hetty, have pity upon me; I am very wretched!"

The first passionate moment in Hester's life had come.

She thrust back the bruised head, and wrested herself from the grasp which held her, falling back from him as one who was an abhorrence to her. He had been the curse of her father's house, and through the long solitary years to which he had doomed her, his sin and her stepmother's had haunted her. And now he was within the very recesses of their home again,--more than a guest now,--an inmate, thought of, tended, and cared for. The pallor had passed away from her face and the soft lustre from her eyes; and when she spoke, her voice had the eager and vehement ring of passion.

"Oh!" she cried, "is it possible that you could be near dying, and yet not die, in this house? Many a man would have died here of grief and shame alone. How can you breathe the air my father breathes? How can you eat his bread and not be choked by it? Is it possible that any man can be so mean a thing_, so miserable a thing?"

"Hester," moaned Robert Waldron, "I am the most miserable of men!"

He lifted up to her his wan emaciated face, covered with grief and remorse. For the present he was stripped of all the self-sufficiency and pleasant palliation of his own faults, which in easier moments characterized Robert Waldron. Hester felt herself smitten with pity and compassion for him. If he had repented thus, he must have well-nigh borne the full penalty of his crime during the ten years which had passed so painfully over her father's head.

"My father must never know whom he has sheltered," she said, in a softer voice; "you must leave us as soon as you can, and with all the secrecy possible. No one must know you have ever been in this house, lest it should reach his ears. I believe it would kill him. Rouse yourself, and think what we can do to prevent him discovering it."

"Hester!" he cried, "say something pitiful to me."

"Oh, I pity you!" she answered; I pity you all,-- her and you and my father; but what can I do? There are troubles which no one can lighten. They say that time will soften every sorrow; but it has not done anything for you, or my father, or for her."

For an instant Robert remembered how dim the past had grown to him.

"Forgive me, little Hetty," he said.

"I forgive you," she replied, touching with the tips of her fingers his hand which lay upon the table; "for you did not know what you were doing. Look at me; how different I should have been if I had grown up by the side of a mother who loved me. You cannot see my father or her; but me you can see, so different from what I might have been but for you."

He looked at her, standing before him with her pure young face, austere and grave, yet possessing a charm which made his heart throb again rapidly. Looking at her did not bring to his mind the evil he had committed; but he did not dare to put into words any of the thoughts which thronged his brain, and he kept a sombre silence.

"When can you go away?" asked Hester, after a pause.

"Not to-day," he said, imploringly; "do not send me away to-day, Hester."

"You shall stay," she answered, in the old soft languid voice, "until you can go safely. But my father must not see you. Tell Mr. Grant enough to let him know why you must make haste to go, and he will arrange how you can be removed, so that no one may find out that you have been here."

A half smile crossed his face, which he had shaded with his hand as he thought how well John Morley knew who he was, and how it was that he had been struggling against death these last few days. But he could not breathe a word of this to Hester; he did not know what he dared to say to her now she knew him. He longed to hear her voice again, and to lift his eyes to her sweet though reproving face. When he did so at last, feeling the silence too painful, he found himself again alone, for Hester had stolen away noiselessly; and his heavy and weary eyes fastened once more upon the dismal doorway opposite to him, with its smoky wreath of ivy.

Hester had to pay her price for the gratification of her curiosity. Grant had, as he supposed, made sure that she was safely out of the way before he had left his charge, to take the sleep he so greatly needed; and she had availed herself of his absence to visit the stranger about whom her mind had been busy with a thousand painful conjectures. It had been a romance to her, but now the romance had suddenly assumed the severe and hard aspect of a reality. That which, to more distant onlookers, added to the romance, brought it for her into the practical region of an unpleasant fact. Robert Waldron, whose name was never uttered in her father's hearing, was here, separated from him only by thin walls and a door whose latch could be lifted with a touch. Hester believed in the implacable resentment of her father. He had forsaken many of the established forms of religion, had withdrawn from all prominent offices in the Church, had even given up the practice of assembling his little household for private worship, and never took into his lips the name of the God he had once professed to serve. These were signs of such tremendous import in the judgment of his minister, and of Miss Waldron especially, that it was no wonder Hester's mind was troubled by them; or that she attributed them, as they did to an unrelenting hatred to those who had destroyed the honor and happiness of his existence. Secretly, though troubled, Hester had rather gloried in her father's implacability, as being in accord with the high-flown romances and poems with which her imagination had fed itself. But of late she had longed for some ray of tender light, some flash of possible relenting, to break in upon the gloom of his spirit; and now that Robert Waldron was positively in their dwelling, she was frightened. What would her father feel? What would he do? Into what might he be hurried if he came face to face with their unknown guest, and found in him the man whom he hated, his enemy and betrayer? She went slowly down-stairs, deliberating within herself, until she reached her father's sitting-room. He glanced up at her entrance with a gleam of light upon his gray face which was his nearest approach to a smile, for neither lips nor eyebrows were unbended. She went forward with an involuntary movement, as if she would take his white head into her arms and kiss the furrowed face which had so sorrowful a story graven upon it; but caresses were rarely exchanged between them, and Hester checked her impulse. The hearth looked empty without the great chair which had kept its place there these twenty years,--her own mother's chair; and Hester's face burned as she thought of Robert Waldron resting in it in her little study upstairs.

"Ah!" said John Morley, looking towards the empty place, "I miss it, Hester. Is our poor guest up yet? Have you seen him?"

"Yes," answered Hester, briefly.

"I will visit him myself as soon as I am at liberty," he continued, "has he made known to you his name and family?"

Hester started, and hesitated. At all risks she must keep this terrible secret from him; and yet she was not practised in dissimulation, and was not ready with a reply.

Fortunately he was habitually indifferent to any subject of conversation.

"I did not ask him," she stammered; "I was afraid of exciting him. Indeed, I know Mr. Grant did not wish me to see him at all; but I thought it would do no harm. You had better not see him at present, father; he is still very ill. Hark! There is Mr. Grant."

It was Mr. Grant, descending the staircase as noisily as possible. He approached the door and gave three sharp distinct raps upon it, which was answered by Hester opening it as quietly as usual. He looked in with a frank hearty smile, and spoke in one of those voices, full of life and spirits, which sound so cheerfully in chambers of gloom and sickness.

"Come, Mr. Morley," he said, "I am a medical man, and I will give you a prescription gratis. You ought to take a walk of two hours every day in this lovely country. I am going for a run now. Come with me, sir."

"And who will attend to my business?" asked John Morley, with a second gleam upon his face.

"Your business is to be well," persisted Grant; "and how can you be well, sitting here all day long, brooding and moody, till you are capable of committing any crime in the calendar? Put up your shutters and lock the door, and write on it, 'Gone for a walk.' Take my word for it, you would not lose any custom by it. You must take a good two hours' walk every day, or you may end by being guilty of murder, Mr. Morley."

He spoke lightly; but he looked hard at the moody man he was addressing, and John Morley's face perceptibly deepened in gloom. His fingers tightened over the ruler he had been using, and his eyes glistened darkly under his bushy eyebrows.

"More men are guilty of murder than you think of" he answered; "but it is not a daily walk that would save a soul from crime."

"It would go far to save yours," said Grant, eagerly; "only put yourself into my hands, and try it. Instead of sitting here in this dull room, wearing your heart and your brains out in brooding over Heaven knows what, go out into the sunshine and bracing air of the fields; you'd be as far from murder or any other sin as a child is."

"You are a boy yet," replied John Morley, "and scarcely know what you talk about. You do not know what it is for God's sun to give you neither heat nor light, and for the cool winds to make the fever of your heart the hotter. But I run no risk of being guilty of murder-not I. Why me, more than any other man? or why murder, more than any other crime?"

He gazed darkly and suspiciously at Grant, whose open face had exchanged its frank smile for an air of disquietude, and who returned his gaze apparently with words upon his tongue which he longed to speak, but the moment for which was not yet come.

"Mr. Morley," he said, in an altered tone, "you told me, ten days ago, that you did not know the man whom I found nearly murdered at your door."

"No," he answered; "he is a stranger to me. He must be a stranger in the town; for if he belonged to Little Aston, he would have been missed. Has he told you who he is?"

"You see why I think of murder," said Grant; "it is no wonder that my mind runs upon it. At your own door a murder was well-nigh accomplished, and the victim was only saved by a mere accident--the barest chance. It is a strange story. Has the man an enemy? Who struck that blow? Where did the assassin escape to? Where is he now? Is there any meaning in the spot where he was almost murdered? I ask myself these questions over and over again, and I suspect every man I meet."

Grant spoke vehemently, but with a suppressed earnestness, more impressive than passionate. Hester felt a sickening dread and faintness creep over her, yet she scarcely knew what dim suspicions were taking hold of her mind. She listened breathlessly for her father's reply.

"They are grave questions," he said, calmly; "but your patient alone can answer them. It is a case for police investigation, and it should have been put into their hands at once. I suppose any other man but me would have done it. Do you not know the stranger's name yet?"

"Yes," answered Grant, still scanning John Morley's face with close scrutiny; "but I hold it as a trust which I am not to betray. He has resolved also to conceal the savage attack made upon him, out of consideration for his supposed enemy. The whole thing is to be kept a secret, even from his own family. No one will know it except ourselves, and with us it will be safe."

"It will be safe with me," said John Morley; "but this is a stranger story than before. An attempt at assassination in a quiet, remote town like this, and the victim of it is anxious to hush it up! Who is this man, and where does he come from? What does he suppose is the motive for the crime? This mystery, mark you, is being acted within my own walls. I must see the stranger and question him; it is only fitting that I should know more about it."

John Morley's face was lit up with a new expression of sinister interest and resolution. He rose from his chair, straightened his bowed shoulders, and lifted up his drooping head. Hester trembled, but she did not dare to speak; she did not know yet what she dreaded or suspected.

The twilight had already begun to gather in this house surrounded by so many higher walls. John Morley turned the key in his shop-door, that no one might enter while he was absent; and as he returned to his sitting-room behind it, he said, in a lighter tone, "I will follow your advice; I am about to leave my business to take care of itself for a while."

Hester had only time to fly upstairs to the little room where she had left Robert Waldron, and to lower the blind over the window to add to the duskiness of the evening. With a hurried and importunate voice she addressed herself to him,--

"My father is coming," she said; "oh! be so careful what you say. He has suffered so much, and from you. If it is possible, hide from him who you are."

He entered the room as she finished speaking, closely followed by Grant. The light was very dim, and, such as there was, it fell full upon the face and figure of John Morley, so eloquent of ruin and loss and utter wreck, that Robert, who had longed to see for himself the change that others reported as wrought in him, felt his eyes fastened and held by a spell which he could not conquer. He was, on his part, in the shade, and the years which had passed over him had been those which transform a youth of three-and-twenty into a man in the prime of life. There was little danger that John Morley would recognize in this bearded stranger, still wearing a bandage about his head, the gay, handsome, thoughtless boy, whom the world was inclined to blame but little for his follies and faults. But Grant and Robert Waldron were not alarmed by the fear of discovery. There was not a doubt in their minds that it was this man's hand, thin and white as a scholar's, but nerved with long-cherished hatred, which had scarcely missed of murder.

"Mr. Grant tells me," said John Morley, lowering his voice to a very quiet key, that you are now out of danger, and will soon be able to be moved. Have you communicated with your friends?"

"Not yet," answered Robert, in tremulous and indistinct tones.

"They will be anxious about you," he resumed, "and I am afraid you will find the accommodation of my house very limited. Such as it is, you are very welcome to it but the situation is confined, and not good for an invalid. Still, you or Mr. Grant have only to make your wants known to my daughter Hester, and we will do all in our power to make your sojourn here comfortable. I beg that you will not leave until you feel quite equal to the effort."

The words were hospitable and polite, and his manner did not belie them. There was something of an antique and laborious courtesy about him,--the ceremoniousness of an old school, but it commanded respect; and Robert Waldron bowed and murmured a few words of thanks.

"But," said John Morley, distinctly, "you would do me a favor, one that you will not refuse me, I am sure, by letting us know the name of the stranger who is within our doors."

Hester held her breath to listen. It was a moment of intense anxiety to her. In all her life, immured and isoated as it had been, she had never heard a lie spoken and now she trembled between the desire of having the truth concealed at all hazards, and the dread of having a falsehood uttered at her instigation. She had been very near the sin herself only a few minutes before; and a sharp pang shot through her as she waited for Robert Waldron's untruth. Her conscience kept the sensitiveness of a conscience which knew nothing of the evil world out side her father's house.

"My name is Roberts," he said, unhesitatingly, "I am unknown here, and my family is in London."

"And may I ask further what you mean to do about this affair?" asked John Morley.

"Nothing," he answered.

" Nothing!" echoed John Morley, "excuse me, but I find your decision singular. Would it be possible to furnish us with any explanation?"

"Certainly," said Robert, "I believe I know the man; I could lay my hand upon him at any time. I know what has driven him to crime, and I must pass it over. He is safe from me, and would to God I could feel that he is now avenged! I shall keep out of his way for the future."

He looked up significantly and imploringly into John Morley's grey, worn face, which underwent no change while he spoke. He stood opposite to him in the dim light, his white head bowed towards him; and Robert Waldron could no longer keep back the tears and sobs which overmastered him.

"You are still very weak," said John Morley, soothingly; "and, if I have wearied you by my questions, I pray you to forgive me. When you are more able to bear it, I will speak to you again on this subject. In the meantime make my house your home, until your friends come to you, or you can go safely to them. Both you and Mr. Grant are welcome here. I leave you to his care now."

The interview had been a short one, but it was quite long enough for Robert Waldron. He had seen face to face the man who had forbidden him to set his foot in any place where he could by any chance encounter him. There had been nothing in his words or in his manner to betray that he knew him; but Robert could not doubt it.

To his mind it seemed as if there was now a tacit and covert reconciliation between them. It might be one never to be displayed openly to the world; but there was a fairer balance of injury between them which might well satisfy John Morley's resentment. He felt no apprehension of further vengeance, though he might remain in his dwelling. If John Morley had lifted up his hand against his life, it had been in a moment of ungovernable passion, which had come upon him unawares. The man was too stricken, too impassive in his profound melancholy, to exert himself to active hate. He could not lash his heavy spirit into schemes of revenge. Robert Waldron felt that he could rest where he was in perfect safety.

Besides, the agitation of the day had thrown him back in his recovery, and he did not leave his room again for some time. While Hester was feverishly anxious to get him removed before there was a chance of her father seeing him again, he gave himself up to the fretful languor of a tedious convalescence, which was only soothed by her occasional visits to him. He preferred her quiet little study to the great empty apartments of Aston Court and the attendance of the old housekeeper. He was in no hurry to leave a place possessing the peculiar charm for him, perilous yet pleasant, which an outlaw might feel in being under the roof of the authority who has proclaimed his outlawry.

At the end of a few days, however, Grant announced to him that the time was come when he ought to leave John Morley's house. Robert had confided his whole story to him; and Hester had impressed upon him the necessity of so effecting the removal that no suspicion should be awakened in the town. Little Aston had been very curious both with respect to the doctor and his patient; but Grant and Roberts were names altogether unknown here and John Morley either could not or would not reveal anything more about the strangers. Late at night, therefore, a night when John Morley was attending a service at the chapel, a cab which Grant had hired from a town some miles distant, drove up to the door; and Robert Waldron, well wrapped up, and leaning feebly upon Grant's arm, descended to the large old kitchen, which formed the entrance-hall of the house.

"Hester," he said, "say good-bye to me, kindly."

She put her hand in his for a moment, but would not let it linger in his clasp.

"Hetty," he said, sorrowfully, "you have not forgiven me yet."

"Oh, I do forgive you," she said, in a tone of anxiety; "but I want you to get away. I have had no peace since I knew who you were. Do not think me unkind. I am very, very sorry for you, and I hope that some time you will be very happy again. It is no use for both you and my father to be miserable all your lives long. Good bye."

"And am I never to see you again, Hester?" he asked, gazing with a quiet thrill of admiration at the rare refined beauty of her thoughtful face.

"It will be best not," she answered; "no, you cannot see me. You must keep your promise now, and never come near my father again. I know what you think, and what Mr. Grant thinks about him; and perhaps it is true. But you must never come near us again. What would have become of me and of him, if you had been found dead?"

Her hands were clasped for an instant, and a fine shadow of terror crossed her face. Robert Waldron loitered still, regarding her fixedly, as though knowing it was for the last time. An old clock which stood in a dark corner of the apartment struck eight, and Hester started with alarm.

"Oh, make haste!" she cried, "go quickly, for my father will be at home in five minutes. Good-bye, good-bye."

She put her hand again into his, and hurried him to the door; but he had scarcely settled himself in the corner of the cab before John Morley came up. Grant was on the point of jumping in, and closing the door; but now he stood with one foot upon the step, and turned round to speak to him.

"My patient is very much exhausted, sir," he said, "and I should be glad if you would dispense with any farewell. We shall not go far to-night, and I will write to you from where we stop. We will not loiter any longer than we can help in the night air; so good-bye, Mr. Morley."

"Have you all you need for the journey?" he inquired.

"All,--.everything," answered Grant, hurriedly; "goodbye."

"Good-bye to you both," said John Morley, raising his hat from his white head. Robert leaned forward to have a last glance at him and Hester, as she stood in the lighted doorway; and then he fell back with a groan.

Grant accompanied his patient to the country-town, from whence he wrote to Mr. Waldron in London, giving such an account of his son's accident and illness as would avoid exciting any suspicion of the truth. On the evening of the day upon which he had received the letter, Mr. Waldron was with his son, anxious for him, and grateful beyond measure to the young doctor. There was, he said, an opening for a medical man at Little Aston, and he urged him to settle there under his patronage. He was himself about to give up his public life at the close of the present session, as he felt old age creeping upon him, and his health beginning to fail. A medical attendant in whom he could have confidence would soon become essential to him; and he had a pleasant house at the end of the town nearest to Aston Court where Grant could reside. The young man hesitated but little. John Morley had once or twice expressed his opinion that a good country practice might be established there; and Grant had neither funds nor influence to back him if he attempted to launch himself upon a more ambitious career. He accepted Mr. Waldron's grateful offer with alacrity; and a few weeks later, John Morley and Hester saw him appear again upon their narrow stage at Little Aston.

It was not a step altogether to Robert Waldron's mind; but he was accustomed to let things take their course, and he did not oppose himself to this. The sole reason he could have urged against it, even to himself, was one which he could not have presented in plain words to his own conscience; it was a very subtle and vague feeling of jealousy of Grant's acquaintance with the Morleys, and of the footing he had already gained in the solitary, and, to him, forbidden household. Hester, he thought,-- for so far he dare deal frankly with himself,--was too rare and dainty a prize for a mere country doctor. He should be sorry if, after her hard and sorrowful girlhood, no brighter and more fortunate lot awaited her in the future.

When Robert returned to Aston Court in the spring, with the traces of his accident almost effaced, he found Grant lodging in a house near by opposite to John Morley's, while he waited for the present tenant of his promised dwelling to leave. He was living therefore within the prohibited precincts; and friendly as he was with Grant, Robert had a shrewd suspicion that it would not be quite safe to visit him there. There was but little need for him to do so, as Grant could come freely and safely to Aston Court, but his residence so near to Hester quickened and fanned the almost unconscious jealousy in Robert's nature. Grant could and did see her every day; he heard her speak; he would, perhaps, teach her to smile, to laugh even; and then he recalled to mind the clear, sweet, uncertain laughter of the child Hester, in those days long gone by, when he had taken her upon his knee and spoken to her the words he had hesitated to address directly to Rose. If he could only hear its music again! If he could only watch the languid lines about her lips melt and tremble into smiles! If he could butsee the light come and go in her grave, calm eyes, as her young heart stirred with new and happy thoughts! He was not in love with Hester; it would have shocked him to have dreamed of being so, in his inmost heart. She was still almost a child to him; and a child whose life he had robbed of all natural bouyancy and joy. He wished he could, with his own hand, put her into possession of her proper inheritance of girlish gladness; but he did not like any other hand to do it. It went very far towards making him angry to think that a mere lad, uncultivated and poor, and with no attractions but his youth, should stand so fair a chance of doing what he could never do.

Before long Robert Waldron's vague envy took more definite form. It would be a shame, he argued, to let this pearl fall into hands so rough and coarse as Grant's, who would rob it of half its delicacy and brilliance. Though she and her father might count it no bad settlement for her to become the wife of a doctor under Mr. Waldron's patronage, it would be but a poor lot for her. They would be sure to think well of Grant's prospects and position. For, after all, John Morley was no other than a poor tradesman, struggling with difficulties; and there was a stigma upon the name of Morley in Little Aston. The last thought stung him sharply. But then Rose had not been Hester's mother. The tie between them was very slight and had lasted only for a few months. There was positively no relationship at all. At any rate, since he could not atone for the past for Rose or John Morley, was it impossible to do something for this little Hester, the child who had once been so fond of him? Could he not place her in some position where her grace and beauty would be better seen than in her present obscurity and poverty? He was rich himself, having already inherited an estate from his mother, and some day his wealth would be doubled. It would be easy for him to remove Hester from her own sphere to one where life would be all gayety and brightness about her. But it would be necessary to see her often, and to make himself well acquainted with her character. How could this be managed?

There remained yet two or three months of the session to run out before his father and sister returned to settle permanently at Aston Court; and Robert was not at all sure that their residence there would be favorable to his views with regard to Hester. Since his return she had never been to the Court. How to meet her again, with no excitement which should alarm her, or make her unwilling to speak to him, became the problem of his many idle hours. He haunted the beautiful fields and lanes of the neighborhood, in the hope of crossing her path; but Hester was accustomed to walking early in the morning, at an hour when he scarcely knew that the sun had risen; and he haunted the fields and lanes in vain. It was only through Grant, who always avoided mentioning John Morley and Hester, that he could gain any information concerning her.

"You see the Morleys often, Grant," he said one day, with an air of nonchalance.

"Most days," was the curt reply.

"Living directly opposite to them, you may see them without going to the house," said Robert.

"No," he answered; "all I can see is the window of a room where the shutters have not been taken down since I lived there. I go in most days for a chat with the old man and Miss Hester."

"L'ami de la maison," observed Robert, with an ill-tempered sneer.

"And the only friend," responded Grant.

"Does poor little Hetty visit nowhere?" he inquired.

"Nowhere," replied Grant; "well, yes, at one house, and that is an odd one; and her friend is still more odd. I dare say you have no idea that there is such a place in Little Aston. It is a back court, with an alley leading to it, just opposite the chapel at the top of our street. There is a small baker's shop in the court, where family baking is done; and Hester's friend lives in the top story of the baker's house. I went with her one day to visit her friend, who was ailing. The ailment was a mere nothing; but she turned out to be an old Frenchwoman who could not speak a word of English. Hester was obliged to interpret between us, and 't was amusing enough, I assure you. I know very little of French, and I cannot understand a word she says."

"Who is she?" asked Robert.

"The mother of Lawson, Mr. Morley's bookbinder," said Grant; "his father was a workman in a Parisian house, and married a Frenchwoman there. She only came over to live with her son a few months ago, and Hester goes to see her occasionally. It is her fete-day to-day, and she has invited me to make one of the party; but I shall not have time."

"Is she poor?" inquired Robert, with an air of sudden interest.

"I take it for granted," he answered, "since her son is only Mr. Morley's bookbinder. He is another curious study, well worth time; eats opium, and is a little shaky in the upper story. Hester tells me he used to see visions, and that he is greatly depressed now they have ceased. I see him often."

"I don't know the man at all," said Robert; "but this old Frenchwoman must be a curiosity in Little Aston.

I can talk any patois of French like a native, and I think I will go and see her."

"You had better not," said Grant, significantly; "the court is exactly opposite the chapel in our street,--you understand. You must keep away."

"That's a bore," said Robert Waldron, with a slight yawn of indifference.

But as soon as Grant had left him, he turned his steps eagerly towards the house of Lawson's mother. By making a circuit he could reach the upper end of the street without passing near John Morley's house; and at this hour of the afternoon it was certain that he would be confined to it by his business. The alley opposite the chapel was easily discovered, but he was an apparition so remarkable in the court, that all its scanty population turned out to stare at him, and the subdued clamor of their voices attracted the foreigner whom he had come to seek, to her window. For the first moment Robert could scarely believe he was in a town in England. The old half-timber house, with its very pointed gable surrounded by rotten wood-work, and the clear, fresh, coquettish, aged face of the Frenchwoman framed in the small lattice casement, was like a vision of the lands where he had spent so many years of his life. He mounted the winding staircase with swift steps. The old woman had opened the door, and the whole scene throughout seemed familiar to him. He presented himself before Madame with all the courtesy and politeness which go far to win the people of her country. He could speak to her fluently, and the tears started to her eyes as she listened to her native tongue.

"Madame will pardon me," said Robert, "for intruding upon her. But I know France well; I have lived long in that charming country. Therefore I have ventured to pay a visit here uninvited."

"Ah, Seigneur!" exclaimed Madame, with vivacity, "but monsieur is the welcome one. Seat yourself, I pray you. You know France well? You have lived there? O, mon Dieu! talk to me about my dear country."

Robert accepted the seat she offered him near to herself, and took infinite pains to make an agreeable impression. It was not difficult. The delight of conversing in her own language freely became almost a transport and an ecstasy to her. She laughed, she wept, she nodded and tossed her head, she gesticulated to her heart's content, and, for the time, felt herself at home again. The hours in which Hester sat beside her, talking timidly in the unfamiliar words, were nothing compared to this golden hour when this charming stranger, so distinguished, so amiable, in so beautiful a toilette, listened to her, and did not require her to speak slowly and heavily. She had not been so happy since she left Burgundy.

"You are triste here," he said at the first pause in his flood of words; "have you no one to visit you?"

"No; I am never triste," answered the old woman gayly, "always I can think of making my toilette, and going out into the town; but that time never comes There is rain, or there is no sun, or I have the migraine. But I am never triste,--never. I have all the dear little saints to talk to, and I say many more prayers here in England than in France; and the saints are very good company, you may be very sure. Then there is Miss Hester, my cherished one! She is coming to pay me a visit this evening. It is my fete-day, and we have a little feast together. We take tea here, because my son cannot buy the wines of France."

"You must permit me to send you some," interrupted Robert; "I, too, like the wines of France."

"But no! but no, Monsieur," cried Madame, "a thousand thanks,--but no!"

"Who is Miss Hester?" asked Robert.

"It is an angel," responded Madame, glowing with hilarity; "a veritable angel! I could do my little acts of devotion before her as before a blessed saint! I adore her, Monsieur. She is perfectly charming; but triste, too triste for one so young. I say to her, 'Go to France, my cherished one. Go, go. There the sun shines, and one laughs without knowing why.' Her religion is triste; also too solemn. There are no dear little saints to confess one's little faults to; and it is too solemn to go always before the great God for every trifle. She should visit my dear France, Monsieur. Chut! I hear her voice below there."

They listened in silence, and heard Hester's low, pleasant voice speaking to the children, who were playing about the door to make sure of seeing the stranger when he came out again. She came up rather slowly, step by step, as though feeling her way carefully through the gloom. Robert Waldron's heart stirred, and his pulses throbbed as they had never done before; and he rose from his seat, partly from a restlessness of excitement, and partly to hide that excitement from the keen eyes of Madame. He placed himself in a position so as not to be seen at once by Hester as she entered; and at the same moment a light tap upon the door announced her arrival.

She had come in and the door was closed behind her without her perceiving any other person but the old friend she had come to visit; and Robert Waldron had time to notice, with a poignant sense of admiration, the delicate color upon the cheeks, and the sweet faint smile upon her lips, as she stooped to receive the double kiss with which Madame greeted her. When this ceremony of reception was ended, he stepped forward, calm apparently, but with a tremor through all his nerves which was strange to himself. Hester's eyes opened widely with an expression of alarm; and she made an involuntary movement as if to escape from him, and take to flight.

"I am going away instantly," he said, not venturing to approach her more nearly; "you are before your time, Hester. And yet," he added, looking into her candid eyes, and resolved to cast himself frankly upon the truth, "I own I came here solely to see you, and to speak to you. Grant told me you were coming to visit this old woman to-day, and I have introduced myself here for the chance of meeting you. There was no other opportunity, and I felt that I ought to see you once more."

"But why do you want to see me?" asked Hester not angrily, but in a sorrowful voice which made his heart beat the faster; "what have you to say to me that can do any of us good?"

"Child," he said, "there is much that I could say to you, and very much that I can do for you. Do you understand that I must do everything in my power, for my own peace of mind, if not for the sake of making your life more happy? Now that I have been in your home, and seen the wreck there with my own eyes, there will be no more rest for me until I have repaired it in some measure, however little. I could not know by any other means all that I had done; and do you suppose I can now forget it? I remember your father a happy man, growing rich, and with a successful future before him. I have seen him now, and his ruin is before me day and night."

He spoke with so much earnestness that he began to feel as if pity for her father was the real and most deeply rooted motive of his conduct. He had no purpose to deceive Hester. He was in fact deceiving himself; and his handsome face wore an aspect of profound and solemn remorse. "And you," he continued, "the child who loved me, the little girl who used to watch for my coming and brighten into smiles when you saw me; my heart aches to see you thus. Hester, who will give you back the lost laughter of your childhood? Who can recall these gloomy days, which ought to have been steeped in brightness? If I could but call back the past, and once more set us all as we were ten years ago, I would pay down my life gladly as the price." Hester raised her eyes to his, and read in them an expression which fully sustained the words he was speaking. It was not in her nature to doubt and experience had not taught her to suspect. She let Robert Waldron take her cold hand in his own and stood beside him, trembling, but calm and grave.

"Is there nothing I can do for you?" he asked, in a pleading tone; "your face always wears a look of care. Is it anything besides the old trouble? Let me speak frankly to you, my child; for you are still no more than a child to me,--the little Hetty you used to be. I am rich, and from many persons I hear that you are poor. If there be any time when money becomes a pressing want with you, will you look to me as an elder brother whose greatest satisfaction would be to do anything for you? Is there nothing I can do for you now? Have you no anxiety which I could take away from you at once?"

"There is nothing you can do," answered Hester, with drooping eyelids, and lashes burdened with tears which did not fall.

"Yet think," urged Robert Waldron; "for my sake give me something to do for you. It is to give me relief from the remorse I feel. Have you no wish which you could entrust to me? Is there nothing you want if you had the means? I am a man, an idle man, with nothing to occupy me. I would do anything for you."

Hester looked up to him again with her truthful and searching gaze, and retreated to the aide of the Frenchwoman, who had been standing by with an eager curiosity, unable to comprehend a syllable of the earnest words which were being spoken. The girl's young face was as white as marble, and almost as motionless, except for the flicker of the light in her eyes, which seemed to be kindled from within.

"I have had one wish, "she said, with pallid lips that scarcely parted to whisper it, "ever since I knew that she was lost. You are a rich man, and an idle one, and you want to make atonement. Find her whom we have lost and her who loved you. I think of her day after day, and I ask God to bring her back to me every morning and night. She was so kind and so pretty; I dare not call her good now. I wonder what has become of her,--where she is at this minute,--what she is doing or suffering. Oh! if I had been you, I should never have given up seeking for her."

"Good heavens, Hester!" he exclaimed, "do you suppose I did not do all I could to find her? I left her at Falaise, while I came over to England on business, and when I returned there was not a trace of her to be found. I did everything in my power at the time."

"I have read in books," said Hester, with an air of wisdom, "that it is no sorrow to get rid of a woman of whom one is tired. You were already getting tired of her, perhaps. There was no longer any pleasure in being near her. Did you try to find her as you would have done if she had been your sister or your wife who was lost to you?"

At another time Robert Waldron might have smiled at the tone of girlish sagacity with which Hester spoke; but just now he was conscience-stricken. No; he had not sought for Rose with the persevering energy he would have used had she been really dear to him. So far Hester's wisdom, drawn only from books, was right; and yet he had made many efforts and taken a good deal of trouble, both at the time and since. Rose had been tolerably well supplied with money, and she was no child when she quitted him. He had often taken refuge in the reflection that she was a little older than himself. But now that he saw Hester, wise only with the wisdom of books, and knowing nothing of real life, but burdened with an overpowering anxiety as to the fate of the missing woman, he felt as if he had been shamefully negligent in his attempt to discover her.

"I cannot talk more about it," cried Hester, a burning flush mounting to her white cheeks and her calm forehead, "but I have no other great wish. There is nothing else you could do for me." She said the last few words in a low shy tone, which penetrated to Robert's heart. He recollected Madame's sentence, "that she could do her little acts of devotion before her as before a saint." He also would willingly have knelt at her feet to make there a vow of penitence and atonement, if she would only look down upon him gently and tenderly with her grand, calm eyes, which still bore the serenity of a child in them. He resolved in himself to insure some means of seeing her again, even if she spoke only of this subject so utterly distasteful to him, and of which she spoke with such simple and innocent candor.

"Hester," he said, "I will take up this search again. But remember, it is now more than nine years ago, and there is barely a chance of success."

"Oh, you will find her," she exclaimed, holding out her hand to him again; "whatever she is, or wherever she is, you must rescue her. It will bring peace to me, and later, perhaps, to my father. When he comes to die, how horrible it will be not to know where she is, or what has befallen her! But if you find her, then I shall know what answer to give him when he asks himself some day or other, 'What has become of my poor Rose?'"

"I will go, I will spare nothing," said Robert, warmed by one of the generous impulses which from time to time broke through the indolent selfishness of his temperament. He believed that there was no other motive at work within him, save that of an earnest desire to repair the mischief he had done; yet he kept Hester's small hand clasped tightly in his own, and felt it impossible to resolve upon leaving her presence.

"I must leave you, Madame," he said, addressing the old Frenchwoman; "I am about to start for your dear France, but I shall return in three or four weeks, and, if you will permit me, I will pay you an early visit. Hester," he added, in English, "it will be necessary to tell you all I do. Can I write to you safely? Will your father see my letter?"

"You can write to me," she answered; "my father will know nothing about it. Good-bye."

"Good-bye, little Hetty," he replied; "say, 'God speed you, Robert Waldron."

"God speed you," repeated Hester, with a glance into his eyes which made his heart throb again. He laid his moustached lip against each smooth cheek of Madame, with an air of gallantry as exquisitely refreshing to her as cold waters to a thirsty soul; and, with a look at last Hester, he hastened from the poor garret, and down the stairs, as if the next instant should see him on his way to Southampton, the nearest route to France.

He did start, as soon as he could make such arrangements as would not involve confiding the reason of his expedition to his father. He had no wish to make him acquainted either with his recent intercourse with Hester, or the quixotic mission she had sent him abroad for. This mission was so utterly distasteful to him, that but a little more painfulness would have made him abandon it altogether. It was like raking among the ashes of the dead to reconstruct a skeleton. It had not been a pleasant sin to him, even at the time; and now it seemed likely to prove a root of bitterness which had struck very deeply indeed. The one point of attraction in the whole of his present course of action was the tie gradually formed by it between himself and Hester. He wrote to her frequently, and looked forward to another half-stolen interview with her upon his return. Three or four times, also, she wrote to him.

The quest made by Robert Waldron was, as he expected, utterly fruitless, so far as its immediate object was concerned. He could discover no satisfactory trace of Rose, though he staid in Normandy several weeks longer than he had at first intended, urged by Hester to make sure that he left no means untried. At last he returned to England, without announcing his intention of doing so to her, and at once paid a visit to the garret of Madame Lawson. After his purposeless and impulsive nature, he resolved to see and know more of Hester, without looking forward to any result from such an intercourse, except the agreeable distraction from ennui which it afforded him.

Madame Lawson understood him better than he understood himself; and all her inherent love of intrigue, which had been starving for lack of food in England, revived in full force. She knew very well that a Monsieur, so distinguished and so handsome, did not pay his visits to her garret out of pure kindness to an exile. By dexterous questions she ascertained his position and his wealth. He even confided to her the history of his early fault, which seemed to her so venial that she exclaimed at these strange English, who could recollect so small a sin. She could see no reason whatever why this rich and great milord should not eventually love and be loved by Hester. In fact, it was a beautiful little turn of the wheel by which the wrong which had been committed might be redressed. She very willingly let him know when he might find Hester at her place.

Robert took care to be there the very first time Hester paid Madame a visit after his return. But she was not a second time to be taken by surprise. She greeted him calmly and collectedly, and listened to his account of his journeyings with a grave and downcast face, while he spoke to her almost in a whisper, lest any word should reach other ears than her own. When his narrative was ended, and she looked more sad than before, Robert Waldron could no longer keep back a question which had been all the time upon his mind.

"What could you do, Hester?" he asked; "you could not see her for yourself."

"Not see her!" echoed Hester, with a sudden flame of passion upon her quiet face; "not see her! Why should I see you, and refuse to speak to her? Why should I let you touch my hand, and hold it back from her? I would go to her to-day, if I only knew where she was."

"You do not know what the world would say," said Robert Waldron.

"I believe I know what Christ would think," she murmured. The momentary fire of indignation and protest died out, and she leaned her face upon her hands, and wept long and bitterly, with tears of mingled disappointment and longing. It was the first time that the world's opinion had been, in any shape, thrust upon her. In her own dreams of fresh romance and enthusiastic religion, she had seen no obstacle whatever to her scheme for seeking out and rescuing her lost stepmother, whenever an opportunity should occur. And now this sudden check came from him! She wept so long and hopelessly that Robert Waldron was almost beside himself.

"Hetty," he said, "I will do whatever you bid me. I will go back again, and come here no more unless I find her, if you desire it. But there is no chance of discovering her. I assure you most solemnly I have done all I can; yet I will go back again."

"No, no," she answered, "you must not leave your father a second time on a useless errand. But I have had nothing else to think of all these years, and now it is all over. I only wish we knew that she was dead!"

Robert Waldron echoed the wish ardently in his heart, but he did not utter it. Perhaps she might be dead; but he had never attempted to establish that point. He resolved now to put this question afloat, and see what response he could get to it.

"I have thought of one other thing I can do," he said, "and it shall be done quickly. When may I see you again?"

"I come here often," she answered, with wistful eagerness ; "this is the only place where I dare meet with you. My father must never know it."

Hester had been so long sole mistress and arbitress of her own actions that there was no element either of disobedience or concealment in the arrangement she had just suggested. It was merely to shield her father from the disquietude and pain of hearing Robert Waldron's name spoken in any connection, that she appointed Lawson's garret as the only place where she could meet him. To have asked her father's opinion would have seemed utter folly and cruelty to her. As she spoke, her girlish ignorance of the world smote upon Robert's conscience, but his generosity was not equal to the sacrifice. He must see her again, why, he scarcely knew; but to forego the stolen and prohibited delight was impossible to him.

"I will see you again in a few days," he said, in a measured voice which betrayed no emotion.

He staid no longer, but went away, leaving Madame to praise her new and powerful patron. The old Frenchwoman was wary, and perfectly comprehended the role she had to play. She would keep his secret, and aid his meeting with Hester to the utmost of her power. To this end she maintained a careful silence about Robert Waldron to her son, who never returned from the workshop until late in the evening, long after Hester had gone home, and when there was no chance of his visits.

John Morley, in his dark den, where he brooded over his long, sad, selfish dream of sorrow, had no idea that his daughter was in direct and personal communication with Robert Waldron. He was receiving some very material shocks to his profound inattention to business; for his affairs were daily becoming more and more involved, and his creditors more pressing. In these troubles Hester had to bear more than her full share; and whenever his thoughts turned from their old sorrow, they had nothing to occupy them but this new one. It was a relief to go and see the gay old woman, whose cheerful songs and laughter stirred her heart to something of girlish merriment; and Robert Waldron's occasional presence there added another interest, amounting almost to an attraction, to her visits.

At the close of the session Mr. Waldron bade farewell to his constituents, and resigned his seat in the House of Commons. It had been his wish that his son should take his place as the champion of Nonconformist interests; but it was very well known that, as yet, Robert Waldron showed no proclivities towards Nonconformity and there was little chance of his being elected by the borough which had known and trusted his father so long. Mr. Waldron still retained his mental vigor, and was disinclined to fall into the inactivity of old age; but his health was breaking, and he was too careful of his life to risk it any further by his conscientious attendance to his parliamentary duties. At home he had yet a post to fill as a landowner, a magistrate, and a member of the church at Little Aston, where he reigned with the absolute sway of a despot. He settled down as a country gentleman upon his estate at Aston Court, and found it, upon the whole, not unsuited to his taste. He had with him his two children. His son was the most affectionate, his daughter the most pious; he hardly knew which occupied the first place in his heart. For Robert, it was now his great desire to find a wife who would make a home for him, and secure himself from the dread of his son taking flight once more. The yearning of an old man to see his children's children playing about his knees took hold of him. But it was a question whether a husband of sufficiently eminent piety could be discovered for Miss Waldron, who was already approaching a doubtful age, and had not yet seen any one who was, in all respects, worthy of a Miss Waldron. In furtherance of his own growing desire, Mr. Waldron urged Robert to think seriously of marriage; but when he replied by a request that his father would name the lady whom he would most willingly receive as his daughter-in-law, with a promise that he would then consider the matter, Mr. Waldron was at a loss. He ran over in his mind all the marriageable ladies in the neighborhood, and found none that quite accorded with his own views.

"You ought to choose for yourself, Robert," he said, with a little ill-humor.

"I have no choice," answered his son, meekly.

"Robert," he exclaimed the next Sunday night, after his return from the chapel, where he had refreshed himself during the singing of the hymns with regarding Hester's sweet, devout face; "Robert, if the thing were not utterly impossible, I would rather have Hester Morley for my daughter-in-law, than any other woman in the world."

Mr. Waldron deceived himself. It was this very impossibility which made it possible for him to think of the bookseller's daughter as his son's wife. A good deal of the natural pride of rank was subdued in him, but it was not altogether cast out. Robert Waldron's ears tingled at the sound of this name uttered in such a connection; but he made no reply. It was, of course, a secret to his father that he had ever seen Hester for himself.

"She is exactly the creature that would have suited you," pursued Mr. Waldron,--" lovely, refined, and modest; pious, too, for she is soon to become a member of the church. You are satisfied with Hester Morley's state of mind; are you not, my dear?"

"Not altogether," replied Miss Waldron; " she is not open enough for me. I sometimes fear lest the root of the matter is not in her. But why are you talking about Hester Morley to Robert?" Miss Waldron had but just entered the room, and her father shrank from communicating to her his first frank and inconsiderate utterance.

"I was merely alluding to her," he answered evasively. But, after this night, Mr. Waldron's mind often reverted to Hester. He looked into his own heart, and found that he had never given to any being, out of his own family, the love he felt for her. As for Robert, he set before himself the impossibility, the insurmountable obstacle, and gazed at it, and pondered over it, till it grew slowly less impossible and less insurmountable. He resolved to conquer it. The impenetrable barrier which lay between them should be removed. The deadly hatred of John Morley,--and he had every reason to believe his hatred to be deadly,--must be overcome. Hester's own heart, still free, and given neither to Grant nor himself, had to be won. It seemed, on the whole, as if he had very much in his favor,--wealth, rank, good looks, refinement, and cultivation. He would set them all against the accusing memory that rose against him. By lifting Hester so far above her station, the wrong would be, in part, balanced which had dragged down Rose into depths far below hers.

The idea of the honor proposed for her never dawned upon Hester. Her interviews with Robert Waldron were not clandestine to her, as they would have been to any other girl. There was no one to inquire where she went or whom she saw; no one to whom she was in any way bound to give an account of her actions. She would almost rather have died than have mentioned Robert Waldron's name to her father. But, for herself, she did not shrink from seeing him and conversing with him. There was an old childish tenderness lurking still in her heart, which wrapped about him and Rose, as about two beings who had made the brightest interval of her young life. Her knowledge of their sin was vague; and a thickly-woven veil of forgiveness wrought through the long years was thrown over it by her. But the very purity and intensity of her forgiveness protected her. She had never thought of love; and the thought did not awaken at any touch of Robert Waldron's.

It seemed as if Hester was just now brought into more close and frequent contact with the Waldrons. Miss Waldron organized anew her meetings for the female members of the church, and quite naturally Hester became a regular attendant at them. She was then constantly associating with her former teacher and patroness; and though Miss Waldron was not a whit less patronizing than when she was a child, she had grown up to it and thought of it only as "Miss Waldron's way." As to Mr. Waldron, she saw him often at chapel, and he always smiled upon her with a look of admiration, amounting to affection, as she accompanied her grey-bearded father along the chapel aisle. "If it had only been possible," he thought each time, "how gladly I would have welcomed her as my son's wife."

Though Mr. Waldron was now a great man, he could look back upon his early days when he had been used to visit his grandfather, the tenant of a small and poor farm holding a position not much higher than an agricultural laborer. He was not a man to ignore or despise his own lowly origin, though his daughter did both; while Robert was so well content with his present position as to be indifferent to that which had been his grandfather's and great-grandfather's. Certainly, Mr. Waldron had desired him to marry into a good family; but if that could not be, there was nothing in the circumstances of Hester's father, as far as regarded his birth and character, which would render her an unsuitable wife for his son. Two generations back it would have been John Morley who would have been visited with scruples as to the fitness of such a marriage.

Now that Mr. Waldron had no other interests to engage him, he had leisure to give his whole attention to the affairs of the church; and he soon came to the conclusion that the great age and growing infirmities of its old pastor demanded some efficient assistance in the performance of his duties. Since John Morley had withdrawn from all active participation in church matters, the whole power and influence had fallen naturally into the hands of Mr. Waldron, who ruled without a voice being raised against him, or even a whispered murmur among his brethren, who looked up to him from afar off as to one who had an unquestionable authority. When, therefore, he proposed, in a church-meeting assembled especially for the purpose, that a colleague should be elected for Mr. Watson, adding, in a business-like manner, that he would pay him a salary from his own pocket, and not trouble the church with that charge, the proposition was carried unanimously, and with applause; and the choice of the co-pastor was entrusted solely to him. Not solely to Mr. Waldron, however. It was an all-important charge, and Miss Waldron felt that the chief responsibility rested upon her devoted shoulders, which bore some cross perpetually. In fact the church at Little Aston was governed by her through her father, though perhaps unconsciously so to him. She made the choice of a colleague a subject of prayer in all her meetings, and of very anxious thought in her own closet, which was a handsome and luxuriously furnished dressing-room, where she could meditate for hours without risk of intrusion. It would not do to have a married minister, who might be under the legitimate domination of a wife; yet a young pastor was a somewhat dangerous creature to let loose in her fold of lambs. She balanced the disadvantages of both states with the most profound solicitude, but at length decided in favor of a young minister, who should be entirely free from female influence; the more so as she did not shrink from the necessity of keeping a more vigilant oversight of her own part of the flock. This decision was communicated to her father, but represented under quite a different phase; and Mr. Waldron agreed with her, that they might do some untried but devoted young man an untold good, by introducing him into the ministry under their patronage.

Not many days afterwards, Mr. and Miss Waldron found themselves at the entrance of a college, where the young ministers of their denomination were in training for the future discharge of the duties belonging to their office. It was a large, modern building in the suburbs of a busy manufacturing town, the distant hum of which blended with the quiet of a place of study. Of course it possessed none of the venerable associations of ancient colleges; but there was a sober air of respectability and steady work about it, not altogether unlike the factories of the neighboring town. Miss Waldron appeared to be in her proper element--to breathe her native air. No romance clustered about the place, but there was the clear fact of seventy or eighty students wrestling from morning till night, and possibly from night till morning again, with those knotty problems of doctrine which exercised her own spirit. An atmosphere of controversy was wafted through the long corridors, into which study-doors opened on each side in regular ranks. A murmur of theological discussion, perceptible only to fine ears, breathed in the quiet air. Again Miss Waldron felt that, by having been born a woman, she had missed her avocation. Here was her true home, and the pulpit was her sphere.

The president of the college, the Rev. James Harvey, D. D., received the ex-member of parliament and his daughter, with a mingled deference and dignity due to their position and his own. They were old acquaintances, and could dispense with some of the formalities of strangers; so that Mr. Waldron quickly opened to him the mission he had come upon, in behalf of the church at Little Aston.

"I do not promise that it shall be a very great thing for a young man," he said. "I shall ask no assistance from the church. I do not think of offering a salary of more than a hundred a year, until I see how he suits me. But it will be an opening, and most probably would be he stepping-stone to another and wealthier church. A joung minister, with my influence, might obtain a good charge in a year or two."

"No doubt, no doubt, Mr. Waldron," replied Dr. Harvey.

"We require," said Miss Waldron, thinking it was time for her to speak, "a young man of eminent piety, who will have no thought except for souls. He must be an interesting preacher, with a pleasant voice and choice language, but above all, sound in doctrine. We want no German neology among us. We should like one, too, who could make himself a pleasing companion to my poor brother, who is still in the bondage of sin--one who would exert a wholesome influence over him; and as Robert is exceedingly fastidious, it is essential that he should be a gentleman, Dr. Harvey. It is still more important that he should not be self-willed and opinionative; though he must not be weak minded, or he will soon fall into the usual follies of a young pastor. He must be one who will look to us for guidance and companionship; and who could visit at Aston Court upon suitable terms."

The last sentence was a little vague, and a young pastor might reasonably have demanded a definition of the words "suitable terms." But Doctor Harvey bowed low to Miss Waldron, and remarked, that it would be a singular advantage to any young man. He mused for some minutes, with his pen upon his lips, as if he were passing his seventy students in review before his mind's eye. His aspect remained grave and calculating; but presently it brightened, and he nodded his head assentingly to his own thoughts.

"I have two of our young men in my eye at this moment," he said, "either of whom might do well for you, if you could assure them leisure to complete their course of study at Little Aston."

"Certainly," replied Miss Waldron; "we have a complete library, which shall be at their disposal; and I should myself take great interest in their studies."

"There is David Scott," pursued Dr. Harvey, "a fine logical and analytical mind, with the true ring of Calvin in it; pure gold, sir, but a little unrefined as yet. And there is Carl Bramwell. You recollect Charles Bramwell, our minister at Park Lane Chapel, and his father, old John Bramwell? They are the father and grandfather of this young man. A good lineage, and a young fellow of great promise, but a little too much inclined to be speculative, if he has a fault. It would be the making of either of them to be under your eye for a year or two. We will go and visit them both in their studies, if you do not mind the trouble."

Neither of them minded the trouble, and they rose to accompany the Doctor with alacrity. The profound tranquillity of the place, and the associations connected with it, brought an unusual thrill of excitement to Miss Waldron. She trod with a quicker step, and spoke in a lower key, as they passed by, one after another, the closed doors. At length Doctor Harvey paused at one, and turning to her, said, "David Scott," as he knocked a sounding knock upon the panel, and waited for a moment to hear the words "come in."

"He is a trifle deaf" said the doctor, "but a fine fellow."

Miss Waldron felt a chill, which was not removed by the appearance of the student, a gaunt, awkward, ill-dressed lad from Scotland, who stared at her with embarrassment, and was hardly able to respond coherently to the observations made to him by Doctor Harvey. Their visit lasted but a few minutes; and Miss Waldron left the study with a painful sense of discouragement.

"I am sure he will not do for us at all," she said plaintively.

"You ought to have seen him first in the pulpit," replied Doctor Harvey; "he is quite another being there, and handles his subject like a master. He will make a mark in the world by-and-by, I can assure you. But this is Carl Bramwell's room."

The doctor knocked lightly, but received no answer. There was an unbroken silence within the study. Miss Waldron's spirits sank yet lower; she felt doomed to disappointment.

"Bramwell must be absent,' said the doctor; "but we will just look in and see his books."

The young student was absent, but only in the sense of being absent in mind. He was seated on the low, broad window-sill, so absorbed in the study of a book which rested upon his knees, that he had neither heard the knock, nor the opening of the door. Miss Waldron had time to give him a lightning glance of criticism, and her heart leaped with joy, which sent the warm blood to her face. His features were of those which come from a long line of thoughtful and educated men: the fine, thin, spiritual face of a born scholar, scarcely concealing the ardor with which his mind was now busily at work over some favorite study. He was young, certainly not more than four-and-twenty, and his figure was slight and delicate. Just now the sun shone aslant upon his head, and displayed a profile of perfect regularity, with the lips upon the point of parting with a smile of keen intellectual delight. Miss Waldron had found the goodly pearl she had been seeking.

"Mr. Bramwell," said the doctor, laying his hand upon the shoulder of the student, who started from his abstraction with a fine glow upon his face, "I knocked, and as you gave no answer I thought your room was vacant, and I took the liberty of introducing some friends to it, as the best in the college. Miss Waldron and Mr. Waldron."

The well-known name carried no awe with it to the spirit of the young man, but he saluted the patron of the college and his daughter with an air of well-bred respect and welcome. He stepped aside for them to admire the view from his window; and when either of them addressed him, he answered freely but modestly.

"My time here is nearly finished," he said, in answer to a question of Miss Waldron's. "I shall have been in college three years, and shall have completed my course of study so far. It has been a happy time to me."

"Have you any church in prospect?" she inquired, with a palpitating heart.

"Not yet," he answered, smiling, "but I am not anxious about it. The doctor has promised to interest himself for me when my time is up."

"Would you be willing to give up the four or five months still belonging to you, and take a charge at once?" inquired Doctor Harvey; and Miss Waldron felt strangely disquieted as the student hesitated before replying.

"I would rather not," he said, "but I would be governed by your advice. My examination in the London University will come off in six months or so, but I am pretty well prepared for it already. If you bade me go, Doctor, I would go."

"Would you object to a small country church?" asked Miss Waldron, more anxious than ever to secure him.

"Not at all," he said, "especially for my first charge.

"Nor to a co-pastorate?" inquired Mr. Waldron.

"My colleague and I would both have to prove whether we suited one another," he answered.

"Have you any mother or sister, who would wish to live with you?" asked Miss Waldron, afraid that she should not secure him free from female influence.

"I have one only sister," answered Carl, smiling again, "and she is about to be married soon to a young surgeon of the name of Grant, who is settled at Little Aston, near your residence."

"We know him well," she replied, graciously. "So your sister is going to be married to Mr. Grant. Father, I am sure we may open our proposal to Mr. Bramwell. His sister's residence at Little Aston would be an inducement to him to come to us."

Carl's face kindled and flushed as he instinctively caught at the meaning of Miss Waldron's words. To live for some years near to his sister and his friend, appeared the height of human happiness to him, who had so often vainly longed for a home and domestic pleasures. With a small and pure church, into which no maxims or principles of the world could find an entry; with a pleasant home in his sister's house, and the companionship of the two relatives dearest to him upon earth--he could have no desire of his heart ungratified. He heard Mr. Waldron and Doctor Harvey discoursing, but he hardly understood them. All he was sure of at the close of the interview was that a co-pastorate at Little Aston had been offered to him, and that his almost monastic study had been visited by a being who had looked at him with a gracious and pleasant smile, and spoken to him in a voice set to a softer key than the rough, masculine tones of his fellow-students.

Carl Bramwell would have given his answer at once, but his cautious seniors insisted upon his taking a week to consider it. He received two letters of ecstasy from Grant and his sister. Their marriage was to take place in a few weeks, after which he was to have his home with them. Until that event he was invited to stay at Aston Court itself to be introduced under Mr. Waldron's auspices to the church, and to be initiated by him and Miss Waldron in the onerous duties of a pastor.

It had occurred to Mr. Waldron, in connection with their choice of this young student, that nowhere could be found a more suitable match for his little favorite, Hester. The red-haired Scotchman he had rejected in his own mind the moment he saw him; but Carl Bramwell was certainly born for Hester, and she for him. He pleased himself with building a few castles in the air, for even elderly men will be guilty of this folly at times, and when Carl came he received him with an effusion of welcome.

Carl Bramwell quitted his calm student-life with a natural feeling of regret, but also with a glow of enthusiasm at the first view of the wide stream of human interests, with its restless tides, which was about to bear him he knew not whither. He went through all the usual emotions and sensations of one who is bidding adieu finally to the tranquillity of boyhood and study; but on the other hand he felt very intensely the fact that life was beginning for him in earnest, and he held his head erect with a new sense of dignity and responsibility. He was about to take upon his own soul the care of other souls. An unutterable and solemn tenderness filled his heart as he thought of these human spirits, frail, wavering between evil and good, tempted, sad, palpitating with the first germs of immortality planted in the midst of many thorns. He prepared his heart beforehand for the love, half that of a mother, which a true pastor should feel for his church. How he would study his people! how he would watch over them! how quietly he would root up the choking thorns, and let the free air and sunshine play about the young buds of divine grace! This life, with its long hot days and weary weeks of labor, would be a hundredfold more worthy of a man than the serene egotism of a study.

There were other considerations which Carl's chivalrous ardor disdained to take account of. In the college he had been only one of seventy, each of whom had an equal claim to the attention bestowed upon them. He had had but the seventieth share of a pulpit. He had lived in a mass; been spoken to, looked at, fed, and generally cared for, as only an item in a large sum total. Now he was about to become the chief person in a circle, which, however small and contracted, would invest every word and action of his with importance and meaning. In a small church the pastor is even more an individual set apart than in the churches of great towns. Every one of his scanty congregation would have a lively and minute interest in him personally.

Of this future church of his, Carl knew two persons exceedingly well by report, and had for some months taken an almost extravagant concern in them. Grant had written often about John Morley and Hester, and Carl's interest had been keenly excited. Now that he was on the point of being brought into so intimate a relationship with them, he read over again the letters which had put him into possession of so much of their history; he found himself about to enter upon the stage of one of those romantic incidents which now and then are acted before us on our journey through life.

He met with a very cordial welcome at Aston Court, and was more impressed and affected than he was himself aware of by the suddenness of the change from the bareness and inelegance of his college to the wealthy luxury of Mr. Waldron's mansion. All about him suited his somewhat delicate temperament, and chimed in with a somewhat hereditary refinement of taste. Robert Waldron seemed to him a finished gentleman; and even Miss Waldron, to a young man who had known nothing of female society during many years, appeared pleasing and graceful. She had considerably modified her early rigor on the subject of dress, and assumed her dingy brown costume and unbecoming bonnet only when engaged in religious services. At home, and especially during the present epoch, she chose pretty colors and soft materials; and even condescended to employ a number of worldly artifices for disguising the ravages of time.

Yet towards Carl she adopted the tone of an elder sister, assuming a few years of seniority; in some degree the most flattering and most beguiling manner of administering to a young man's self-love. He was very soon persuaded that Miss Waldron was one of the most charming, as well as the most saintly, women of her times; only a grade or two below the perfection she sought to attain to. For she had confided to him, also, that the sole object of her life was her own sanctification, and the welfare of her perishing fellow-creatures.

Robert Waldron was uneasy about this new protegé of his sister's, with a sharp jealousy of his ten years' juniority, and the freshness of his manhood, which still wore the glory and brightness of a morning without clouds. The first moment in which his eye fell upon the clear-cut features, and the scholarly refinement of the young pastor's face, and his ears heard the pleasant and pure utterance of his voice, he had instinctively, and with a tremor of dismay, pictured to himself Hester sitting in her seat at chapel, with her sweet, pale face, and her grey eyes, with the soul shining through them, lifted up in wrapt attention to the preacher's words. He hoped ardently that he was a fool, and he tested him. But Carl was no fool; his mind was vigorous and cultivated, and his tact wonderful for a mere student. It was true that upon many points he was ignorant of the world's customs and usages; but his very ignorance was a charm; it was the pure innocence of a soul which had never looked into the muddy depths of worldly ways. Robert could not help but like him; yet he would gladly have sacrificed half his fortune to prevent Carl Bramwell becoming the co-pastor of the insignificant church at Little Aston. But fate and Miss Waldron were too strong for him.

It was well for Robert's peace of mind that he did not happen to be present at a short conversation which had taken place a morning or two after Carl's arrival. The appointed time for introducing him to his future charge at a church-meeting was drawing near; but until then, Miss Waldron had guarded her new acquisition from the intrusion of any unseasonable visitor. This evening he was to be received as co-partner with Mr. Watson in the presence of the assembled church; but early in the day a messenger arrived to say that the old minister was seized with an alarming access of his illness, and could not by any possibility leave his own chamber.

"The meeting must proceed as arranged," said Miss Waldron, decisively. "There will be the more necessity for it, as Mr. Bramwell must at once take upon himself the duties of the pastorate."

"And Hester Morley was to have been received into the church," observed Mr. Waldron.

"So she was!" exclaimed Miss Waldron, with a pause of deliberation; "what is to be done now, father?"

Carl had heard this name spoken for the first time with a quickened pulse and more attentive ear; but he waited a moment or two for Mr. Waldron's answer, which did not come.

"Who is Hester Morley?" he asked, with a slight hesitation in his manner, which escaped Miss Waldron's not very keen observation. It needed a very obvious emotion to be manifest to her rather dull sensibility.

"She is a young girl in my Bible-class," she replied, with an air of humility, "over whom I have watched most anxiously. She is little more than a child, and worse than motherless. But that is a painful topic to us all. Mr. Waldron was to have given her the right hand of fellow ship to-night, as next Sabbath is the ordinance."

"But cannot Mr. Bramwell receive her into the church?" suggested Mr. Waldron.

"I think not," she said, hastily. "Hester is very much attached to Mr. Watson, and- he to her. It would be unkind to him. No, no. That will not do."

"I will see Mr. Watson and Hester in the course of the day," said Mr. Waldron.

"No, no," she urged, in a peremptory tone; "it would divide the interest, and confuse Mr. Bramwell's thoughts, which should be centred on his own solemn obligations. Hester must wait."

"I have heard something of her and of her father from Grant," said Carl, still speaking shyly, and glancing about him to see if Robert was anywhere within hearing. "They must be among the most interesting people in our church."

"Well, I don't know," said Miss Waldron, rather sharply. "I think John Morley no more a Christian than any benighted heathen in foreign lands; indeed, in my opinion, he is worse. Hester is a white-faced, thin, overgrown girl, with very little to say for herself. We do not see very much of either of them; for, of course, they are in quite a different position from ours, and now that Hester is no longer a child, I do not know that it would be well for her to visit here. I dare say you will see John Morley to-night; and if you can bring him to any better state of mind, I shall rejoice greatly. You shall have my prayers in this, as in all your other important duties."

She looked up into his face with a smile of sympathy and sisterly interest; and the young man felt penetrated with a sense of gratitude to her. But it could not altogether blot out the thought of John Morley and his daughter, and the wonder whether Hester would not be admitted into the church that evening. As Miss Waldron had predicted, the mention of it only confused Mr. Bramwell's mind, which would otherwise have been centred upon his own solemn obligations. He remembered how Grant had once said of John Morley, "He would perhaps show his heart to you, Carl; but you will never come across him." Yet he was now about to enter upon a definite relationship with this very man, which would give him almost a right to seek his confidence. As for Hester, he felt a little disappointed at the portrait Miss Waldron had sketched of her, and he could not help smiling at the different colors in which Grant had painted it. No doubt Miss Waldron was more correct than Grant. She had seen Hester grow up under her eyes, and had known her face well. It provoked him greatly that amid all the solemn thoughts of this epoch in his life, a shade of vexation should come across him as often as the idea of Hester intruded itself upon his busy brain.

The church at Little Aston was by no means Carl Bramwell's ideal church. With the exception of the Waldrons and Morleys, it consisted almost exclusively of very ordinary and vulgar persons, of little education and not over-enlightened religion. Their number was not so large as that of his fellow-students, every one of whose faces he could read as he preached to them. But these people looking at him were his souls. Their eyes were the open windows of spirits who were to be led by him. A fine film of tears threw a hazy glory over them. He saw nothing of the smallness and commonness and vulgarity of this very common church, some of whom "served God," as Carlyle says, "by laboriously selling a red herring." Carl's blue eyes grew dim as he sat at Mr. Waldron's right hand in a square pew under the pulpit; and he felt what an awful thing it is to take the care of souls.

He was so wrapt in this enthusiasm, that he neither heard Mr. Waldron speak, nor the congregation rise to their feet, until a voice close beside him, a voice soft and sweet and clear, suddenly rang through his trance and startled him as with an electric shock. It was nothing more than a voice starting the tune for the hymn about to be sung, but Carl turned his head quickly to the spot whence it sounded. He could not be mistaken as to who were the white-haired and sorrow-stricken man, and the young girl standing closely at his side; and his own face flushed and burned with an uncontrollable emotion as he caught the glance of both their eyes. It was a hymn of welcome, and he could have wept, but for very shame facedness, as he listened to it.

His eyes were still dazzled, and his heart beating painfully, when, after Mr. Waldron had said what he had to say in introducing him to his church, he was obliged to stand up alone and face his people, to give utterance to some of the feelings of his heart towards them. He was speaking with a simple eloquence and earnestness, when the vestry-door near to him was opened softly, and his friend Grant stepped to Mr. Waldron's side, and whispered something in his ear. Carl paused, and Mr. Waldron addressed the meeting in a hurried and trembling voice.

"Brethren," he said, "our dear old pastor, who has been very ill, as you all know, is now on the point of death, and he desires to see his young colleague immediately, with brother Morley and myself. The necessity is urgent, and we must leave you at once. Let some among you engage in prayer.

A dead silence prevailed while Carl, with Mr. Waldron and John Morley, quitted the lighted chapel and plunged into the darkness of the streets. To Carl it seemed more like one of the many dreams of his student-life than the sober reality that it was. His ecstasy of emotion was not yet over; the voices which had welcomed him were still ringing in his ears. Yet he was here in the unlit street, following in silence as Mr. Waldron walked before him, and with a second companion known only to him by his melancholy history. He was going, too, to witness the death of an old man, his co-pastor, whom he had never seen. It could be only a dream. If there were anything real in this night's experience, it was that his ears had heard a voice which would make his heart restless till he could hear it again.

They soon reached the minister's little house, and saw one window brightly illuminated by the light which the dulled eyes of the dying often need as they go down into the valley of darkness. Carl shook off the enthralment and bewilderment of his fancies, and roused himself to realize the scene he was about to witness. Mr. Waldron knocked gently at the door, and it was opened in an instant by a woman who awaited their arrival. A line of light fell down the little garden they crossed; and for the first time Carl became aware that Grant was following them, and with him a slight girlish figure whose face was veiled.

He had not time to see more, for Mr. Waldron and John Morley had gone on, and were already ascending the staircase. The chamber into which they entered was barely and scantily furnished, except with books, for it had evidently been the study of the dying man, as well as his bedroom. Their footsteps sounded loudly as they trode across the bare and creaking boards. The curtains of faded chintz were drawn back from the bed, and the old minister's palsied head, propped up with pillows, was turned anxiously towards them. He fastened his glazing eyes upon Carl; and the two other men also turned their gaze instinctively upon him. Mr Waldron, in his hale and hearty old age, which as yet was only grey with the coming shadow; and John Morley with his air of a century of suffering, which caused him to equal the dying man in his burden of years. These three old men faced him, and looked upon his youth with profound interest. Again he felt himself in a dream, and the silence grew intolerable to him. It was broken by the old pastor stretching out his withered and shaking hand to him, and breathing the word, "Brother."

The single word spoken in the thin and labored voice of death, possessed a peculiar pathos, linking as it did the old man who was putting off his mortality, with his young successor rich in vigorous life. An eternal brotherhood linked all men together in an unbroken chain with the Divine Elder Brother, of whom they were both ambassadors. Carl's eyes grew clear, and shone with the kindling of a chivalrous enthusiasm upon the three aged men who confronted him.

"Yes," he said, grasping the chilly and wrinkled hand of the dying man in his own, "I am your brother; and I am ready to take up your work when you lay it down. What is it you will have me do? I have many years to live and work in yet."

"There is Hester standing behind you," answered Mr Watson.

She had glided in with her noiseless step, and stood near to him, waiting to approach more closely the old minister. Mr. Waldron's features brightened for an instant, and Mr. Watson raised his head eagerly.

"Come near to me, Hester," he said. "There is nothing that you may not hear. Wait a moment, all of you; I have something to say to you."

He lay still for a few minutes, collecting his thoughts and Carl looked round the bare room, whose emptiness and bareness made more chilly the atmosphere of death. Was this to be the end of the career upon which he had entered this evening? He did not dare to turn his eyes to the place where Hester sat, beside the pillow of her old friend; but he saw her, vaguely and indistinctly, bending over him and wiping the damp cold forehead with her handkerchief. There had been a thought of his own death all day in Carl's mind, as there is in every time of unusual agitation to a sensitive and visionary spirit, but it had not been a solitary and almost friendless death like this.

"I must speak," said the minister in a sad, and well-nigh querulous voice; "I have had very much to bear upon my soul because of my church. It has been a heavy charge; and there is a great deal to be done yet before it will be without spot or blemish. The task has been too hard for me. I pray God you may be stronger for His service than I have been."

"God looks upon your work with other eyes than yours," said Carl. "You will hear Him say, 'Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.'"

The dim eyes brightened a little as Carl's voice repeated the familiar words; but he shook his already trembling head despondingly.

"Nay, but I have not been faithful," he answered; "I have been afraid to speak, and kept silence often and often against my conscience. Brethren, bear with me this once. I am more afraid of God than of you at this moment. Your divisions and your want of brotherly love have been a heavy burden upon me. Brother Waldron there has been a canker-worm of worldly pride and self-will in your heart, which must needs be cast away. You have made us all feel it,--the Church and me. You were too great a man for us; there was no one to stand against you; and I never dared to say it till now."

His voice fell into almost inarticulate whispers, and he paused for more strength. Perhaps never did a deacon feel more completely confounded and thunderstruck beside his pastor's death-bed than did Mr. Waldron; but it was not a time for him to protest against his judgment.

"As for you, dear brother Morley," continued the painful voice, "you have been a continual sorrow and heaviness of heart to me. Look at what you are doing. You are throwing away your life, which ought to have been a blessing to all about you. You have made Hester's life a grief to her."

"It is not I who have done it," replied John Morley, with a quivering face.

"Nay, but it is you," he urged; "surely the past should be forgotten. I am very sorrowful for Hester; she has had a sore burden to carry also. Will you not take it from her? Now you are all here, I commend her to you; for in me she will lose a friend, and she cannot afford to lose any. She has been like a very dear daughter unto me. You will all take care of Hester."

He did not seem to expect any answer, but turned to Hester and smiled feebly upon her. A moment or two afterwards he resumed his speech.

"My child," he said, "I was to have received you into my church to-day. Surely I may do it now in the presence of these witnesses. Hester, I give you the right hand of fellowship, in token that you are received into the Church of Christ."

He laid his right hand in hers, and closed his weary eyelids, sinking back, as if exhausted, upon his pillow. Grant, who had stolen unperceived to the other side of the bed, placed his fingers upon his pulse, and made a sign to them to take Hester away. Carl bent down and put his mouth near to the ear of his dying colleague.

"I will stay with you till the end," he said.

"Ay, stay," he whispered; "I have need of you. I am afraid, still."

It was a long night, and Carl passed it in scarcely interrupted reverie as he watched the last ebb of life receding slowly from the heart of this stranger to whom he found himself united by so strong a tie. It was a night full of checks and chills upon his young enthusiasm. The charge, even of this humble church, had been too burdensome for its pastor. Towards the end he spoke often and incoherently of Hester, and was troubled for her, repeatedly recommending her to Grant and Carl. Then his voice sank into whispered murmurings, and breathed its last word in a tone which no ear could catch. Carl had become the sole pastor of the Church at Little Aston.

Breakfast was just finished, but the family had not yet dispersed, when Carl reached Aston Court next morning. There was a shade of embarrassment in Mr. Waldron's greeting, for he could not forget that this young man, who was under his patronage, had heard administered to him the sharpest rebuke it had ever been his lot to receive. Yet at bottom he was too true a man and too sincere a Christian to resent his dying pastor's reproach. He shook Carl's hand, therefore, with more warmth than usual, and looked cordially into his worn face, which was weary with the watching and the meditations of the night. Robert, who had been about to quit the table, lingered to listen to his report; with a secret impatience to hear what had occurred at the meeting the night before, and to ascertain whether Carl and Hester had yet seen one another. Miss Waldron was the first to inquire after the minister.

"He is dead," answered Carl, with the brevity of emotion.

"And what was the last utterance of our beloved pastor?" she asked. She had rather looked down upon the meek and timid old man during his lifetime; but she possessed the common and morbid curiosity for knowing the last words of the dying.

"It was inarticulate," replied Carl evasively "his voce failed him an hour or two before he died."

"But,"persisted Miss Waldron, "there must have been some last sayings which were articulate before he lost his voice. The last words of dying saints are very precious, and they should be made the property of the Church."

"He was speaking chiefly of two of the members of his church," said Carl, with reluctance; "it was his dying charge to me as his successor. He committed to my care those for whom he felt the greatest anxiety."

"And who might these be?" asked Miss Waldron; "two members of the Church! We can be of use to you here. You know nothing of your flock as yet; but we know them. Whom did our dear pastor so specially commend to your charge?"

Carl looked round at each face with doubt and irresolution. If Miss Waldron had been alone he would not have hesitated to tell her all; but how could he mention John Morley and Hester before Robert? Mr. Waldron guessed the reason of his reluctance, and would not yield to avoiding the utterance of John Morley's name.

"I can tell you, I believe," he said, addressing his daughter, "it would be Hester and her father."

A rapid tremor of agitation ran through Robert Waldron's frame, and he rose hurriedly from his chair as if to leave them altogether; but he only walked to the window and stood looking out upon the terrace before it.

"But Hester is no member of the Church," said Miss Waldron, almost peevishly; "and I want to know how ever she came to be present at the church-meeting last night."

"I gave her permission to be present," replied Mr. Waldron, in a mild, deprecating tone; "and, my dear, Mr. Watson received her into the Church last night before he died. It was no doubt informal; but I was present, and so were Mr. Bramwell, and her father. There was something very affecting in it, I assure you."

The tears stood in Mr. Waldron's eyes at the recollection. Everything which concerned Hester touched the softest part of his nature; and Miss Waldron would have been struck with utter amazement at her father's folly, if she could for a moment have seen into the close recesses of his heart.

"I never in all my life heard of such a thing," she exclaimed, pronouncing the words slowly, and with marked emphasis, "what could you all have been thinking of? Hester Morley at the death-bed of Mr. Watson! That girl is the most singular person I ever met with. I do not consider her fit for church-membership, as yet. She has the most independent notions, and no clear faith in one doctrine. Poor girl! She has grown up under great disadvantages."

She stopped abruptly, for it was impossible to enumerate Hester's disadvantages before her brother, who was chafing and fuming inwardly, but who did not care to leave the room, as long as Hester was the topic of the conversation.

"What disadvantages?" asked Carl absently; speaking only because Miss Waldron paused.

She darted an apologetic and beseeching glance at Robert, who now turned round with a face dark with anger.

"Mr. Bramwell," he said, in a tone which startled Carl from his absence of mind, "I suppose it is your right to learn the domestic history of your people; and I will leave you to hear that of the Morleys from my sister."

He walked out of the room without giving Carl time to answer; and Miss Waldron threw herself back in the chair, with her handkerchief to her eyes. Mr. Waldron, with an expression of shame and pain upon his face, was about to speak, when Carl interrupted him gently.

"I know it all," he said; "I knew it long before I had any thought of coming here. Grant wrote to me, and told me all he then knew, at the time he was attending Mr. Robert Waldron in Mr. Morley's house, about nine months ago."

Mr. Waldron regarded Carl with an air of profound astonishment, mingled with incredulity as to whether he had heard him aright; and Miss Waldron dropped her handkerchief, and turned a bewildered gaze upon him.

"Attending my son in John Morley's house!" ejaculated Mr. Waldron; "what did you say, Mr. Bramwell?"

"It cannot be a secret to you," answered Carl, taken by surprise, himself; "surely you knew it, Miss Waldron? Your brother was almost murdered at the door of Mr. Morley's house about nine months ago."

"Robert had an accident nine months ago," she said, "through which Mr. Grant nursed him; but it was at Beckbury, twenty miles from here."

"I have done wrong," cried Carl, with a look and tone of concern; "but it did not occur to me for an instant that you did not both know the facts. I knew that he wished the secret kept from the townspeople, which I very well understood. I beg of you not to betray my indiscretion to him. If you wish me to gain his esteem and friendship, it would only prejudice him against me."

He spoke with extreme earnestness, and addressed himself rather to Mr. Waldron than to his daughter. With her he felt sure that he was safe.

"But what is it?" asked Mr. Waldron, with impetuosity; "I must know the whole of it now. What did you say? Robert almost murdered at John Morley's door?"

Grant can tell you all about it," said Carl; "but if he will not, I will read his letter again, or put it into your hands, on condition that you do not betray either of us to your son. If I could see any good to result from letting him know of it, I would make no condition at all; but I do not."

"I will go and question Grant this moment," exclaimed Mr. Waldron, hurrying away with more than ordinary energy, and leaving his daughter alone with Carl. There had been very much to excite and trouble her in the foregoing conversation; for Robert had already insinuated to her his own apprehensions relating to Carl and Hester. It had been done with caution and finesse, but there was a dread in the depths of her own heart with which it exactly coincided. It would be hard indeed if Carl were so soon to cease to belong exclusively to herself. He drew nearer to her, and appealed to her in a tone of earnest but deferential importunity.

"Mr. Watson committed Hester Morley to the care of Grant and myself," he said, "but what can we do for her? It is you, who are so good, and to whom the Master has entrusted so many talents, who should be the friend of this lonely girl. I do not know what calamity Mr. Watson feared for her, but there seemed some special dread about her future. What could I do to protect her from sorrow and danger? I will be indeed her friend, but you are wiser and better than me; a woman like herself, your heart has a purity and tenderness unknown to man. You will be her friend, even as you are already so generously and so nobly mine?"

He spoke with eloquent warmth, and approached her so closely that his hand nearly touched hers. There was a peculiar fascination about the mere presence of a young and pleasing woman, such as she appeared to him; and this morning he felt more than usual the need of a woman's gentle ministry to chase away the gloomy impressions of the night.

"Ah!" sobbed Miss Waldron, with very real and very bitter tears, "I am so much your friend that I tremble for you; so impulsive and so inexperienced as you are. I am older than you, and have seen much, both in the Church and the world. I foresee that you may attain to great eminence and usefulness; but a single false step at the outset of your career may become your ruin. Be warned in time. I am frank with you because I feel a great regard for you. Leave the charge of poor Hester Morley to me, and do not take too great an interest yourself in her welfare. She is young and foolish, and might draw you into a difficulty it would be hard to escape from."

Miss Waldron succeeded in pronouncing these sentences in a tone penetrated with candor and a deep concern in him. The hot quick blood of his sensitive nature had mounted to his face, and a spark of almost angry resentment had kindled in his eyes; but he could not steel himself against her agitation and tears. There was subtle, delicious flattery in this warm interest of a woman, his elder and superior, which compensated for the gall of the admonition. When she raised her eyes to him, sparkling through her tears, they met a glance in his which made her heart glow with a sensation altogether new to her. Her eyelids dropped, and her lips trembled; but she mastered her emotion sufficiently to resume the conversation in a somewhat lighter tone.

"I speak for your sake," she said. "Hester has a certain amount of beauty which would make it excusable for a man young as you are to be attracted by it. But I know of no one so unsuitable to become a prominent member of any Church, such as a minister's wife should be. Of course, some day you will fall in love and marry, but I trust not with Hester Morley. She is visionary and unsound in the faith; she is not to be trusted. There is not the spirit of the daily cross in her. Though she is in the church, she belongs to the world. Her only friend is a frivolous Frenchwoman of the lower orders, a Papist; and Hester herself owns that she makes no effort to convert her. She says that she is too old for change, and too dark to understand our pure and lofty creed. I shall insist, some day, upon bearing the bread of life to this famishing soul; for Hester, who sees her frequently, does not feed her with a single crumb. You can judge how unfit she is for a post of honor in the vineyard. Therefore I warn you beforehand. 'As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion.'"

With this harsh quotation hurled at Hester, Miss Waldron concluded her admonition, and Carl remained silent. Seeing the impression she had produced, she recommended him, with an air of sisterly sweetness, to seek some repose before entering on the necessary preparations for the services of his first Sunday as pastor of the Church. Carl obeyed with alacrity, and shut himself up in his own room for the rest of the morning.

In the meantime Mr. Waldron was hastening with all speed to find Grant, before he left his lodgings to make his morning call upon his patients, whose number was increasing with fair rapidity under the prestige of Mr. Waldron's patronage. He burst upon him just as he was preparing to go out, and lost no time in beating about the bush. As a statesman Mr. Waldron had known no tactics, except that of asking straightforward and pungent questions; and he tried no other means now. Grant was as frank as himself; and having a greater respect for him than for his son, and being rather glad at Carl's inadvertence, he soon put Mr. Waldron into possession of all the facts he knew.

"But what rancor there must be in John Morley's soul!" cried Mr. Waldron, sinking into a chair and resting both his hands upon the arms of it. "I can barely credit it, Grant. Were you convinced then, both of you, that he, and nobody else, could have struck the blow!"

"Is there any other man who owes him such a grudge?" asked Grant, bluntly.

"Oh, I don't know," he answered, in accents almost peevish, and with a gesture as if he would have nothing to do with it. "My son has wounded me to the very quick; and I have ceased to seek out his faults. He will have to bear the consequences himself, here and hereafter."

His upright head sank a little on his breast; and his eyes, bright and undimmed still, met Grant's regard ruthfully.

"You are too hard upon him," said Grant, with an honest plainness which was as honey to Mr. Waldron. "I would stake my head that this is the only folly of which he has been guilty; and he was little more than a boy when he fell into it. He was four years younger than I am; and, dear me! what I might have done if I'd been rich and idle, and an only son, like him!"

Mr. Waldron breathed more calmly, and the rigid muscles about his mouth relaxed into the expression which generally served him as a smile. But his mind recurred to John Morley.

"Yet how could you account for him taking you into his own house?" he asked.

"He could do nothing else," answered Grant. "I walked into the nearest house with your son in my arms, and Hester had let me in before he knew anything of it. To screen himself he was obliged to let us remain. Neither of us believe that he had any previous design to attack him; but seeing him sauntering about the street which he was forbidden to enter, John Morley was overcome by a sudden access of revenge and passion. A blow struck more warily must have killed him; half an inch, ay, the tenth of an inch would have done it."

"But what weapon did he use?" asked Mr. Waldron, shuddering.

"Some days afterwards," he replied, "I saw in his workshop several iron bars, from a foot and a half to four feet in length. They are used for screwing up the binding-presses. If one of these happened to be at hand it would form a very likely weapon."

"I am afraid it must be true," said Mr. Waldron

"I am sure of it," replied Grant.

"But, how then?" he exclaimed, "you choose this man for your friend, you visit him daily, believing him all the while to be a murderer!"

"No more a murderer than you or I," said Grant, calmly. "I have studied John Morley; he is as soft-hearted as a woman, always apt to be overwhelmed by the sin and misery of the world. To him there must be a constant pressure of despair from the thought of the sin and misery of the wife he has loved and lost. If he knew for certain that she was dead, half his burden would fall off. When he saw your son, a frenzy seized him, and I do not wonder at the blow he struck. In many countries it would pass for a virtue rather than a crime."

"But he is a member of the church," said Mr. Waldron, "and attends the means of grace."

"Just now," answered Grant, "a long walk every day would be the best means of grace for him, and it would do him more good to be a member of the Alpine Club. The truth is, he is crusted over with morbid melancholy amounting to monomania. Why, I should commit a score of murders if I lived, as he does, in the eternal gloom of that house! So would you, Mr. Waldron."

"Hush! there he is," cried Mr. Waldron.

In a window nearly opposite them could be seen the head of John Morley set in the blackened and decayed frame of the casement. He stood motionless, looking upwards with blank eyes which evidently saw nothing. The deep lines in his face seemed more furrowed than ever, and his whole aspect was one of grim and perpetual hopelessness. He glanced round once, and his eyes appeared to sweep the full range of their sight as if searching for some object which he had lost, but which he had long since despaired of finding. Mr. Waldron watched him with painful and contending emotions.

"Grant," he said, "I'd give him half my possessions if they would do him any good. Yet he almost killed my son, my only boy! I feel nearer hating him than I ever felt towards any man. You do not know how a father feels! Why, it was only last night I shook the hand that had been raised against my boy's life! I hope I am a Christian. God deliver me in His abundant grace from the devil! But to think what it would have been if Robert had been murdered, and I had never heard him speak again. He was such a good boy once, Grant; a good, affectionate, conscientious boy was my Robert. Bob I called him then. And that man yonder had nearly killed him! I wish he would take half my fortune, and go away out of the country. But to-morrow I shall see him at chapel, and next week he will stand beside me at the grave of our old pastor. I had better go home and think it all over quietly by myself; and may God give me grace to prove myself a true Christian."

He wrung Grant's hand convulsively, and took a last furtive glance at the grey, despairing face in the window opposite. Then he retraced his steps homewards, and, like Carl Bramwell, shut himself up in his room alone to think over the discovery of John Morley's crime and Robert's danger.

Miss Waldron took care that Carl should have no opportunity of seeing Hester again until some of the excitement of his new position had worn off, and until she had established a stronger influence over him. It was astonishing how great an effect her clever platitudes had upon him. She possessed the art of investing commonplace observations with a seeming profundity which might easily have imposed upon an older man than Carl; while at the same time she surrounded him with those thousand minute delicate attentions which lie only in the power of a woman. Once or twice she drove with him to John Morley's house, and waited in the carriage at the door while he made a pastoral call; by which means she insured an extreme brevity of visit, and had the satisfaction of learning that Hester had not made her appearance.

How long she could have maintained this careful line of conduct is uncertain, if Grant had not been impatient to introduce Carl more familiarly to John Morley; and he took the first chance that presented itself. Carl naturally chose to see a good deal of his future brother-in-law; and though Grant was made welcome at Aston Court by all, even by Miss Waldron, who was fully awake to this weak point in her position, yet she could not forbid the young minister visiting him in his own rooms. A favorable opportunity occurred before long, when Grant invited him, without formality, to call upon John Morley.

"I want you, if possible, to infuse a little hope into his nature," said Grant; "and then, if I could induce him to shut up shop an hour earlier and take some healthy exercise instead of going to the prayer-meeting, we should make him a tenfold better Christian than he is. Don't you agree with me?"

"To be sure I do," answered Carl.

"Miss Waldron wouldn't," said Grant, laughing; "but it stands to sense that when a poor fellow's liver is as bad as a liver can be, he cannot be as good a Christian as he ought to be. I'll make you see that as plain as print, Carl, if you will only attend."

"Hadn't we better see Mr. Morley first?" suggested Carl.

"Well, I'm ready," he answered. "I don't need a hat just to cross the street. There a customer has gone in--a rare bird opposite--but if you like we will go and see Hester first. I am quite at home over yonder."

He proved the truth of his last words by entering the house without knocking at the door. The lobby had a damp earthy smell, at which he uttered a significant "Faugh!" He passed on without ceremony up the staircase to Hester's little sitting-room, the door of which was half open. It was the same homely, austere, bare room where Robert had passed his weary hours of convalescence. To Carl's student-eyes it was full of charms. The glitter of gilded bindings upon the bookshelves; the pile of snowy work upon the table where Hester had been sewing, with an open volume before her. A small thimble lay upon the page, so curious and rare a toy to Carl that he could not forbear to take it up and try it upon his own fingers, one after the other, until it fitted the least. He wished that Miss Waldron would sometimes employ her self with sewing. The open book was one of his special favorites; and several others upon the shelves were well worth his own reading. He put his hat down on the table near to Hester's work, and regarded the whole with a singularly pleased smile upon his lips. There were no more than two chairs in the room, Hester's and another. He took the other, and looked across to her seat beside the white work and the open book and the thimble lying upon the page. Miss Waldron's kind admonitions were all lost upon him.

He had been in the room, Hester's sanctuary, alone, for Grant had left him there while he went to seek her. Grant was not actually away more than a minute, for he had gone only to the end of the long passage, to the door which connected the workroom with the dwelling, and there shouted to Lawson, in his loud, sonorous voice, to ask if she was up in the attic. Hester's own clear tone had answered, inviting him to come up to her. He went back to fetch Carl.

"She says we are to go up to her," he announced.

"Who says?" asked Carl absently.

"Who says?" echoed Grant; "good gracious, Carl, what a dreamy fellow you are! Why, Hester says so, Hester Morley. I wonder at you. Come along with me."

Carl followed him, almost with a guilty conscience, a sense of treachery and disobedience to Miss Waldron. Yet was it not decidedly his duty to become acquainted with Hester? He would set so strict a guard over himself that he would not fall into the danger his kind sisterly friend apprehended. He knew indistinctly that they were passing through some remarkably dingy rooms and up a narrow staircase; and then they came to a flood of sunshine, and a glorified attic, with a young, lovely, graceful girl standing in the midst of the sunbeams, glowing and blushing with surprise, and looking into his face with shy, almost timid, grey eyes. It was time for Carl to shake off his absence of mind. It was perfectly necessary that he should conduct himself as a pastor. After uttering a few words, what he knew not, he looked round the curious apartment, and saw an undersized and withered-looking man standing behind Hester. When he met Carl's eyes he bowed profoundly, and with an ease that confounded the young scholar, who had made no study of any mode of salutation. It was a full minute before he could venture to glance at Hester again, but when he did so, she had turned back to the binding-press in the window where Grant was looking carefully at her work. Carl drew a step or two nearer to them.

"Mr. Bramwell," she said, "this is my own work. I have learned to gild the books after Lawson has bound them. This is Lawson, my father's bookbinder, and my oldest friend."

Carl shook hands cordially with Lawson.

"Mr. Grant ought not to have brought you up here the very first time," continued Hester, a little reassured. "I did not know you were with him, or I should have come down stairs to you."

"I am very glad you did not know," said Carl, with difficulty.

"I am not sure that I am altogether sorry," answered Hester, feeling a girlish sympathy with his evident embarrassment, and talking the more fluently because of it. "You know I have seen you several times already, though I have not spoken to you and I do not feel as if you were quite a stranger. Besides, Mr. Grant has talked to me a great deal about you and your sister. I know all about her; and I do hope she will like me very much when she comes to live at Little Aston.

Carl felt as if he should renounce his sister if she did not make Hester her chief friend--after Miss Waldron, perhaps.

"I think," said Hester, with a charming little toss of her head, "it is quite as well you should know at once that I belong to the working classes. Yes, I work up here five or six hours a day, for poor Lawson's hand is not always steady enough for it. I am not at all an idle, elegant young lady; Mr. Grant will tell you that. He sits by the press sometimes for a whole hour watching me."

What would not Carl give for such a privilege? He caught himself wondering whether he should ever do the same, and reproved himself sharply for it.

"Hester looks upon me as an old married man," said Grant, with a laugh; "and I believe I am the only one she ever sees, except her father and Lawson."

A flush crept slowly over Hester's face until it deepened into a crimson hue of shame, so plain and so painful that both of them turned away on pretence of looking at the specimens of binding upon the walls.

"She is as shy as a lapwing," whispered Grant in Carl's ear; "I ought not to have said it."

"We will go down stairs now," said Hester, after a moment's pause; and she took off her large apron, and smoothed down the sleeves which had been rolled up above her round and dimpled elbows. "My father will be very glad to see you, Mr. Bramwell. For the last three or four years Mr. Watson could not come often to see us and my father receives no other visitors, except Mr. Grant."

Carl followed her downstairs, wondering at his own silence and the difficulty he felt in speaking to her. Relief came to him in John Morley's presence, for the melancholy and reserved man brightened at the appearance of him and Grant. The fire and beauty of their early manhood, its freshness and buoyancy, had still a nameless charm for him in the midst of his disease and gloom. He listened to their keen lively conversation, and allowed himself to be drawn into its current. Carl was conscious of talking well and aptly, and of interesting his host; and he stayed so long that Grant was compelled to leave him. He scarcely knew how he had the courage and resolution to say farewell at last; but he awoke from a confused trance as his foot struck against the massive door-sill of the entrance-hall at Aston Court, and he felt that the next minute he should be in the presence of Miss Waldron.

Should he tell her where he had been, or keep it a secret from her? He felt guilty enough to know that he had gone very near the folly against which she had so emphatically warned him. Yet he was a free man, in bondage to no one. But did not any friendship, and especially a friendship so close and discriminating as Miss Waldron's, in some measure militate against freedom in its completeness? Did he not owe a return of frankness and confidence to one who was so entirely, so sweetly open to him? Yet, on the other hand, what had he to tell? He could not confess that he had put his hat down on the table close to Hester's work, and tried her thimble on each of his own fingers. His veins tingled at the recollection. No; there was nothing to say about his visit, and it would only give rise to misapprehension in Miss Waldron's mind if he mentioned it.

With this reflection, amounting almost to a resolution, he went on into the drawing-room, where, the servant told him, volunteering the information with a covert smile, he would find Miss Waldron. She greeted his arrival with the blandest of welcomes, and invited him to a seat upon an ottoman placed near to her own lounging chair in front of a window. She was herself in the shade of the curtains, which shed a becoming hue over her somewhat faded face.

"You have been absent for some time," she said, softly; "it is more than an hour since I went to the library to look for the seventh volume of Kitto, and you were then gone away. Have you been making some visits among our people?"

"I went to see Grant," answered Carl, with an air of hesitation.

"To be sure," she continued; "I suppose he is now very busy with his preparations. Is there nothing I can do to help them on? You know for your sister I should be delighted to do anything in my power; only I suppose we shall lose you when she comes to Little Aston."

Miss Waldron heaved a sigh, which spoke inexpressible things, and remained silently musing, with a sad eye fixed upon the future, for some moments. She then resumed her conversation rather abruptly.

"Then you only went to see Mr. Grant," she said.

"No, not exactly," stammered Carl; "at least, I went only with the intention of seeing him, but he asked me to go across with him to Mr. Morley's."

"Indeed!" said Miss Waldron, with a significant coldness in her tone; and then she betook herself to silence, which extracted more information from Carl than the most persevering cross-examination would have done.

"We went across," he said, in hurried accents; "and as Mr. Morley was engaged, Grant took me upstairs into the workshop where the binding is done. Hester was there but we stayed only a few minutes, and then we came down to see Mr. Morley. He is, as Grant says, a singular study; and it is possible that I may do him good."

"And get harm to yourself," she replied, forebodingly.

"No, I think not," he said; "but if it were so, should I do well to set my own welfare before his? Ought I never to run any risk to myself for the sake of the souls of my people? We applaud those who go into a plague house at the peril of their own lives; and should not I, in my ministry to others, sometimes lose sight of my own soul?"

"He spoke with ardor and agitation, while Miss Waldron fixed upon him a dull gaze of wonder and disapprobation.

"I do not agree with you," she said; "no charge can be so important as that of our own soul. But I will pray for you that you may not be overtaken in a snare. Would it not be a help to you if we met one another at the throne of grace at some stated time?"

Carl was perplexed, and looked questioningly into Miss Waldron's face.

"I scarcely understand," he said.

"I mean, shall we appoint a season when we may both pray in our own closets, with the knowledge that the other is similarly engaged at the same moment? It is a great help to those who try it."

Carl shaded his eyes with his hand, and steadily studied the pattern of the carpet before he replied. A man of his age and temperament is often more bashful, not to say modest, than a woman of Miss Waldron's years and disposition. He did not raise his eyes, and he looked very much put out of countenance.

"I think not," he murmured; "there is such a solemn secrecy in prayer between God and our souls. I feel as if we ought to be alone before Him. Some may find it a help, but I think it would distract me."

A silence of several minutes followed, which was be coming almost terrible to him; when at last Miss Waldron broke it in tones of profound emotion,-- "Still I will pray for you," she said, "and watch for your soul. I proposed it for your sake only, that you might feel that you were not contending with the tempter alone. You are not alone,--you never will be while I remain your friend."

She rose, sobbing, and retired, it may be supposed, to her closet; leaving Carl in an uncomfortable state of doubt as to whether he had not behaved like a brute.

The marriage of Grant with Carl's sister was celebrated as soon as they could enter into possession of their pleasant house on the road to Aston Court. It was within a few hundred yards of the park gates, and in the direct route between the Court and the town. As soon as Grant returned from the necessarily brief tour of a young country surgeon, Carl quitted Aston Court, and took up his permanent abode in their new home.

Miss Waldron had manifested a very charming interest in everything relating to Carl's sister; and had added several ornaments and luxuries to her dwelling even before having seen her. Nothing could surpass the emphasis of her patronage and kindness to the young wife, upon her entrance into her new sphere. Oddly enough, there was a superficial resemblance between Annie Grant and Rose Morley, which struck painfully upon Mr. Waldron, though it escaped the observation of his daughter. She possessed the same slight and girlish figure, and the same fair hair and blue eyes; yet the similarity of circumstances and position, in the first pride and happiness of marriage, may have formed the chief resemblance between them. The same impression was produced by her on the mind of Hester. She had not been witness to the gay and innocent importance of a young wife since she had seen it in her stepmother. The old memories rushed back like a flood upon her, and the old sadness, which had been lighter of late, once more returned to her face.

It is probable that John Morley himself was oppressed by this likeness; for even his friendship for Grant and Carl, a passive, undemonstrative sort of friendship, was not strong enough to induce him to traverse the market-square of Little Aston, and approach the gates of Aston Court, in order to pay a wedding visit to the young doctor and his bride. Annie Grant went to see him, but her gay looks, her cheerful voice, and the bright colors of her dress, all jarred upon his morbid nature. After her visit, he had an access of melancholy which reacted upon Hester. They felt that they dwelt apart in a charmed circle, which they could not pass, and which no other could enter. Yet there was one other encircled by the same heavy chain who could no more escape from it than they could. Robert Waldron stood aloof from all the small festivities of the honeymoon; and his obvious melancholy strengthened the link between him and Hester. These others, so glad and happy, and hopeful, what had they in common with her? Their eyes were too dazzled with light to see clearly into the darkness where she and her father dwelt. She loved them with a love which excluded envy, but fate placed her altogether apart from them all.

She did not go so often as she might have done to Grant's house, or so often as Carl had, unconsciously to himself, hoped she would have done. He did not associate with her in the pleasant familiarity he had looked for. To be sure his actions were now free from the hourly scrutiny of Miss Waldron; but her kindly surveillance was not at an end. The distance between the two houses was not great, and there was no part of the town to traverse. She could come up in the most negligent and becoming morning costume, or even with a shawl thrown over her evening toilette, to spend only a few minutes with dear Mrs. Grant, at the most unexpected of hours. Her studies were growing more profound than ever, and Carl's Hebrew and Greek were in perpetual request. She soon knew the place of every book upon his shelves better than he did, and often employed herself with setting them in order for him. He felt that he ought to be grateful, and he strove to be so. It was impossible for him not to be pleased and flattered.

Robert Waldron did not miss seeing his advantage, and making the most of it. Hester went the oftener to visit Madame Lawson, because she could take no pleasure in going to Grant's house; and he did not fail to meet her there as often as he judged it prudent. It had become an unnecessary thing to make any excuse for seeing her thus, as Hester had fallen into a habit of taking it tacitly for granted. In a place so small as Little Aston it required some tact to prevent their meetings becoming known; but he was a master of ingenuity. Besides, the entrance to the court was not commanded by any window, except those of the house where old Mr. Watson had used to live. The few inmates of the court were working folks, who had enough to do to mind their own business: and the woman of the house he gained over by judicious presents. There was positively no danger, either to Hester or him, of their secret being betrayed. He considered himself advancing, with sure and steady progress, towards his end.

Hester's new melancholy was rather a soft and tender sadness than the old, hard, gloomy monotony of the continual weight of dejection. There is a moment in the early dawn when the growing light seems to tremble and draw back a little, as if it would fain linger longer in the dark mantle of the night. Such a moment had come to Hester. Her eyes had caught a light brightening on the horizon, and her heart had felt a glow of warmth reaching it; and for a moment or two longer she wished to keep her eyes closed, and take back the familiar chill to her heart. She knew herself no more. Caprices, foreign to her hitherto, had gained the mastery over her. Sometimes a passion of tears shook her; at others a vehement desire to exhaust herself by action, when the binding-press in the attic seemed like a refuge to her. The shrewd old Frenchwoman fancied she could read the girl's heart like an open book; and a hundred cunning little wrinkles netted themselves about her eyes and lips. She assured milord Robert that before long it would be quite safe to tell Hester of his love.

It was the hope, both of Mr. Waldron and Robert, that Grant's marriage might open the way naturally for once more inviting Hester to visit at Aston Court. The small festivities attending it might include her. When, therefore, Miss Waldron announced her opinion that it would be but a graceful courtesy to invite Grant, his bride, and Carl to dinner, with something of ceremony and state about it, Mr. Waldron gently insinuated that Hester, also, might be induced to join them, or rather that John Morley might listen to the invitation. Miss Waldron would probably have scouted the idea with indignation, had not Robert warmly seconded his father. She knew exactly how far she could venture in opposition to her brother; and it was very plain that he had so set his heart upon this as to make contradiction dangerous.

In consequence, Mr. Waldron was permitted to introduce the subject to John Morley, which he did in an informal manner at the close of a Sunday evening service, judging it best to take him utterly by surprise. Mr. Waldron had shaken hands with Hester, and looked into her face with one of his half-fatherly glances of affection, when be turned to John Morley with an air as if he had but just thought of the matter.

"By the-by, Mr. Morley,"--he had dropped the epithet, brother, some time ago,-- "Grant and our young minister, with Mrs Grant, dine with us to-morrow. I think you ought to let my little friend Hester come with them. She wants some young society. Give me your promise that she shall come to-morrow."

He waited with ill-concealed anxiety for the answer, and John Morley looked keenly but silently at him; longing to inquire whether Robert was at Aston Court, for he knew nothing of his movements, yet unable to pronounce his name.

"Should you like to go, Hester?" he asked.

Hester's heart had bounded with mingled surprise and pleasure at Mr. Waldron's invitation. For the last week or two time had been very monotonous and irksome to her, and she felt a girl's natural desire for some change.

Besides there was no shock to her in the idea of meeting Robert Waldron, whom she had seen so often of late.

"I should like it very much, she answered, "if you would not be grieved, father."

"No, no," he said, hurriedly. "She shall come, Mr Waldron, she shall come."

John Morley drew his daughter's hand through his arm as they passed through the chapel porch, and looked down upon her questioningly by the light of the lamp hanging over the entrance.

"Hester," he said, with a new tone of tenderness in his voice, "Hester, they invite you now to their parties. Is it that you are grown up into a woman?"

"I suppose so, father," she answered, half gayly and half sadly.

"How old are you then, child?" he asked.

"I am nearly twenty," she replied.

"Twenty!" echoed John Morley. "And I have taken no count of the years! Your mother was older than you when I married her; and she has been dead these nineteen years. Have you any thought of being married, Hester?"

The question was put in simple seriousness, but in the tone rather of a friend, than of a father, who might expect to have a voice in the matter. Hester's hand trembled a little upon his arm, but he did not perceive it.

"How should I, father," she said.

"Ah! how should you?" he repeated. "You see no one, and know no one. Yet, my child, I should like to know that you were happily married. When I think of it I feel that I have done you a great wrong. But you shall go this once to Aston Court. Have you any pretty dress you can wear, child?"

It was so extraordinary a thing for John Morley to concern himself in so frivolous a subject as dress,--his own or anyone else's--that Hester could scarcely believe she had heard him aright. Her wardrobe was scanty, for money was scarce, and becoming more so every month; but she assured him, with an evasion very like a deviation from strict truth, that she should do very well.

"Hester," he said, when they had reached a dark part of the street, and she could not see his face, though she could detect a sharp anguish in his voice, "do you know if his son is at home?"

"Yes," she answered softly, and pressing his arm to her side.

"You will see him, and speak to him," he resumed. "I cannot. God forgive me in this, if I sin in it. I believe it would kill me to meet either of them; and I am not fit to die yet. But they say he is contrite and repentant. I give you my consent to see him."

The confession that she had already seen him trembled upon Hester's lips; but the recollection of his prolonged agony of despair sealed them. If she had had anything definite to tell him about Rose she would have had the courage to do it; but to say only that she was lost would be simply to awaken the sharpness of his grief again. She resolved to pursue her course of concealment, and to hide everything from him that could add to his sorrow. It was a perilous path for a young girl to choose.

Robert heard that Hester was positively coming to Aston Court, with a delight which he could scarcely disguise. Ever since he had come to the conclusion that she, and she alone, could satisfy his fastidious notions of what his wife must be, he had longed to avail himself of the advantages his position and surroundings gave to him. Hitherto she had met him only in Madame Lawson's garret; and he wished her to see him in his own sphere,--the master of a position which must dazzle her young mind. He contrasted with self-gratulation the sumptuous elegance and costly taste which he had introduced into his father's mansion, with the bareness and poverty of her own home. All the next morning he sauntered about the handsome rooms, and the terraces, where still lingered much of beauty, even in the later days of autumn. He pleased himself with picturing Hester at his side, expressing more by looks than words her shy pleasure in this loveliness and luxury. By a curious perversity of reasoning, he had begun to regard a marriage with her as a fitting compensation for the wrong he had been guilty of towards her family. He felt sure that he could make his father acknowledge the strength of his arguments; but how could he convince John Morley? He must secure Hester's love first.

The evening came, and the hour when Hester should arrive. Miss Waldron had sent a carriage to Grant's house, for Carl was suffering from a cold, which made it necessary to load him with most gentle attentions. She had, however, let Hester slip out of her mind; and as Annie Grant and Carl had no knowledge of her accepted invitation, they had, of course, come without her. Robert felt a wrathful pang of disappointment; though he was not altogether sorry that Carl and Hester had not been riding in the same carriage. Mr. Waldron himself was keenly disappointed. The night was dark and foggy, and Hester had no one to escort her through the lonely park. Miss Waldron said she was sorry with a lurking smile of satisfaction, and busied herself to see that Carl had the warmest seat by the fire. Robert made no complaint, but went out quietly to order the carriage back to Little Aston, and at the moment that he passed through the hall, the large doors were thrown open by a servant, and Hester herself appeared upon the threshold.

She stood still for an instant, with a glance, half-frightened, into the great hall, which was brilliantly lit up. Her lips were slightly parted, and her breath came flutteringly with the speed at which she had been walking, and her large grey eyes were still deep and dark with the darkness through which she had come. The night, with its thick fog, looked black behind her, while the colored pavement of the hall and the stained glass of the lamp over her head, made the foreground rich in tone. The strong contrast of light and shadow, with Hester standing on the line which separated them, looking lonely, embarrassed, and timid, formed a perfect picture to Robert's eyes. He hurried forward to welcome her, and the servant drew back respectfully.

"Is it possible you have come all alone?" he asked.

"I had no one to come with me," she replied. "I went to Mrs. Grant's, but she was gone. I was obliged to walk on alone or return home."

"Did you wish to come so much?" he said, lowering his voice. "Are you, then, glad to be here again, Hetty ?"

Her answer was not ready, and her eyes drooped till he could see the nervous quivering of the long eyelashes.

"I think I am," she said at last; "I am not sure. In some things it seems scarcely right to be here; but still I am a little glad."

The gladness was so qualified, and the qualification so conscientiously expressed, that Robert did not know what to reply.

"Go and take off your shawl," he said, touching it lightly with his hand; "I will wait here for you to take you in the drawing-room."

He watched her intently as she followed his sister's maid up the broad low steps of the staircase with a subdued and quiet grace which was perfectly in tune with his matured taste. He paced up and down the hall, chafing at every moment she was away. There were twenty minutes yet till the hour for dinner, and he would keep her all to himself for that short period. Impatient as he was, he did not see her descend the staircase, and did not know she was close beside him, so noiseless was her approach, until she spoke in tremulous accents, and then he started violently. There was a scarcely-mastered excitement in herself which lent a color to her cheek, and when she placed her hand upon his offered arm, he felt that it was trembling.

"We will not go into the drawing-room just yet," he said; "I have a painting or two to show you."

He led her into a room which had been built especially for his own use, since his return to Aston Court. It was lofty and spacious, and wainscotted throughout by carved panels of some light wood which had a pleasant lustre upon its surface. There were a few good pictures, and here and there a handsome cabinet or book-case. At one end was an organ which he had ordered to be made for this particular place, that the volume of sound should suit the space exactly; for he had become almost a master of music. A piano stood beside the organ. There was nothing of beauty or luxury lacking which his heart could desire; and over all a soft light was shed by shaded lamps. He led Hester to the hearth, and placed her in a low chair before the fire. There he stood, with his arm resting on the mantel-piece, looking down upon her drooping head and shy, almost awkward, attitude of embarrassment. How poorly she was dressed, in her grey stuff gown, with her sole ornament, a little silver brooch, fastening the collar round her graceful throat. There was not a maid-servant in the Court who could not have put on a smarter dress to go out on a visit. It would form an odd contrast with his sister's toilette, and the unfaded finery of the young wife. But he liked it well. The very poverty and simplicity of Hester's appearance was charming to him. Perhaps she guessed partly what he was thinking about as his downward gaze scrutinized her, for she glanced up to him with a smile of singular archness and sweetness.

"I am not very fit for such a grand place," she said.

Not fit for such a grand place! Robert's heart bounded, and the blood tingled through his veins. What did Hester mean, wont as she often was to betray her thoughts with innocent frankness? Has she been thinking of her self as--as--? Robert could not finish the sentence in his own mind. What should he say to her? It would be something excessively significant, or excessively commonplace. How much dare he say to her?

The opportunity of saying anything was snatched from him; for, while he hesitated, the door opened, and Mr Waldron made his appearance. He did not see Hester until she rose from her low chair, and then he arrested himself with an exclamation of astonishment.

"Why, Robert! Why, Hester!" he ejaculated.

Robert was never at a loss as to what to say to his father, and now he found himself able to speak fluently.

"I found Miss Morley just come in," he said; "and as she was both cold and agitated by her lonely walk through the park, I brought her in here for a few minutes before taking her into the drawing-room."

"Oh !" was all that Mr. Waldron could at first reply. He knew that his son must have seen Hester at the time that he was lying ill in John Morley's house; but he had no idea that any intimacy could have been founded upon that ill-omened introduction. He recovered, however, from his profound amazement enough to give Hester a most cordial welcome; and then he conducted her himself to join the rest of the party.

It was a more than usually pleasant evening both to Miss Waldron and Robert. She kept possession of Carl, and paid him every possible attention; while Robert scarcely quitted Hester's side. This devotion did not escape his sister's observation, but it served her purpose well; and she could not descry any danger in it. It kept Carl away from Hester, and threw him solely upon her blandishments. Robert's delight in Hester increased hour after hour; and when the evening was ended, and she had gone away, this time in the carriage which also contained Carl, he resolved to ask his father's counsel and consent to his marriage with John Morley's daughter before many more days had passed.

For several months past Mr. Waldron's first earthly wish had been, as we know, to see his son married. He was satisfied for his daughter to remain unmarried, as she adorned a single life by so much zeal and devotion; and perhaps he was reconciled to it the more readily as his family name would not be transmitted through her to posterity. But already Robert had attained an age when a man grows more difficult to please, and more discriminating as to feminine perfections. Hester ought to have been a hundred-fold more flattered by his preference than she could have been by the love of Carl Bramwell. Mr. Waldron's search after a daughter-in-law, whose price should be above rubies, was becoming an almost despairing pursuit; and Robert gave him no assistance. On the contrary, he appeared to be settling down into an indolent, self-indulgent bachelorhood. The day following that on which he had found Hester seated at Robert's fireside, with him leaning over her in a lover-like attitude that had struck him with amazement, the father and son walked out amicably together over the farm-lands belonging to Aston Court. Both felt that the time was come when they must speak to one another upon that which occupied their thoughts; and Robert preferred doing so as far from the presence of Miss Waldron as possible. He accompanied his father to the end of a stubble-field which was to lie fallow during the winter, and then he commenced the conversation in as composed a tone as if he were making some agricultural observations.

"I think, father," he said, "that it is time I married."

Mr. Waldron planted his stick firmly into the soil, as if he intended it to take root there, and gazed anxiously into his son's face.

"To be sure, Robert; to be sure," he cried.

"You were surprised to find Hester alone with me yesterday," he continued.

"I was," replied Mr. Waldron, briefly.

"Father," he resumed, stammering a little, "it was not at all the first time I have seen her of late. We know one another very well. The fact is, I happened to meet with her in the house of an old Frenchwoman."

"You don't mean the mother of John Morley's workman?" interrupted Mr. Waldron.

"Yes," said Robert, "I have met her there many times during the last few months."

"Robert," interrupted his father again, with an expression and tone the most severe he could assume towards him, "you cannot mean to tell me that you, a man of the world, knowing how ready the world is to gossip, can have taken advantage of Hester's ignorance to draw her into a clandestine intercourse with you?"

"I have," owned Robert, in some confusion.

"I wonder how you dare to confess it," continued Mr. Waldron, leaning heavily upon his stick, as if his son's words had wounded him deeply; "she is so simple, so unsuspecting! She did not know to what censure she exposed herself. Suppose your sister had found it out!"

Mr. Waldron's face wore an aspect of real terror; but Robert smiled a little to himself.

"I took care that nobody should know," he said; "you need not be afraid for Hester. But now you will not be surprised to hear me say that I love her more than any woman I ever saw; ay, more than I ever supposed I could love. It seems to me that there can be no love in the world like that I feel for my little Hetty."

Robert's handsome face, with its new air of profound and passionate tenderness, looked handsomer than ever as he spoke; and his father, regarding him fondly, fancied that any woman would forgive him any previous folly.

"But have you forgotten the past," he said.

"Forgotten it!" he exclaimed; "have you or my sister suffered me to forget it? Forget it! Why, I have only to look into Hester's face with all its sweetness and beauty, and there I see my sin written legibly in its sad lines. How can I forget, when it is Hester herself I love, in spite of everything."

"But what can be done?" asked Mr. Waldron, despondingly.

"I want to atone to her for all these years she has lost," he answered, with vehement earnestness. "I will make her after-life so bright that she shall forget all early sorrow. I will lift her out of the miserable confined lot that is hers, and give her a rank and wealth she could never reach without me. If she was but my wife I should have no fear for her happiness."

"But it is morally impossible," objected Mr. Waldron; "John Morley--"

"He must consent," interrupted Robert, "if I only make sure of Hester. He is very poor, almost to bankruptcy. He is ageing fast, and Hester's future must be an anxiety to him. He is already reconciled to you, and has allowed her to visit here, knowing that she must meet me. If you will only help me, he will come round in time. He must--he shall."

For a few minutes both father and son were plunged in profound thought. The rooks flew heavily above their heads, disturbed by their presence, and manifesting their discontent by hoarse cawing. The young cattle came near enough to contemplate them with their brown eyes. There was a sharp struggle going on in Mr. Waldron's mind which was scarcely visible in his face, so long accustomed to hide his emotions. He was, as his old minister had told him, a proud man; and he had sometimes regarded John Morley as a person in a very inferior position. John Morley was, in fact, nothing more than a tradesman, and one in difficult circumstances; and it was his only son, his heir, who wished to bring the daughter of the poor bookseller into his wealthy family as his wife. Yet Hester was so pretty, so simple, so clever; she was so good also, that, but for the accident of her birth, there could be no one more worthy of being his daughter-in-law. Besides, Robert was very obstinate if he was opposed. He would refuse to look out for a more suitable wife, if he should deny him his consent and assistance.

"I talked about it with Mr. Watson before his death," said Robert, at last breaking through the silence, "and he said he did not see any insuperable difficulties, or any insurmountable objections in the way. He did not seem to see them so clearly as I did."

"He was a timid man," replied his father, "and would agree to all you said. But how did he come to know of it before me?"

"He saw me once or twice follow Hester into the court," he answered, "and he had courage enough to speak very faithfully on the subject, I assure you. Well, he did not see why Hester should not in time become my wife. He said, however, that it would be more likely to come to pass if we only knew for certain that poor Rose was dead. It is my firm conviction that she is dead but I can get no proofs."

"Robert," said Mr. Waldron, earnestly, "you are losing sight of John Morley's implacable hatred. Ah! my boy, you kept from me the history of that blow which almost killed you last February. It was then you first saw Hester and fell in love with her. I do not wonder at it. But do you imagine that if he seeks your life, you can ever gain his consent or hers?"

"I think," answered Robert, "that his revenge spent itself in that blow. He is a good man, a religious man. He was hurried by a sudden passion into the attempt to commit that crime; but as it failed,--luckily for me,--he soon repented of it, and was not sorry to extend his kindness to me. We have now something to forgive one another. I am more equal with him, and that is so much in my favor. Why else was he so hospitable and kind towards me? He visited me once, and spoke as a friend would have done. He knew Hester saw me often, and yesterday he allowed her to come once more to our house. I hardly dared to hope before; but now with you to help me, I shall win Hester as my wife."

His face, dearer to Mr. Waldron even than that of his daughter, shone with more gladness and hope than had been seen upon it for many years. His father could object no longer, but gave his hand a warm and fervent grasp.

"I will help you, my boy," he said; "yet I had my own little scheme for Hester, and it is possible it may prove in your way now. The moment I set my eyes on young Bramwell, I thought he would make a good husband for the little girl. They were both so young, so good, and so handsome. Our family owes John Morley a compensation, and I fancied I had found it in him. I would have given her a wedding dowry that would have made them almost independent of his Church, wherever he goes. But now I hope he will not be in your way."

He looked anxious lest he should himself have destroyed the chances of his son's happiness. Robert also was grave, counting up all the symptoms he had detected of love between Carl and Hester. They were very few, almost none. It had not escaped his notice that his sister was making herself foolish, as he termed it, about the eloquent young preacher, ten years her junior, and he built some hopes upon that; the more so as Carl came frequently to Aston Court and spent a good deal of time with Miss Waldron. Under other circumstances he would probably have manifested his disapprobation of such an intimacy with unmistakable plainness, but he hailed it as a sign that Carl preferred his sister's mature piety to Hester's girlish prettiness; and he was more than content to let the intimacy run a smooth course.

"I am not much afraid of him," he said; "yet I should have been quite as well pleased if you had chosen a more commonplace man for Little Aston."

"I chose him for Hester," replied Mr. Waldron, in a tone which betrayed a lingering reluctance to abandon his favorite scheme; "they are just suited for each other. I thought so last night. I wish you could give up this notion, Robert."

"Never!" he exclaimed, vehemently. "I tell you I worship her. She is the only woman who can make me care for goodness or religion, or things of that sort. I have had enough to disgust me with it, but Hester makes it soothing and pleasant again. If I am ever to be anything but the idle, purposeless fellow I am, doing no good in life, it will be by winning Hester."

Mr. Waldron sighed deeply, but he did not attempt to explain his sigh. Robert's state of mind was still, as it had always been, a grief to him; but he had come to the point of no longer pressing religious expostulation upon him. His sigh, however, included something more than that. There was a misgiving in it lest Carl, whom he had brought to Little Aston for the very purpose, had not already gained possession of Hester's love. But deeper still lay an unconquerable dread that it would be impossible to overcome John Morley's instinctive repugnance to give his daughter to the man who had brought so indelible a stigma upon his name. Every one else might plead the youth and thoughtlessness of the college lad, for Robert had been little more than that; but could it be hoped for that that dishonored husband should thus excuse him, or could ever be brought to look upon his conduct as the careless folly of a boy who had not learned to master his passions? They walked homewards in almost unbroken silence, and Mr. Waldron shut himself up in his private room to deliberate upon all the bearings of the matter.

The more Mr. Waldron considered the subject upon which Robert had consulted with him, the more dubious he grew as to the possibility of winning over John Morley, unless, indeed, Hester's own happiness should depend upon his consent. He endeavored to place himself in the position of the dishonored man; but the power of seeing with other people's eyes cannot be acquired at the age of sixty-eight. He saw his son, handsome, accomplished, and rich, with a brilliant lot to offer; and he could see Hester clearly, as a very eligible daughter-in-law in every respect, except by birth. There had been always a peculiar softness in his heart towards Hester,--an anticipatory tenderness, perhaps. He would like exceedingly to have her always near to him. But John Morley was, as he always had been, wrapped in an impenetrable mystery. He could no more understand him, members as they were of the same church, than Peter could understand his beloved brother Paul.

Mr. Waldron glanced but briefly towards the world, though, no doubt, it would have something to say to such a marriage. Ten years ago its tongue had been busy with the story of Robert's sin; and the world has a retentive memory for scandals. It would, perhaps, be easier to pacify John Morley himself than to satisfy its scruples, sometimes more exacting and delicate than those of an individual conscience. But Mr. Waldron was not accustomed to consider the world. He had long since turned his back upon it, and treated its opinions with contempt. If he approved of the matter, and the Church supported him, he could very well afford to leave all question of the world out of the transaction.

To make sure of the pastor was one means of securing the approbation of the Church. He did not wish to startle or shock that small congregation of faithful men over whom he and Carl Bramwell presided. They were a simple, uncultivated class, not accustomed to split straws, but it was within the bounds of possibility that they might be scandalized by his son's marriage with Hester Morley. There was a broad though undefined code of Christian morality written most plainly upon unsophisticated hearts which he was afraid of transgressing; and upon this one weak point he yearned for the sympathy of his fellow-churchmen. It was not a formal approbation that he could receive or they give, but simply the encouragement of unchanged looks and undiminished reverence. He resolved, first of all, to sound their young pastor.

It was late in the November afternoon, and Carl was deeply absorbed in study, with that utter oblivion of the outer life which is known only to students. Certainly there was a pleasant impression of the previous evening hovering about him like a sunny mist, and mingling subtly with every movement of his thoughts. He came up from the depths at the entrance of Mr. Waldron into his study, with something of the bewilderment of a pearl-diver who has been long under the water. It was not for a moment or two quite clear to himself who he was, or who was the intruder coming in with all the freedom and ease of a patron.

"I wish to have a confidential conversation with you, said Mr. Waldron, after a few minutes' desultory talk; it is strictly a family matter. You are already well acquainted with the circumstances of my son's sojourn in John Morley's house."

"Certainly," answered Carl, starting into a very keen, quick-eared attention.

"You know, too, the whole history of his second wife," he continued; "I am far from casting undue blame upon her, but she was a giddy, childish young woman, with no steady principles to protect her. There had been some love-making between her and Robert at Oxford, before she had ever seen John Morley. She was fully as old as he was, therefore, as a woman, she may be considered several years older. She came here, heard nothing of Robert for a year or two, and at last married for a home. You know the rest."

"Yes," said Carl, his elbow resting on his desk and his hand shading his eyes.

"Tell me," resumed Mr. Waldron, "what you suppose the consequences must be to my son? He has long since repented of his sin. Is he to bear the burden of it his life through?"

"Nay," answered Carl, his lips parting with a smile of great tenderness; "you, who are an elder in the Church, know the grace of God better than I can do. There is no burden of sin we may not cast away before the face of the Father."

"But are the consequences to remain?" asked Mr. Waldron. "Is he always to bear the stigma of his sin? Is he not free to act as if he had never been guilty? Ought the transgression to be forgiven by every man as well as by God?"

Carl paused. There was a swift current of sympathy and love running clear and unobstructed through his young spirit which carried him irresistibly towards the side of mercy. He was as yet a mere student in human nature, and had no actual wrestle with temptation. He had not seen sin face to face. At present it was a veiled and awful form for him; he had not beheld its hideous features, and received the ineffaceable memory upon his heart.

"'None of the sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him,'" he said in a lowered and reverent voice.

"You yourself would act upon that," pursued Mr. Waldron. "My son is the same in your eyes as though he never was guilty of this sin."

"Perhaps not altogether that," answered Carl; "but who among us would enforce a penalty if God does not? If He will make no more mention of his transgression why should we?"

It was Mr. Waldron's turn to pause and reflect. His anxious face grew darker, and the knotted veins in his forehead became larger. He did not feel quite sure of Robert's repentance, though he longed to believe in it. He wished to believe that his own prayers through so many years had not failed in the court of heaven. Perseverance in an earthly court must have prevailed before this. He argued illogically. Because he had so earnestly prayed that his son might truly repent, his professed repentance must be sincere.

"Mr. Bramwell," he said, suddenly, "what do you think of Hester Morley?"

If Carl had been asked unexpectedly what he thought of the cherubim, he could not have been more stupefied or at a loss. He gazed blankly at Mr. Waldron, and did not reply till that gentleman repeated the question.

"Oh! I think she is very good," he answered somewhat coldly; "she is a member of the Church, and an excellent daughter. My sister is very much attached to her."

"You have not seen much of her?" remarked Mr. Waldron.

"Very little," he replied.

"Would it astonish you?" said Mr. Waldron, hesitating; "would it shock you in any way if you heard that my son, having seen her a good deal while he was ill this spring, was very anxious, nay, bent upon making her his wife?"

"Impossible!" ejaculated Carl, starting from his seat as if he had been shot. He took a hasty turn or two across his study, and then came back to his chair opposite his visitor. " I think I must have misunderstood you," he said with a ghastly effort at a smile. "Did you say that Mr. Robert Waldron wishes to make the daughter of John Morley his wife?"

"Yes," replied Mr. Waldron, briefly.

"It is impossible!" said Carl. "Your son's sin demands great charity from us; but he must not ask Hester to share the burden he has to bear all his life long. Oh, it would not be possible!"

"But is my son never to marry?" asked Mr. Waldron.

"Yes!" cried Carl; "let him find some one with a spirit which would not be bowed down by such a burden. But Hester is too young, too ignorant of life, too simple-hearted. He would do well with a wife like his sister, strong in her own faith, and able to fight with him against his spiritual foes. Why should Hester's young and innocent heart be joined to one which must ever bear the sting of a sore repentance?"

"You are a young man, yourself," said Mr. Waldron, as Carl paused; "a very young man. There are scores, hundreds of marriages,--ay! and happy ones,--where there has been an early folly like this. Hester would be rich, happy, and beloved. If John Morley should be reconciled to Robert, he would become a member of our Church, and would be ready to take my place in it when I am gone. Moreover, there was a something in Hester's manner last night which makes me hope that she is not averse to Robert. You may have seen it yourself--a pretty, pensive, gentle pleasure in listening to him."

"Yes," replied Carl, who had watched Hester furtively during the whole of the previous evening, and who had seen every little gesture and every expression of enjoyment that had escaped her.

"Then if she loves him," resumed Mr. Waldron, "and if that folly of his youth should not be remembered against him now he is a man, I see no impediment to their marriage. I see in it rather a compensation for the past. If John Morley's poverty and shame have come from us, surely the honor of marrying his daughter into our family ought to balance it. Do you agree with me?"

Carl's restless hand moved absently among his papers. His face had grown pale, and his bright, keen sight, dim. Until this moment he had looked at John Morley's misery from the outside. By temperament he was profoundly sympathetic, and was touched to the quick by the feelings of others. But by this very law of his nature he had regarded John Morley and his exaggerated grief from the point of view of the Waldrons, with whom he had been most closely associated. He had placed himself in the position of Robert, and pleaded for him all the excuses he would have sought for himself. But now he seemed to look into the very heart of John Morley,--that heart on fire, as Grant had once called it. That Hester Morley should love Robert Waldron! That she should ever become his wife! He pushed away the hair which had fallen over his forehead, and gazed fixedly at Mr. Waldron, who said, "Do you think with me?"

"I think," cried Carl, in an irrepressible frenzy, "that the idea is monstrous! There are some sins which cannot be forgotten. It would be a horrible thing, an unheard-of thing."

"Perhaps you love Hester yourself," Mr. Waldron suggested.

Carl hastened to regain his self-control. Mr. Waldron's face was one of sharp and anxious scrutiny; and he did not wish to subject himself to any more pointed questions.

"I was thinking of her father only," he answered; "I believe that to him it will appear more monstrous than it does to me."

"Carl," said Mr. Waldron, in an accent of pity, "I like you; ay, I honor and trust you. In bringing you here I thought it probable that you would love Hester. But this is my son's whole chance of happiness; perhaps for the life to come as well as this. It may be his salvation. You possess a better and holier happiness. Promise me, at least, that you will not use your influence against him."

"I have, perhaps, no right to influence her," answered Carl, sighing; but I will commit her to His care who judges all men. If my prayers can shield her from peril, they shall not fail her."

His heart sank a little after he had given this implied promise to stand aside while she was tempted with all that ambition and love could offer her. The sole weapons he could use in her defence were the prayers and teachings she would listen to from his mouth in the public services of the chapel.

Scarcely had Mr. Waldron closed the house-door after himself, having considerately forbidden Carl to quit his warm room, when a light rap at his study-door recalled Carl from his painflul reflections upon the interview which had just ended. The second intruder was Annie, who carried a little work-basket in her hand, and came in boldly with an air which plainly announced that she intended staying with him for a time.

"Now, Carl," she said, "it is all nonsense you pretending you can study with that dreadful cold. My husband,"--she uttered the word with a little bridling of the head, which showed that the title was still a new one,-- 'has been called out, and does not expect to be home till late. He said I was to come here and sit with you, and you were on no account to leave this room till bedtime. So I am going to order tea up here, and we will have a nice, quiet, cosy evening together, you dear old boy."

She rang for the servant to bring the tea-tray and bright brass kettle up stairs, and was very busy for a time in making the tea and toast by Carl's fire. He sat upon the hearth, watching her with dimmed eyes and a colorless face. Annie was quick-sighted, and the weariness of his expression did not escape her.

"Are you going to talk to me, Carl, or shall I talk to you?" she asked.

"I would a great deal rather you talked to me," he answered.

"I shall not say anything very wise, and I shall gossip," she said, threateningly.

Carl leaned back in his chair and stretched his feet out towards the fire. He could not make conversation, even to Annie, that night. His mind was very busy, but very rambling, darting from one point to another of his interview with Mr. Waldron. Yet he was not sorry that Annie had invaded his solitude, and that her voice should prattle through the confusion of his thoughts. Now and then he caught a sentence of her lively gossip, and answered by a word or two. On her part she was weaving a very skilful and subtle web by which she might entrap his most secret sentiments; but she might as well have gone directly to her point, so insensible was he to her delicate handling.

"She is very fond of me," said Annie, in a tone of great significance; and, as he was thinking at the moment of Hester, the words startled him. "She said last night she loved me like a sister."

"I am very glad to hear it," he answered, earnestly.

"I wonder how old she is," remarked Annie.

Carl knew to a day Hester's age. She was four years and three months younger than himself. He had seen the date of her birthday in a book which had been given to her years ago, hut he did not give his sister the information she desired.

"She perhaps looks younger than she is," said Annie; "I think she is very good; don't you, Carl?"

"Yes," he answered, in a very subdued tone.

"And she thinks you," continued his sister, "the very best, the very first, the most eloquent of men and ministers. Of course I agreed with her, but she said I was never to tell you so, Carl."

Carl's face grew crimson, and with the gesture most familiar to him, he shaded his eyes with his long hand; there were tears, he could not tell why, standing in them. Annie nestled to his side, and laid her head upon his shoulder.

"Dear old fellow," she said, "I daren't quite say that she is in love with you; but she is not far from it. And I am not quite sure that I should like it altogether. She is not exactly what I fancied your wife would be. I should think she cannot be less than six or seven years older than you; but she is very good and very rich, and her father is a great man among our people. Still I am not quite sure that I should like my brother Carl to become her husband."

Carl had suffered too severe a shock that evening to be staggered by this one. The deep flush faded gradually away from his face, and the tears dried under his eye lids, but, he could not command his voice sufficiently to speak to Annie.

"So now," she said, kissing him affectionately, "your mind is prepared for it. I don't believe you have vanity enough for the notion to enter your head of itself, clever as you are. It would be a very grand thing for you, but I don't exactly see how it would turn out in the end. You are very fond of her, Carl."

"She is my friend," he answered, with parched lips and dry throat.

"Ah, yes!" said Annie, sagely; "but everybody knows what such friendships generally come to. I don't mean, Carl, that you might not go on very comfortably as a friend; but Miss Waldron will not. Mark my words, and make up your mind about it. Only if I were you, unless I really cared for her, I would not let her come here so often. I should think you could easily put a check upon that. It is not nice generally for men to marry women older than themselves, but she is everything else you like; isn't she? I wonder what Mr. Waldron and Mr Robert will think of it!"

Carl felt glad that his sister's head was still lying upon his shoulder, and that she could not see his face. A profound sense of the derision with which at times life seems to flout and make a mock at us, filled his mind, and he laughed a short hoarse laugh, which grated upon his sister's ear.

"Why do you laugh, Carl?" she asked.

"I was laughing at Mr. Waldron," he answered, checking himself.

"Why," continued Annie, "would you really marry Miss Waldron if you were sure she would marry you? I was talking to Hester this morning; she came up here to fetch a book she had lent me, and I asked her if she had noticed anything peculiar in her manner last night."

"What did she answer?" asked Carl, with increasing interest.

"She was shy, as she always is, of speaking out her mind but she said there was no doubt Miss Waldron was very fond of you."

"Fond of me!" repeated Carl; "did Hester say anything else?"

"She said what a pious woman Miss Waldron is," continued Annie; "everybody says the same. But now, my dear boy, do not be rash in any way. I am a whole year older than you, and I'm married, you know; so listen to what I have to say to you. A great many pious women are excessively disagreeable, I can tell you; they are so good that it does not seem worth while to be amiable. They may have a good deal of treasure laid up, but they have no small change for everyday use. One of your great divines said himself, that good nature was sometimes better than grace in a wife. Now I am afraid I have not so much treasure laid up as Miss Waldron, but I am not unpleasant to live with; at least James says so. Don't be in any hurry, in any way."

Carl fell into a train of troubled thoughts again. His friendship for Miss Waldron was pure and chivalrous, founded upon the gratitude he felt for her very gracious and flattering regard for himself. No idea that she cherished a sentiment one degree warmer than his own would ever have entered his mind, had not Annie placed it so plainly before him. But now that his eyes were opened he saw it distinctly, and knew that he could never be blind again. He passed in review the incidents of the preceding evening, and then his thoughts were brought round once more to the first painful subject which had occupied them.

"Annie," he said, in a very low and troubled voice, "do you think it possible for Hester ever to love Robert Waldron?"

"It looked very like it last night, Carl," she answered, gravely.

"But, good heavens!" cried Carl, forgetting his disapprobation of any words at all approaching the nature of an oath, "the thing is impossible."

"I have been thinking about it all the morning," resumed Annie, "and I partly understand how it can be. Hester has lived so apart from the world that she is still like a child in many things; and, Carl, as for sin! why, she looks at it as the angels might do. Of course we are bound to believe her corrupt and sinful, and all that sort of thing, I suppose; but I say that Hester no more knows how to distinguish between sin and sin than an angel would. It is clear that Robert Waldron does not shock her in any way, but that she is rather attracted by him than otherwise. I saw her look at him once or twice yesterday, with the open-eyed, wondering, unconscious gaze of a child. But at other times her eyes sank, and her face colored when he was talking to her. I am afraid she might love him."

"But what could be the end of it?" asked Carl, in a sharp accent.

"Ah! how could it end?" repeated Annie.

She raised her head from his shoulder, and turned her ear listening towards the window. There was a distant sound of hoof-beats coming on at a rapid rate, and a bright smile broke upon her face. She kissed Carl hastily, bidding him go to bed early that night, and left him to the undisturbed course of his meditations.

From the time that Miss Waldron had become acquainted with the fact that a Popish Frenchwoman dwelt in idolatrous darkness within sight of the very walls of the chapel, where the gospel was preached every Sunday, though in a language unknown to her, she had resolved upon making her the subject of one of those direct efforts which had often so signal an effect upon the poor women of her district and mothers' meetings. She ordered from John Morley a packet of English tracts translated into French, and with these and a French Bible in her large satchel, she sallied forth, the morning after her father's interview with Carl, to seek the dwelling of the benighted foreigner.

It was about midday, and Madame Lawson was regaling herself with a savory ragout, highly-seasoned with garlic, which she was wont to have cooked in her landlady's oven. She had added to her repast a glass or two of good Burgundy, supplied to her by Robert Waldron, which she could only take at those meals when her son was absent, for fear of his discovering the secret of her distinguished visitor. She was in her most exhilarated mood. The noonday happened to be one of the rarely bright moments of November, and the high window of her garret caught the sunshine, while all the court below was in gloom. There was no fire in the grate, but a warm chafrette filled with wood-ashes from the oven stood under her feet. The three little bronze crucifixes over the empty fire-place shone full in the brightest of the sunbeams, and were the first objects upon which Miss Waldron's eyes fell as she entered the garret.

Miss Waldron had not the proficiency in French which her brother possessed. She had never been out of her native isle, and her father, entertaining a true old-fashioned British contempt of foreigners, had never invited any to his house. Her acquaintance with the language was, in consequence, almost limited to a perusal of Telemachus and the works of Madame de Genlis, which she had gone through with her dictionary and a master. Madame received her with a torrent of patois, of which she barely understood one word; but Miss Waldron was not to be daunted. She laid her packet of tracts upon the table and seated herself on a distant chair.

"You are a Frenchwoman," she said austerely.

Yes, Madame was a Frenchwoman from Bourgoyne and she could not speak one word of English,--not one word. To speak English was like swallowing fish-bones.

"You are a Papist," observed Miss Waldron, who had scarcely understood the previous remarks.

Papist! She did not comprehend what was Papist.

"Your religion is Papist," said Miss Waldron, pointing to the little crosses and rosary.

Yes, yes; that was her religion. She was a Catholic. That was her chaplet; she said her chaplet twice a day, sometimes oftener, if she was triste. When she felt very sad, she said a little prayer first, and then sang a song. Would she like to hear a song?

Without waiting for permission, the gay old lady started off with one of her merriest songs; her eyes growing smaller and brighter, and the cunning little wrinkles starting out more and more wickedly at every line. Miss Waldron could not catch a word of the song, but she trembled at the thought of what she might be listening to, and her face grew a dull red. She moved uneasily in her chair and glanced towards the door. At the last line of the song Madame winked,--positively winked at her visitor; and then crossed herself in so sudden a manner that Miss Waldron was still more dismayed.

"I am Miss Waldron," she said, entrenching herself behind the dignity of her name.

Waldron! Bah! She could not speak such a word. But was it not the name of the fine young milord Robert who did her the honor of paying her a visit sometimes? Quite an English milord, but with a beautiful toilette and with rings on his fingers, who could speak French like a Frenchman.

Miss Waldron was puzzled. It was not at all in Robert's line to visit poor old women; yet she knew that he could speak French fluently, and it was not probable that another person, possessing equal proficiency, could be found in Little Aston. But what could bring Robert there? The thought of Hester flashed across her like a ray of light.

"He is my brother," she answered, slowly, and with some difficulty, as she pondered over a totally unprepared phrase. She had arranged beforehand a conversation which ought to have proceeded like a catechism, but she was completely thrown out. She stammered and hesitated, but at last she was compelled to put her question in a bald, unvarnished manner. "Does he meet a girl called Hester Morley here?" she asked.

The smooth clean face of Madame assumed the innocence of a child, combined with virtuous indignation. She answered firmly in the negative, with a gesture of utter repudiation; but Miss Waldron's aroused suspicions were not to be rocked to sleep again. Hester came here, and she had learned that Robert did so too. What could it mean? Could it have any meaning but one?

"I am afraid," she said, in very incorrect French, for she was agitated, and her tongue tingled to speak in strong English, "that you are a very wicked woman. I knew you were a Papist and a Frenchwoman; but I am afraid you are worse. I came here with the purpose of doing you good, but I fear it is impossible. I shall speak about you to my father, Mr. Waldron, of Aston Court, who is a magistrate."

Madame Lawson could not understand many words of this speech, but she could see that the visitor was very greatly displeased. It occurred to her that she had come on a mission of suspicion and espionage, and she resolved to throw her off the scent. Her brown eyes,--eyes which betray nothing,--met Miss Waldron's gaze, and a sinister air of intelligence spread over her face.

"Mademoiselle Hester comes to see me sometimes,' she said, very distinctly, "but never, oh! never when milord Robert comes. There is a young priest at the chapel where Mademoiselle makes her prayers; and in England, the priests marry. He is very handsome and young, like Mademoiselle Hester. It is possible he may marry himself with her."

Miss Waldron's heart sank very low. That such a calamity was possible she could not conceal from herself; but it had never been put into words and uttered in her hearing. She was lost in distressed and perplexed thought, not able to ply the old woman with clever questions. Madame regarded her with a crafty smile. Grant had once brought Carl to see her, but the visit had made little impression upon her, except as awakening an odd interest in the priest who could marry if he chose. She was conscious that she had made a happy hit, though she did not know exactly where it wounded.

"Does Hester love the young priest?" asked Miss Waldron at last, unable to cloak the inquiry more skilfully.

"It is necessary to love one's director," she answered with a leer full of insinuation; "and he's so handsome like la petite. It is also his duty to love all his people."

Both Madame and Miss Waldron had been too engrossed to catch the sound of the stair-case creaking under a footstep; but at this moment a sallow and withered face, with two eyes set in it like burning lamps, appeared at the half-open door. Madame uttered a little scream, and dexterously snatched the bottle of Burgundy from the table, putting it by a sleight of hand, into its hiding-place under her bed. But the newcomer paid no attention to her movements. He had taken off his old paper cap, and fastened upon Miss Waldron a gaze which did not permit his eye lids to wink. She experienced a very peculiar sensation of discomfort under the fixed scrutiny of these burning eyes.

"It is my son, Madame," said Lawson's mother introducing him with an air of ceremony.

"Can you speak English, my good man?" inquired Miss Waldron.

"Certainly," replied Lawson; but before we go any further, may I ask what your name is?"

"Miss Waldron, of Aston Court," she said, with emphasis and dignity.

"So I guessed," he cried, clenching his hands; "you are a lady, and I'd be sorry to frighten you. But it is as much as your life is worth to come here. I am Mr. Morley's workman, and love Miss Hester. I knew her mother and the second Mrs. Morley. Now you'll see you'd better not come here again. This is my house, and I will have nobody in it belonging to you or yours."

"I came here to convert your mother," said Miss Waldron, with great courage.

"Then she must go unconverted," he said, his tone rising to a higher pitch; "if you and yours are to go to heaven, then me and mine must go elsewhere. It is not safe for you here. John Morley and me are waiting--waiting till the right time comes; for there is deadly hatred betwixt us and you. You had better go at once, while I warn you. I'm a quiet man, but you had better go."

His voice had risen shrilly with each sentence, till now it rang in her ears with a shriek, which the children at play below heard, and stopped suddenly to listen. Miss Waldron seized her satchel and fled; and, as she hurried through the court the window above was opened violently and her loosened packet of tracts fluttered down about her like a flock of frightened doves.

As Miss Waldron issued from the low passage leading to the court, Carl was hurrying past with long strides, and with his head bowed down as if heavy with momentous thoughts. She uttered a cry of joyful relief and almost flung herself upon his arm. There was so evident a fright, both in her flurried manner and the startled expression on her face, that Carl gazed about him and peered down the narrow alley to ascertain the cause of it. She sobbed hysterically; and having sufficient presence of mind to take advantage of the opportunity, she did not attempt to control her agitation, as she must have done had she been compelled to pursue her way alone, or had she met any other acquaintance. She leaned heavily and helplessly upon the arm of the embarrassed Carl. The street was quiet, but he glanced up and down it with a feeling of dismay. There needed but one or two observant passers-by to attract a whole crowd about them from the surrounding houses. The key of the chapel vestry was in his pocket, and the chapel was on the other side of the street.

"Would you like to sit down for a few minutes in the vestry?" he asked.

"Oh, yes! yes?" said Miss Waldron, between her sobs.

Carl led her across the street, and once again he cast a keen glance about him. There were only a few children to be seen at play. But no; coming up the pavement was a light and tall figure, dressed in a soft grey dress which he knew very well to be Hester's. She was on the sunny side of the street, dazzled perhaps by the white wintry sunshine; for she did not seem to see them in the shade, though he was a long time in fitting the key into the lock, in the hope that she would recognize them, and he could make a sign to her to come across to them. Miss Waldron did not see her.

"There is Miss Morley," said Carl; "shall I run over and call her to come to you?"

"No," answered Miss Waldron, plainly enough, and without a sob this time; "I would much rather not see her at this moment. I have something very extraordinary to tell you, Carl."

The name Carl seemed to fall from her lips unconsciously in her state of excitement; but he felt a nervous tremor at the sound of it. He opened the vestry door and went in, with Miss Waldron still supporting herself upon his arm. He placed her in his own chair beside the table, and stood opposite her before the empty fireplace. Above it hung usually the portrait of a distinguished divine of their denomination, in a full-bottomed wig and white bands, at the back of which was a small looking-glass where the pastor of the church could take a stealthy glimpse of himself before ascending the pulpit. Carl had turned the portrait with its face to the wall the preceding Sunday; and now, instead of the smooth and pious physiognomy of the eminent minister, he saw his own troubled features, with the straight eyebrows knitted and the lips pressed sternly together. Miss Waldron began to sob less deeply, but she sat with her head averted, and with an air of modest confusion which almost drove him frantic.

"Do you feel better?" he asked; "can I do anything for you?"

"I am better," she answered, faintly; "in a minute or two I will tell you all."

For that minute or two Carl set himself to conquer his impatience and irritation. Why should he feel so different to-day from what he had felt only the day before yesterday? She was his friend still; and he had only heard Annie's partial, and no doubt absurd, notion that she was something more than a friend. A true friendship between man and woman ought to be able to bear a greater shock than the misapprehension and misconstruction of others. He almost detested himself for the ready and ridiculous vanity which had caused him to give credence to the story; yet the hot blood mounted to his beating temples as he caught a side-long glance from Miss Waldron.

"Carl," she said, in a voice as if it was still necessary to gasp for breath at each word, "I may call you Carl now, I think."

What could he answer? He bowed his head gravely, but without raising his eyes from the floor.

"I am a little older than you," she continued, with a frank air, "and I am so used to hear your dear sister call you Carl. That is how I slipped into it. To call you Mr. Bramwell now would seem formal. I am thankful it is only you who have seen my agitation. It is foolish and silly, I know, but then I am nothing but a weak foolish woman.'

"You have been very much alarmed," remarked Carl, falteringly.

"Oh; exceedingly!" exclaimed Miss Waldron, her hand pressed upon her heart; "and I am so grateful to the Providence which sent you here at this moment. It is but another proof that our steps are all numbered."

On his part Carl felt no particular thankfulness for having been found on the spot at that special moment; but he rebuked the thought as it suggested itself to him.

"I must tell you all," said Miss Waldron, "but to you only. It must be a secret between us two. I would not have my father made uneasy for the world; and if I need any counsel or protection, you will give me both. I can count upon you, dear Carl."

"Certainly," he replied.

Miss Waldron's narrative contained several details not to be found in the preceding chapter, all tending to cast a lustre on her own conduct, such as might be supposed by an uncharitable spirit to have existed only in her own imagination. She omitted also the mention of Madame's suggestion with respect to Carl himself, though she was tearfully eloquent in connection with her suspicions concerning her brother and Hester being in the habit of seeing one another in the old Frenchwoman's garret. Here Carl possessed a knowledge of which Miss Waldron was ignorant; and nothing appeared more probable to him than that Robert Waldron had seized upon any opportunity of meeting Hester. But that she should consent to these clandestine interviews was a sure, convincing proof that he had won her affection; and she had fallen into the snare through dread of her father. Could this be the sorrow which old Mr. Watson had foreseen for Hester? Had he received some hint of the miserable attachment she had formed? What could he do in the matter?

With his darkened face reflected in the little sacred mirror, Carl let these first thoughts run riot in his brain, while Miss Waldron meandered on in a gently purling stream of sentiment, which, to speak the truth, did more credit to her heart than her head, and which murmured idly against Carl's ear as a brook laps unheeded against the granite base of a rock. He had no notion of what she was saying. He was dethroning the image of Hester from its pure, sweet, girlish supremacy, and setting it beside the image of Robert Waldron. The mere thought of such a union shocked him He turned away from it with revulsion, as if it were a crime. It flashed suddenly across him that Hester had been intended for him; he knew it, and felt sure of it. Their spirits were of one kind; their hearts beat with the same pulse. If she had only waited a little longer before surrendering the treasure of her love! But she had cast away her pearls, and had no longer any to bestow upon him to whom they would have been wealth beyond price.

Carl suffered more intense pain this morning than he had done the night before while listening to Mr. Waldron. There had been the consolation of doubt then, but there was none now. Hester met Robert clandestinely, and it must be because she loved him.

"I ought not to have been alarmed, even then," said Miss Waldron; "I ought to have stayed myself upon a promise."

"Certainly," replied Carl, not hearing what she said.

"But I am only a feeble woman," she continued; "we are not like you and others, with your strong minds. I am afraid you will despise me for the future."

She had never before pleaded her feminine feebleness, but now she looked up to him with an appealing and helpless gaze. From Hester's eyes such a glance would have penetrated the profoundest depths of his heart; but from Miss Waldron it had no such effect.

"Despise you!" he said; "oh, no! why should! No doubt you had cause for alarm."

"And you will esteem me, and--care for me as much as ever?" she asked, with a recurring sob.

"To be sure," he replied; "why do you trouble yourself afresh, Miss Waldron? There is no more cause for fear. As soon as you feel yourself equal to the exertion, I will see you safe home."

"Carl," she said, in a bashful and hesitating tone; "if you really feel that we are friends, and especially now we have a secret between us, and I have only you to look to for advice and protection, I wish you would leave off calling me Miss Waldron. You may call me by my name, Sophia."

"But nobody calls you Sophia," exclaimed Carl, with alarmed earnestness.

"But I will allow you to do so," she answered, condescendingly; "it is less distant, and more friendly. To the rest of the world I remain Miss Waldron; to you I am Sophia.

Carl murmured his thanks indistinctly. It needed a great effort to save him from a lack of courtesy. But she was a good woman, a member of his Church, a lady, and the daughter of his patron. All these titles gave her so many claims to his respect; and even if it were true, as Annie had intimated, that she distinguished him with her preference, that was no reason whatever why he should treat her with impoliteness or ill-temper. There was a mingled sense of shame and sorrow for her which lent to his manner a sufficient gentleness to blind Miss Waldron's eyes, already dazzled with self-importance. She intimated that she was now ready to undertake the walk home; and leaning confidingly, but not too heavily, upon his arm, they traversed together the watchful streets of Little Aston and the glades of the park, while unutterable sentiments filled the heart of Sophia Waldron.

It was a noticeable sight, and one fraught with tacit inferences, which had greeted Hester's eyes as she turned the corner of the street and saw Carl and Miss Waldron about to enter the chapel vestry upon a day and hour when there was neither a public service nor a more private meeting of any kind. She had not chosen to recognize them; for the question asked by Annie, whether she had not observed something peculiar in Miss Waldron's manner towards Carl, had been rankling in her mind ever since; and the pain it created there set her on her guard, both against herself and them. She was in a transition state of moods and emotions, of which she could not breathe a word to any one. From the first moment her eyes had looked upon Carl's face, with its fine, clear, happy, and good aspect, so differing in its charm from the handsomer features of Robert Waldron, she had felt that there were other classes of men in the world than those she had met in her narrow sphere. Hitherto she had found no man stronger in nature than herself; for in her heart of hearts Hester knew herself less weak in the presence of trial and temptation than any of the people about her, with the exception, perhaps, of Grant. She was, though Mr. Waldron and Robert did not suspect it, little pliable to outer influences, and not easily moulded into a form foreign to herself. But Carl was stronger than she. She looked up to him from beneath the long fringe of her brown eye-lashes, mentally acknowledging him her superior. Sunday after Sunday she listened to him critically, and never caught a false tone or an affected one. She found her mind pondering over his thoughts, and confessing her belief in them. She began to feel as if she was his sole listener; the congregation might be there, but they could not comprehend him as she did.

A very sweet and subtle impression had taken hold of her, that Carl had been more eloquent for her than for any one else in his church. Now and then, when he had allowed his genius a higher flight than ordinary, and had soared far above the heads of his simple flock, his kindled eyes had sought hers and held it in a fascinated gaze, while he elaborated and concluded his thought; and there had seemed a secret understanding between them, more perfect than that of words. But now Hester discovered that there was a second listener, with whom, perhaps, Carl had a still more intimate and delicate unison; who might have the privilege of suggesting the themes of his eloquence, and who certainly could converse with him familiarly about his sermons. When Annie had plainly hinted at Miss Waldron's preference for her brother, Hester, yielding to a very natural and feminine feeling of jealousy, had observed that she was a very pious woman. It was all she could say. To her Miss Waldron had ceased to be imposing or clever; and she never appeared engaging. Hester scarcely cared to put herself into comparison with her on the score of beauty; and she felt that she was her superior mentally. But in goodness? In the one thing needful to a good man like Carl, how far she fell behind the acknowledged Saint of the Church at Little Aston

Hester humiliated herself all that afternoon; and, in consequence, was not so pleasant a companion to Lawson as usual. She set vigorously to work to root out the tares from her heart, one of them being her young love for Carl. She made a number of vows, every one difficult of performance. Her busy hands did not pause because of the inward storm; but Lawson saw more than one tear stealing down her cheeks as she smoothed the gold leaf with her delicate fingers. He was himself excited, and could scarcely refrain from telling Hester of the occurrence of the morning. But her cloudy brow, and her mouth set into a firm line of decision and of secret conflict, silenced him. During the last few months she had grown out of the pensive, and almost timid child, into a mistress, who was gentle and gracious in her manner it was true, but who knew her own dignity and upheld it. When she spoke to him this afternoon, her voice was set in a clear but mournful key; and her words were few. Lawson did not dare to tell her how he had encountered Miss Waldron in his mother's room, and had forbidden her ever to intrude there again. He would leave it for Madame to relate in her own way.

At six o'clock Hester descended from the work-room and made tea for her father, still busy with herself. She could not decide whether she would go to the week-night service at chapel, or stay at home to pursue her melancholy task of rooting up the tares. She debated the point until it was almost too late, and then she dressed in a panic, and sped in frantic haste up the dark street. The fine morning had merged into an evening of thick, cold rain, which was falling heavily, and splashed upon the pavement as she hurried along. Scarcely a creature was to be seen. Here and there a resolute worshipper, like herself, was trudging along under a wet umbrella, but she knew that the congregation would be a small one. And then it all at once occurred to her, with a chill colder than the rain, that very probably Carl himself would be absent, as he was not very well. She stopped at the door to regain her breath, and to listen if she could hear his voice within. Two or three persons passed her; one of them a poor woman shabbily dressed in a widow's garb, who paused to look inquisitively at her from under her rusty crape veil. Then Hester went in, caught for a moment the full, grave, searching gaze of Carl from his low reading desk, and going on to her accustomed seat, she sank upon her knees, with a strange, almost intolerable, sense of pain.

For once Hester did not hear a word of Carl's sermon, though she caught the sadness and unwonted languor of his voice. As she left the chapel she saw the carriage from Aston Court still waiting at the door, though Mr. and Miss Waldron were already seated in it. She crossed over the street, and hid in the archway of the court opposite, simply to wound herself with the sight of Carl driving away with her rival. While she stood in the rain and the darkness, he would be whirled off in comfort and luxury. Hester felt for the first time how poor she was. Miss Waldron was rich as well as good, and Carl had made a wise choice. The worldly sneer had scarcely risen to her lips when she shrank from it instinctively, and drove the suspicion back to the unworthy regions from whence it had come to assail her. She watched the little congregation dropping away by twos and threes; and suddenly recalled to mind a childish play of the lost Rose, who had often amused her by watching the creeping sparks die out of a smouldering piece of paper. Why did the memory of Rose return to her now? Carl was just coming out of chapel, the last of all, and ran through the rain to the carriage, into which he sprang with the freedom and familiarity of one quite at home with those inside. She saw it roll away down the street, and then she prepared to follow, slowly and sorrowfully, through the beating of the storm.

But had Carl been the last to leave the chapel, where a few lamps were still burning, though they were being put out one by one? Hester cast a last look towards it, and saw the poor widow in her shabby mourning, sitting desolately upon one of the steps of the portico. She was in a mood for lingering. She was in a mood, too, for pity and compassion towards any form of suffering. There was also a fine, and very insidious sense of pleasure in the idea of engaging in some good work, while Miss Waldron was wrapped in luxury and enjoyment. She would be, for the moment, beating her on her own ground. Hester re-crossed the street. The stranger was crouching upon the lowest step, with the rain driving full upon her. She seemed to have reached this place, and then fallen, for she was lying along the stone in an attitude of complete helplessness. Hester stooped, and laid her hand gently on her shoulder.

"Are you ill?" she asked, in soothing tones. "You must not lie here in the rain. If you tell me where your home is, I will take you there under my umbrella."

To walk through the wet streets with a friendless and poverty-stricken stranger on her arm would be a vast triumph over Miss Waldron in her carriage, with Carl by her side.

The woman shuddered, and shrank from the light touch of Hester's hand, crouching lower and lower upon the ground. She had looked up from under the veil at Hester's face, upon which the lamp still lit in the entrance of the chapel was shining. Then she gave utterance to a sob, a suppressed cry, a moan wrung from the extreme anguish of a suffering spirit. She stretched out her hand towards Hester, but did not touch her, in a mute gesture which awoke within her a vague alarm.

"Speak to me," cried Hester; "are you ill? What can I do for you?"

As she spoke the last light was extinguished in the chapel, and the outer doors were closed and fastened by some person within. The noise seemed to arouse the stranger. She rose to her feet, but staggered, and fell back against one of the large, square pillars of the portico.

The continued silence and the agitation of this woman gave a shape to Hester's vague suspicions. A quick terror and chill ran through her frame. The darkness which now gathered about them was a welcome veil; a screen behind which might be acted scenes that must shun the day. The rain also, and the emptiness of the street, seemed to draw closer the curtain which ought to conceal the wretched creature at her side.

"Tell me only who you are," she whispered, in a tone of mingled pity and terror

"Hester!" moaned the shadow, which she could scarcely distinguish in the dense darkness of the night; and there was no need for any other word to pass through the faltering lips.

Hester sank down upon the steps, and with blank, bewildered eyes, gazed into the blackness which hemmed them in. The poor lost Rose had come back at last! The sinful woman whom she had urged Robert Waldron to seek out, and whose mysterious disappearance had been a continual care to her. Her father's wife stood beside her! She felt her cheeks burn and her veins tingle. Now she had a vision of her sin which she had never had before. For a few minutes her woman's heart,--a heart which had known womanhood but for a little time,--cried out in strong condemnation of the sinner, as well as the sin. She felt that she could not forgive her all at once; nor speak to her any words except those of a righteous anger and abhorrence. She knew now that she ought not to have married her father at all, unless she had felt for him such a love as would have lifted her up forever out of reach of the temptation by which she had fallen.

Yet, thought Hester, after the first paroxysm was over, had not God brought them together thus, on the very threshold of His own house of prayer, to teach her that if He did not cast her out, neither ought she, who might herself be tempted, and who was not without sin? She bowed her head upon her hands, and a passionate prayer went up from her burdened heart for help and wisdom in this hour of extreme need.

"What am I to do with you?" she asked, speaking at last to the silent and motionless figure at her side,--standing there like a voiceless ghost from some other world, which could utter no word until a question was put to it.

"Oh Hester!" she cried, "I could live no longer without seeing you and my home. You cannot think what it is to be away ten years, and never hear a word, not a syllable, of those who belong to you. Would my husband forgive me, do you think? Only so far as to let me hear him say so before I die? I cannot live very long. Is he less angry with me? Does he ever speak of me?"

"No," said Hester, "he has not forgiven you. He never mentions your name."

"Oh, my God!" wailed the lost woman; "but I must get his forgiveness before I die. What is to become of me? I want to hide somewhere; anywhere out of Robert's reach. He is trying to find me; and I vowed to God when I left him that I would never, never look upon his face again. Do you know why? God keep you ever from a repentance like mine. Shelter me somewhere, little Hetty; hide me. You promised once that you would be always like my own daughter to me. Hester, you could not turn away from your mother, however sinful she had been."

The doleful words were wailed into Hester's ear, as she still gazed into the darkness. Rose had crept towards her, and stolen her arms round her waist. She did not push away the clinging arms, but she could not answer.

"I am very young still," murmured Rose; "no older than Miss Waldron, who was at chapel just now. I thought your father would be there, and I should see how changed he was. I am going to die, Hester. Yesterday the doctor in London said there was no hope for me; so I resolved to come back home, to you and my husband. He is a just man, and a merciful man. He cannot help but forgive me before I die. I believe that Jesus has pardoned all my sins."

In the voice of Rose, which was one to be remembered for a lifetime, there was a tone of hope as she spoke the last sentence, and she pressed her arms more closely about Hester.

"Yes," she said, "I was very wretched, and I thought, when I did not see your father to-night, had I not better go back to London, and end my life quickly as women like me do. But then the preacher spoke, and a strange, strange peace entered into me. He looked towards me, where I sat behind you, Hetty, and he said, 'Our souls have no sins which the charity of Christ cannot cover.' Then I resolved to trust myself to the charity of Christ, and to yours, little Hetty."

Her voice was lost in sobs, long-drawn and painful, and her head sank upon Hester's lap. Hester's hand fell softly, with its cold touch, upon the fevered forehead.

"If Christ will receive you," she said, with a thrill of awe as she looked up into the dark sky, as though she half expected to see a light from heaven breaking through the black clouds, "who am I that I should cast you off? I will give you shelter for this night at least."

Yet she did not move, nor help Rose to rise, but let her still lie there sobbing, with her face, which no eye could have seen, buried in her lap, as if she would fair hide it even from the night. Hester was thinking of Robert Waldron, in his luxurious home, repenting with a comfortable penitence, which left him free for many pleasures and which was scarcely more than a welcome gloom, where he could withdraw when the brightness of his life wearied him. But this misery, this poverty-stricken, ill-clad, friendless, dying misery, was the true result of the sin of which both had been alike guilty. She shuddered, and Rose felt it; for she loosed her clinging arms, and would have fallen lower at her feet, had not Hester's hand pressed her head down gently upon its resting-place, as a mother's hand caresses the bowed head of a sorrowful child. She had forgotten the cold and the rain, or felt them only as fitting better this dreary hour than light and cloudless skies would have done. But now her hand fell upon the wet clothes of the woman whom she had promised to shelter, a woman upon whom the doom of death had been passed. She lifted Rose up tenderly, and drew her trembling arm through her own. No eye saw them. Not one of their towns-people met them in the deserted street. In the darkness and dreariness of a winter's night, Rose Morley returned to her husband's house.

There was on the left hand of the house door an empty room which was rarely entered, and Hester left Rose there until her father and the young girl whom she kept as her only servant should be gone to bed. It was already near the hour when John Morley retired to his own chamber, where he sometimes read or wrote until later on in the night. Hester took off her wet cloak, and went into the room where he was sitting alone. There was a newly-quickened love mingled with a dread of him, stirring in her heart. The grey, despairing face, and the silvery hair of her father touched her to the quick this evening. She stood behind him for a minute or two, and then laid her hand, which had so lately rested upon Rose's forehead, upon the snow-white head. It was the very attitude and caress of Rose herself on that day, now many years ago, which had never died out of John Morley's memory; and he laid his head down upon the desk before him with a sigh of profound regret and despair.

"Father," cried Hester, earnestly, and kneeling down beside him, "is there nothing that can make you happy? Is there nothing that could happen to bring you comfort?"

John Morley shook his head in silence.

"But this is horrible," she said. "Surely, surely God never meant you to pass your life in a grief like this. Surely He has kept some consolation in His hands for you."

"All things are possible with Him," he answered; "but yet holier men than I have passed through long lives under blacker clouds than mine. There was Cowper. God has not smitten me with an Egyptian gloom like his. For me there is a hope in the world to come, where the weary are at rest."

"But is there no hope for you sooner?" asked Hester. "Is there nothing which would make you glad?"

"Nothing!" he replied. "I have a habit of sorrow now, Hester, and I cannot shake it off. It is a poisoned garment, if you will, but to tear it off would tear my living flesh. No, no! There is no more gladness for me in life."

Could she tell to him her heavy secret? An unutterable terror seized upon her at the very thought. She remembered the moment when her father, with the glare of madness and suicide in his eyes, had awakened her from the profound sleep of childhood, telling her it was better to die than to live. She recollected the stealthy, murderous blow which had nearly killed Robert Waldron. Her heart failed her. Overhead was that closed room, which had been a constant testimony against Rose; and now Hester involuntarily held her breath and listened as if she heard some sound there. John Morley listened also; but there was nothing to be heard, as there never had been since Rose had fled. He sighed weariedly, and turned over the leaves of the book without reading them. The striking of the house-clock seemed welcome to him; and he bade Hester good night, and left her alone in the gloomy room.

Hester waited until she heard him lock his chamber door, and then she fetched Rose to the warmth of the fire still burning in the grate. In the dark room Rose had not realized that she was indeed once more in her husband's house. But this was his hearth. Here was his chair standing where it had been used to stand in her days of innocence, gone forever. There was his open book, with the leaves still fluttering as if they felt the movement of his fingers. This was the light he had been reading by, and the air he had breathed. It was her husband's hearth, and she had been a curse to it. She was come back to it in secret, and with trembling. She felt now how impossible it would be to face him, to look into his eyes, and to hear his voice. She glanced about her for some refuge to hide herself in--herself, a scared, abject, frightened wretch, who ought to steal away into some hole to die alone and unseen. Her wild despairing gaze round her husband's room met the sweet, grave compassionate eyes of Hester.

"Sit here, poor mother," she said, drawing nearer the fire her own mother's chair, which in the lost days Rose had always given up for her little step-daughter. She sank down upon it, her lips moving without a sound, and her white face turned towards Hester. Hester had not seen it before. It was the same face as that of the gay girl she had once been; but that face disfigured and marred and aged by shame. The soft lines were hardened, and the brightness had grown dim, and the freshness had become sullied and tarnished. Hester could not bear to look at it; and as she moved to and fro, ministering to her sore necessities, she did so with averted and downcast eyes.

The hours of the night wore away very slowly. Some times Rose fell into a feverish slumber, broken with sobs and starts. She would not go to bed, and Hester did not urge it. What she was to do with her, Hester did not know; and while she watched her uneasy rest, she tried to shape out some plan for her future life. To seek any home for her in Little Aston would be madness, as every one would know her and the story of her shame. To send her away, whom she had so earnestly and so long sought to find, seemed impossible, ten times impossible, if as she said there was no hope of her life, it would be practicable enough to keep her in her father's house, for John Morley's automatic habits could be counted upon to a moment. There were rooms in his house which he had never entered within her memory, and which he would never think of visiting. The cost of her maintenance there would be less than anywhere else, and money was very scarce with them. But she recoiled from the idea of suffering her to dwell by stealth and unforgiven in her husband's house, to sleep under the same roof. Hester recalled her father's melancholy cry, "She will never sleep under my roof again." Moreover, now she guessed somewhat more clearly the heinousness of Rose's guilt. She could not keep her unknown to her father, in the shelter of his dishonored home.

From time to time Rose woke up and murmured little scraps of her sad history. She had taken no special care to conceal the traces of her flight, yet it had happened so that she had left Falaise and wandered into a remote country district, where she had lived cheaply, as one can do in France, for some years upon the money which was in her possession. When it was gone she had entered into a situation as lady's-maid, and so returned with the family to England, three years ago. She had always passed as a widow. Her last situation she had given up only two months before; and since then she had been living in poor and solitary lodgings in London, with no society but the memory of the past; which had grown day by day into stronger force, until it had driven her back to Little Aston in the forlorn hope of casting herself upon her husband's forgiveness. Hester shook her head sadly at these last words. There was no chance, whatever, that John Morley would forgive her.

"You do not yet know what you have done," she said, with unconscious severity. "If you could see him you would know better what he has to forgive. He may forgive you before you die. But I dare not tell him that you are here; I dare not mention your name to him."

"But it is so many years ago!" cried Rose, clasping her thin hands together.

"Many years ago!" echoed Hester; "no; it has been every day of those ten years. The grief has been new every morning. Ah! I understand it better now. Every day he has felt himself deserted and betrayed. Oh, my father! my poor father!"

She covered her face with her hands as if she could no longer endure the sight of her who had wrought her lather's misery. But a slight sound caused her to look up. Rose was wrapping round her the shabby cloak, still damp and soiled from the rain of the evening. Her wan face was flushed, and her eyes, burning with inward fever, had lost their former distress.

"I am going away," she said, "and I will not come back till I crawl here dying. I must see him again, and hear him say he forgives me; and if he sees me dying at his feet, he will say it. But I will go away for a little while, Hetty."

"But where will you go?" asked Hester.

"Oh, I don't know," she cried, wringing her hands; "why does God let women as wretched and lonely as me live? I could never put an end to myself for I'm afraid to die, And now I shall go away, and it will come creeping on and on, and I shall know it is there, and there will not be a voice to speak gently to me. Oh! little Hetty, cannot you help me?"

"Yes," answered Hester, taking her bonnet and cloak from her feeble hands; "I will help you. If my father ever heard you had been ill in misery and solitude, it would only add to his pain. You must stay somewhere near to me, poor mother, so that I can nurse you and comfort you. Think of God rather than of my father. You have separated yourself from him, but you have not separated yourself forever from God. You belong to Him still."

In tones as soft and soothing as those a mother uses to a suffering child, Hester spoke these words to Rose. She placed the poor forlorn creature in her mother's chair again, and smoothed gently the locks of light hair, now thin and grey, which had fallen in disorder over her face. Rose slumbered again fitfully, crying out in her dreams for her husband's forgiveness. Once or twice Hester started with terror, thinking she heard his step upon the stairs; but the dreary night wore away without surprise. As soon as the late dawn began to glimmer upon the Uncurtained window, she awoke Rose and took her up stairs to her own room, where she would be safe from all eyes.

It was as Hester drew up the window-blind in her own room, and her eye fell upon the melancholy-looking outbuilding opposite it, that a practicable plan for the shelter of Rose presented itself to her. The old nursery, which at some remote date in the past had perhaps been the scene of childish sports and laughter, would be a refuge well fitted for her safety and concealment. Still she resolved within herself to ask her father's consent, though her habitual independence of action might very well have acquitted her conscience from the necessity of seeking it. She wished to feel that she had his sanction. She thought that at some future season it would prove a consolation to him to know that he had himself given a refuge and shelter to Rose.

At breakfast, with lowered eyelids and a voice which betrayed her intense anxiety, she made her request to John Morley.

"I met a poor woman last night at chapel," she said, "a stranger in the town, without friends. She has been a lady's maid for some years, but she is now in great destitution. She thinks of getting her living by needlework but she can scarcely do more than earn bread by that. I wish we could help her, father."

"It is very little that we can do," he said, mournfully.

Yes, we can do a great deal, she answered. "what she dreads most is associating with drunken and ignorant poor people. I don't think poverty is so bad in itself; but it is bad when you are compelled to live among low people. I don't mind being poor in the least, while we are together, father."

"What can we do for her then, Hester?" asked John Morley

"There is the old nursery in the yard," she said, with a feeling of desperate resolve, "it is only filled with rubbish now, but there is a good-grate in it, and the roof is whole. If a few panes were put into the window, and I found some old furniture for it, it would be quite a home for the poor creature. We might even ask a small rent for it, if you thought that was best."

"Hester!" ejaculated her father, in a tone of reproach.

"Then I may do it," she answered, eagerly; "oh! you will never repent it, dear father. You do not know what good may come of it. She will never come into your way, poor thing! You will never see her, I am sure; for she is afraid of being seen. She has been very unhappy in her marriage, and she is afraid of ever meeting her husband again. No, you will never see her."

Hester was speaking to herself rather than to him, in a manner which might well have excited his suspicions. But John Morley saw nothing of her agitation; he was plunged into more personal and more perplexing contemplations.

"Hester," he said, "I am in sore need of money. We must raise near upon £200 before the beginning of next week. I have some heavy bills to meet."

For some years past John Morley's method of conducting his business had been by drawing bills, which always came due so long before he had the money to meet them Hester had been very early initiated into these anxieties.

"How can we do it?" she asked, with some natural disquietude at the mention of a sum so large.

"There is but one way that I can see," he answered; "we must mortgage the house. Yet it is the only property I could leave to you if I died; and it came to me with your mother. Everything has gone wrong with me since I lost her. I would not do anything with it without your consent, Hester."

"Don't think of me, father," she said, "and don't trouble about me. If that is the only thing we can do, let us do it at once. Who would lend us the money upon the house?"

"I don't know," he replied, with a helpless shake of the head.

"Father," she continued, with a beating heart, "I know who would do it, and it might be kept a secret, so that all the town may not talk about it. Will you let me tell the person I am thinking of?"

"Who is it?" he asked, in a low voice.

"Mr. Waldron," answered Hester.

"Mr. Waldron!" he repeated; "I could not receive any favor from him. It would be like taking money for my--Oh, Hester! life is very hard."

She understood his half-uttered sentence perfectly; and her heart ached for him and the broken-spirited, desolate woman hidden away from-his sight.

"It would be no favor," she said earnestly; "we should pay the interest of the money, or he should have the house. You should not see him yourself, but I will in your place. You could write to him, you know, and I will take your letter, and explain everything to him. He would not think he was doing you any favor; I will take care of that. Then nobody would know except ourselves and him.'

"I cannot make out how the business has fallen away so much," sighed John Morley.

Any one seeing his melancholy and abstracted face, and hearing the mournful tones of his voice, would very easily have understood why customers were few and their visits brief in John Morley's shop. No one chooses to do his shopping where he meets with a face and voice adapted to a house of mourning. Hester understood it better than her father, but she could not make it plain to him. She knew, too, that he tacitly agreed to her plan, and she said no more about it. For the rest of the day she was busy over the more pressing duty of getting Rose's refuge ready before night-fall. When it was over, she lit a fire in the grate, so long empty and cold. The nursery looked but a poor place after all her care. The walls were discolored and stained, and the rafters of the sloping roof were black with age. There was a little bed in one corner, with the softest mattress and pillows off Hester's own bedstead. Two chairs stood one on each side of the narrow fire-place, with a small round table between them. It all looked bare, dingy, and forlorn. In the solitude of her long lonely hours, the occupant of this room would have time for repentance; but there seemed no place for atonement and reparation. What could she do in this poor refuge and hiding-place? In the dusk of the evening Hester led her stepmother to the only home she could provide for her. Rose stood motionless in the centre of the little room, looking about it with searching and troubled eyes.

"It is the best I can do," said Hester anxiously, "we are very poor."

"Poor!" echoed Rose.

She said no more, and her face grew paler and more troubled; but afterwards there rested upon her worn features an expression of solemnity amounting almost to dignity, such as had never been seen upon them in her bright girlish days.

"God bless you, Hetty," she cried; "you are better than a daughter to me. This is the place where I am to die, seeing you to the last; and your father. He cannot be relentless, when you are so good. Oh! my darling, my darling! you are like an angel from heaven to me."

She flung herself on her knees and threw her arms around Hester, with tears of profound anguish, and sobs such as might be wrung from tortured lips.

When Hester quitted the old nursery, Rose waited for some minutes without stirring, in the attitude of one who listens eagerly. Then very cautiously she stole to the door and opened it a little way to look out into the yard. The house opposite seemed to tower above her very high and very black in the darkness, with one window lighted up in the highest story of the gable to the right, and another on the ground floor of the gable to the left. She knew their meaning well. Lawson was still at work in his attic, and her husband was sitting in his old place with his books about him. She could remember him so well; the thick brown hair just catching a tinge of silver, and the studious handsome face which had been wont to brighten with a smile as sudden as a flash of lightning when he met her eye--a rare smile, reserved exclusively for her. She wondered to herself whether he had ever smiled so upon his daughter. Since she had seen Hester, she had felt a little more comforted about her husband, and a little less remorseful. He had not been so deserted or so lonely as she had pictured to herself. He had watched his child growing up at his side. There came a pang, an unreasonable pang amounting almost to jealousy, at the thought that he had grown forgetful of her and her sin in the companionship of Hester. In the brief space of her married life she had fostered a profound jealousy of Hester's mother. And now, as she looked down into the yard towards the lighted window behind which he was sitting, an unconquerable longing seized her to steal down the crazy staircase, and in amongst the blackened stems of the lilacs and the dwarfed laburnurns, to look once more upon her husband, whose love she had bartered for the boyish passion of Robert Waldron.

She listened again, but there was no movement, no sign of life in the yard below. On the other side of the house lay the street and the busy world of which she had taken her last farewell. For to venture out into these streets and to show her familiar face among the townspeople would be to banish herself forever from the home where she had come to die. Was she positively come to die here? Was she never more to sleep on any other bed but this until she fell into the last awful unbroken sleep? Were these walls and this narrow court the only spot of the wide world on which her eyes were ever to look again? She stretched out her arms and raised her bent figure to its fullest height. She felt no pain, nothing but the feebleness, often worse than pain, which is the result of long mental suffering. The London physician had perhaps been deceived by her symptoms, which, possibly, she had exaggerated to him. She might live many years yet. But to live--what was that? To die was dreadful; but she could not choose to live. She tried to send back her thoughts to the time when she fancied she had loved another better than her husband but it was in vain. The thought of John Morley was there quick and poignant in her inmost soul; but Robert Waldron was forgotten. She must see her husband.

Still she lingered and listened, watching the gleam through the uncurtained window, and the black naked boughs of the trees standing out clearly against its feeble light. She turned back and looked at her own faded face in a small glass which hung against the wall, over a little toilet-table. If her husband could only see it and read in it the story of her bitter repentance, would he not forgive her? But how much would his forgiveness mean? Was it possible that he could be reconciled to her? That he could receive her again? Call her his wife, and restore her to her forfeited place? No, no; that could never be. He might look upon her again, and pardon her if she was in the hour of death. But if life were strong within her, and many years lay before her, would he not spurn her from him, and refuse to lay his finger to her burden of shame?

At length she hurried down the steps and into the dreary little garden. She crept stealthily towards the window, lest she should enter into the revealing light, and her husband should lift up his eyes and see her standing without in the chill of the wintry night. Her face, wan, faded, and withered, approached cautiously the uncurtained panes. The room--she had seen that last night, with its ten years of added dinginess and decay. But who was this aged man, with a head bowed and white with years, who was bending over her husband's desk, and turning, from time to time, anxiously to the great account-books she had hated years ago. Her husband could not yet be fifty years old, a man in the full vigor and strength of life. The lamp beside him was covered with a shade which cast a gloom over the rest of the room, while it threw a full light upon him. The thin, shrivelled hands, the rounded shoulders, the grey and hollow features, the white hair--Rose saw them as in a dream. He got up at last, pushing away his books, and took his stand upon the hearth, with his back to the fire and his full face turned towards her. She drew back with a creeping thrill of terror.

"Hester," she heard him say, "I have finished my letter to Mr. Waldron. But if it were not for your sake, I would sooner let things take their course than ask him to lend me money. Ay, I would sooner die!"

Rose waited to hear no more. She cast one terrified glance at her husband, and then she fled back in a panic of fear to her hiding-place.

"Oh! what have I done?" she cried, in a frightened whisper, speaking as if some one was near enough to hear her; "he was a good man, and a prosperous man! I did not know what I should do. God forgive me! He never will; but God, in His great mercy, forgive me!"

She counted no more upon her hnsband's forgiveness. What there was in his face she did not know, but it had cast out all hope from her heart. For the first time, looking into the deep gulf of her husband's wrongs, she knew that it must be forever fixed between her and him. Perhaps in the last hour he might lay his hand in hers, and let her feel its warm forgiving clasp, as she went down into the dark valley of separation. But only in that supreme moment of death. Life, if she lived, must be a perpetual banishment from his presence.

The next morning, Hester, with her father's letter in her hand, wended her way slowly across the park to Aston Court. She felt a natural reluctance to the merest chance of meeting Robert Waldron, towards whom her feelings had undergone a great revulsion. Until now he had claimed from her an undefined and rather pleasant pity, mingled with admiration. If Carl had not come into her narrow world, her sentiment for Robert would have bordered upon a girl's first love for a seeming hero; and her heart, free and tender, might have centred in him its interests, and possibly its affections. But with Rose at home, with this dark sad shadow at her side, she recoiled from the idea of seeing him again for the first time. To her infinite relief she just caught a glimpse of him leaving the park on horseback by another route. Mr. Waldron then would be alone, and she could ask him not to let his son know of the transaction. She quickened her steps, and took the nearest way to the room where he was generally to be found in the morning. It led past the window of the breakfast-room, where Hester saw a vision of Miss Waldron sitting near the fire, and Carl in close conversation with her. She nodded to Carl, whose face was turned towards the window, and hurried on. Mr. Waldron was at that moment walking along the farthest end of the terrace, and Hester started to run after him. The color which this exercise brought to her pale cheeks gave her the beauty she lacked; and as Mr. Waldron turned sharply round, he acknowledged to himself that Robert's love had sufficient excuse. To Hester's extreme astonishment, he drew her into his arms, and imprinted a solemn kiss upon her glowing face. She had not the faintest idea that he was saluting her for the first time as the daughter of whom he had fondly dreamed these last two years.

"My dear," he said, drawing her hand upon his arm, and covering it with his own, "I was just thinking of you. You are often in my thoughts, Hester,--how often you would be surprised to know."

No opening could be more propitious. In a few incoherent sentences Hester stammered out the purpose of her visit, as she walked down the terrace, leaning upon his arm. He opened the folding doors of his room, and led her into it, seating her in a chair close to his own, and regarding with delight her downcast face, and her long eyelashes now beaded with tears. Nothing could have pleased him more; no overture could have come more opportunely. At the very moment when he was planning some mode of approach to John Morley, he had himself sent Hester to ask his help.

"Hester," he said, "your father has given me the greatest pleasure I have known for a long while. I am right glad he did not go to anybody else. What! are we not brothers? Have we not been members of the same Church these thirty years? He has acted like a Christian in coming to me. I will return at once with you to your home. This is the right thing. I find great pleasure in this."

He rubbed his hands heartily, looking down upon Hester with a smile of approbation. Already he was thinking of what house would be near enough to Aston Court, where he could bask a little in the freedom and gentleness of her presence whenever he grew slightly weary, as he did sometimes, of his daughter's piety.

"I was very much afraid of coming," said Hester, with a sigh of relief, and raising her eyes to his with a smile that enchanted him. His daughter-in-law promised fair to become his idol.

"Afraid of me!" he repeated, his austere face beaming with pleasure; "whatever could make the poor child afraid of me? Am I so very terrible to you, Hester?

"Oh, no!" she said; "but you are the greatest man I ever have to speak to; and I don't know anybody else who would have been bold enough to come to you as I have."

"Bold!" cried Mr. Waldron; "she calls herself bold! And asks simply for two hundred pounds! I wish it was two thousand, and you should have it at once. Come, let us go to your father, and set this business to rights. But as for a mortgage on his house, that is all nonsense."

"We must not go to him," said Hester, earnestly; "and he will never consent to take any money from you except upon a mortgage, for which he will pay interest. I know my father, and he will not listen to any other proposal. He would put his affairs into some lawyer's hands immediately."

"But what then does he want me to do?" asked Mr. Waldron, disappointed.

"He has written to you," she answered, "and given a fair statement of his debts. What I want is to ask you to advance any sum of money you think will bring us through our difficulties; though I am sure I don't see how they can end."

She spoke very dejectedly, and Mr. Waldron longed to tell her what a brilliant lot lay at her feet for her acceptance. But he dared not do it yet. He opened John Morley's letter, and read it carefully, seeing from it far more clearly than the writer how complicated his embarrassments were. He determined to avail himself of the new confidence established between him and Hester, in order to advance the happiness of his son.

"I must deliberate over this," he said, "and I shall want you to come up again several times, I dare say. You may take the money home with you at once; but still there will be papers to draw up, and I should like to know more about your affairs, as far as your father chooses to confide them to me. You will not dislike coming several times?"

"Oh! I shall like it," she said frankly; "I would spare my father any trouble that I could bear for him."

There was a fond and truthful devotion in Hester's manner which penetrated to Mr. Waldron's heart; and a treacherous doubt crossed it as to whether his daughter was really as devoted to him.

"And you are very poor, Hester?" he said.

"Very poor," she answered, gravely.

"You would like to be rich?" he asked.

"Dearly," she answered; "I should like to be as rich as you are, Mr. Waldron. I like a house as large and grand as this, and I think I could spend my money like any lady in the land."

"Like any other lady," he corrected.

"No," she said, "I am no lady. I belong quite to the working-class."

If she belonged to the working-classes, Mr. Waldron wished that all the other ladies of his acquaintance, including his daughter, did the same. When the interview came to an end, he insisted upon taking her to see Miss Waldron, and himself conducted her to the breakfast-room, where she still was, though she was alone, Carl having taken his departure. Hester was not sorry to see Miss Waldron, as a new interest centred in her, now that she had to regard her as Carl's possible future wife. She was received with a distant condescension intended to keep her in her place, which Miss Waldron was afraid of her forgetting, since she had been invited to dinner at Aston Court. More than this, there was rankling in her mind a suspicion almost amounting to conviction about Robert's meetings with her in Madame Lawson's garret, in spite of that old lady's denials. Her father also seemed disposed to make too much of John Morley's daughter. It was one of the greatest disadvantages of their denomination that social distinctions were apt to be overlooked among the members of a Church. Both Mr. Waldron and Hester seemed to ignore them; and it was high time to set her down a little. At the bottom of all lay a terrible doubt of Carl, who did not go on exactly as she wished, and who had never once set her heart beating by calling her Sophia.

"I am very much occupied with a bazaar," she said, after a freezing salutation; "and I have no doubt you can assist me in the plainer work. I will give you some to take home with you."

"I am afraid I shall have no time," she answered; "though, indeed, I thought of asking you if you could not find me some sewing to do at home. I mean for payment. I shall want a little money soon, and I cannot ask my father for any."

Her thoughts were running on the fresh burden she had added to the charge of their household expenditure. Rose would have all her time unoccupied; and Hester knew well how pacifying it is to a woman's spirit to have woman's work in her fingers. Besides, so far as her strength would permit, it would be only right for Rose to do something towards earning her own living. Hester had grown up in the practical school of poverty; so she asked Miss Waldron for work, and the payment for it, quite naturally, and with no over-weening sentimental emotion.

"I intend to ask Mrs. Grant as well," she continued; "but I am afraid she will not have much to give me, as she has all her wedding clothes still unworn. But perhaps she will know of somebody else. I shall want a constant supply," she added reflectively, "and it will be beautifully done."

To Miss Waldron an acknowledgment and request like these were a confession of unmeasurable inferiority. She almost wondered to see Hester comfortably seated in her presence; and she cast a cold supercilious eye upon her dress, which was plain and worn, but, in some manner, in perfect keeping with the sweet face of the wearer. She answered in a tone of stiff patronage, which marked the vast distance between them.

"I will see what I can do to assist you, Hester Morley," she said; "I have no doubt this is sent for your good, to humble you and prove you. I trust you are profiting by this discipline."

"I hope I am," she replied, simply. "I should be very miserable indeed if I did not believe that God sent all my troubles to do me good in the end. As to being poor, I dare not murmur at that, for Christ was poorer than I am."

Miss Waldron held her peace for a moment, and felt disquieted. If poverty were no inferiority, what advantage had she over Hester?

"You are only a child yet," she said, after a brief pause; "you are but a babe in spiritual things, and must still be fed with milk."

"Do you consider poverty milk for babes?" asked Hester, with a smile.

"I cannot jest upon solemn subjects," answered Miss Waldron, sternly; "but I will see what I can do to assist you, and I will send you a parcel by one of the servants tomorrow. You must excuse me now, for I am very busily engaged"

Thus dismissed, Hester took her leave. Miss Waldron felt happier and more reassured. She had not quite known the extent of John Morley's poverty; but now it had assumed a magnitude sufficient to form an insurmountable barrier between Carl and Hester. Very few young pastors, without private means, could afford the luxury of a portionless wife. But it was quite necessary to make Hester feel her position, for there had been a freedom in her manner which, more than ever, grated upon Miss Waldron's dignity now. She retired to her dressing-room, and ordered her maid to bring out the summer dresses which she had cast of with sundry articles no longer suitable for her own wear. The selection she made was not such as to excite the silent resentment and envy of her attendant. They would convey, she thought, a valuable lesson to Hester. To do her justice, she was not in the least aware of the full measure of her impertinence; for, to her, Hester was still only a young girl, and the daughter of one of their tradespeople who had solicited her for work. But she was quite willing to humble her and bring down her pride. Having completed her selection, she ordered her maid to make them up into a parcel and to convey them to Miss Morley the next time the carriage drove into Little Aston.

Unfortunately for Miss Waldron, it happened that when the Aston Court coachman handed her parcel out to Hester's little servant, who carried it up stairs to her small sitting-room, Annie Grant was there, eagerly discussing with Hester how she could find some suitable work for her. They opened Miss Waldron's packet at once, and regarded its contents with astonished and incredulous eyes. Instead of the sewing they expected, they found, first, an old brown terry-velvet bonnet, of a fashion which had prevailed several years before; below that a soiled and tumbled dress of some thin material, and a white muslin pelerine which had been a good deal mended. In addition to this munificent gift there were several scraps of ribbons, some very large old collars, an odd flower or two, and a pair of black silk mittens. A note accompanied them, expressing Miss Waldron's hope that Hester Morley would find these articles of clothing useful to her.

Annie Grant possessed sufficient penetration, and had seen enough of Miss Waldron, not to accord to her quite as unhesitating an admiration as the general public of Little Aston. She was of a quick, fiery disposition, and not at all disposed to submit tamely, either for herself or others, to the insolence or assumption of any one. When she saw the tears start to Hester's eyes, and her lips tremble with words she would not speak, her own indignation broke out.

"Never!" she exclaimed; "I never saw or heard or dreamed of such a thing in my whole life! What does the woman mean? How dare she do such a thing? Hester, what is the meaning of it?"

"I asked her for some sewing," said Hester, her lips quivering still, "and she has sent me this."

"Oh!" cried Annie, "I only wish she had brought them herself. I wonder how she could venture to do such a thing! But she counted upon you never telling anybody else; upon no one hearing of it."

"I never should," said Hester.

"I am glad I was here," continued Annie; "very glad! I only wish her father and brother knew! Marry Carl, indeed! No, not if she had ten times her money: the mean, insolent, purse-proud creature! Hester, you shall give them to me. It would only aggravate you to keep them in your own sight. Let your girl carry them up to our house at once."

"Don't you think we had better keep it a secret?" asked Hester.

"Keep it a secret!" responded Annie; "I could not keep it. James will know, and Carl. I should like him to hear what his grand friend has done. I shall take them away with me; they don't belong to you, for I suppose you won't keep them as a gift. Just look at them, Hester."

She turned over the things strewed upon the table, with gestures and exclamations of indignant excitement. The insult rankled in her mind the more for the outward composure of Hester's manner. She wished to hear her speak with some of her own vehement resentment; but she was quiet, wounded to the quick, perhaps, but so silent that Annie could not rouse her to utter any words of reproach.

Very shortly Annie went home, followed by the servant bearing Miss Waldron's parcel. She was burning for some opportunity of making manifest her anger to the author of it, and she possessed too little worldly prudence to conceal it upon any ground of expediency. Carl was not at home, nor her husband. She carried the parcel into her own room, and contemplated the contents afresh. An excellent thought struck her, and she immediately resolved to put it into execution.

Without a moment's pause for consideration, Annie arrayed herself in the cast-off finery which Miss Waldron had selected for conveying a useful lesson to Hester. She put on the shabby and crumpled dress, too short for her, and in consequence, much too short for Hester, who was taller than either of them. Over that she threw the yellow and darned muslin tippet, with one of the largest collars, which reached to the tip of her shoulders; and she fastened to it the scraps of old ribbon and the odd flowers. Upon her head she placed the long poked bonnet, which almost concealed her face; and then she drew upon her hands the lace mittens. A more singular apparition than her own reflection in her glass had never met her eyes, and she burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter at the sight of it. The distance between their own house and the park-gates was but short, and she was about to make a call upon Miss Waldron. If either Mr. Waldron or Robert should happen to be present, she would say nothing, and leave Miss Waldron to explain as she could the remarkable figure she presented; but if she should be alone--why then--Annie sped along quickly towards Aston Court, escaping all observations till she came to the park-gates, Once within them she considered herself safe, and she could walk more quietly. What would she say to Miss Waldron if she found her alone? Annie did not feel as if she should be at any loss for words; but then what would be the end of it? Very likely Miss Waldron for her own sake would keep the secret, but there could never be any cordiality or friendliness between them again. Not that she shrank from this mode of revenge in the least. She could not help laughing out aloud as she imagined Miss Waldron's consternation and chagrin upon recognizing her valuable gift to Hester coming up to view again in so unexpected a manner. Would it not be best to say nothing at all, and leave her dress silently to rebuke and confound the impertinence of the giver? It was possible that it would be the most effectual and the most pardonable mode of reproof.

Her mind was busily discussing the subject, when she saw, not very far off, her husband and Robert Waldron coming to meet her. There was neither time nor a way for retreat. Grant catching sight of a singular person coming towards him with a figure and carriage like his wife, arrested his progress for a moment, with an exclamation of doubt and surprise. Robert Waldron, whose sight was longer and keener than his, recognized Annie perfectly.

"It is Mrs. Grant," he said, quickening his steps.

"But what is the matter with her?" asked Grant; "she does not look like herself."

She was so unlike herself, that, as she came nearer, Robert could scarcely restrain the ejaculation of surprise which rose to his lips. Grant did not attempt to restrain his.

"Annie!" he exclaimed, "is it really you? Where are you going to? What in the world has happened to you?"

"I am going to call upon Miss Waldron," she answered, with an hysterical laugh. For an instant a wild doubt crossed her husband's mind as to whether she had not lost possession of her reason; and he looked steadily into her excited face.

"Annie," he said, "what is the matter?"

This simple question was put by him so gravely, that Annie was more and more hysterically affected. He drew her arm into his own, and led the way towards the lodge.

"We had better go in," he said to Robert; "we can get water for her there, and the lodge-keeper will leave us her room for a few minutes."

Before long, Annie had recovered her composure, and sat, feeling very much subdued, on the settle in the lodge, while her husband and Robert Waldron waited for her complete recovery. She was crying now, but a word might send her off into laughter again; and she wiped away her tears, and drank little sips of water from the glass her husband held to her lips. Robert could not determine to go while the mystery of her conduct remained unsolved; for his eye recognized some of the shabby finery she wore as having once belonged to his sister and he felt that he must learn the meaning of it.

"I was going to see Miss Waldron," repeated Annie at last, as soon as she could command her voice.

"But in these rags!" said Grant; "my dear Annie, do control yourself, and satisfy me that you are in a sound mind."

Annie hesitated, and looked towards Robert, but he would not go away.

"These rags," he said, adopting Grant's word, "once belonged to my sister, I am sure; and there is some mystery belonging to them. Dear Mrs. Grant, I beg of you to let me hear the explanation."

"You will never believe me," cried Annie, all her indignation reviving; "but she positively sent these old things this morning as a gift to--guess who to?"

"Not to you," said Grant, with an unpleasant smile.

'No, not to me, but to Hester Morley," she answered.

"Hester Morley!" echoed Grant, while Robert's face grew dark as he waited for Annie's answer.

"I was there when they came," she said, "with a note from Miss Waldron, hoping Hester could make use of them. Just look at them, Look at this bonnet."

She took it off her head and held it at arm's length, laughing and catching her breath in sobs at the same moment. Robert snatched it from her, and crushed it out of all shape under his foot.

"Hester!" he said; "good heavens! I can scarcely believe what you say. Why, Hester is to be my wife, if I can win her by any means; and you tell me these things were sent to her by my sister!"

"Your wife!" exclaimed Annie.

"Yes," he answered, curbing a little his passion; "I have loved Hester ever since Grant here carried me into John Morley's house; or, at any rate, ever since I first saw her there. Does it surprise you? It ought not. My father feels no surprise."

"Does he know?" asked Grant, in a voice of concern.

"Yes, and consents to it,--is anxious for it," said Robert. "Why! what is there strange about it? You know her, both of you; what is there to surprise you in the fact that I love her?"

"Oh, nothing!" they both answered in one breath; and then all three were silent, none of them looking at the others. Annie was quite calm now, and ready to submit to any of her husband's directions. He said, gravely, she must give up her intended visit to Miss Waldron, and that she could wait where she was, while he fetched her one of her own hats and cloaks.

Robert staid behind her, but Annie did not enter into conversation with him; and he felt embarrassed by her silence. Very few words passed between them before Grant's return, but he shook hands heartily with her before she left.

"I like you, and I thank you very much for what you had intended to do," he said, and he turned his steps homewards; while Grant accompanied Annie back safely to her own house.

Carl listened in silence to the story of Annie's escapade, but it touched and made to vibrate painfully many chords in his nature. His friend Miss Waldron had been gradually losing some of the brightness of the halo with which she had crowned herself; but this impertinence towards Hester appeared to show him the shallowness of her heart. Those who demand little homage for themselves, require the whole world to acknowledge the superiority of those they love. He was too deeply wounded by her conduct to speak of it, even to his sister, but he could ask a question about Hester.

"Are they so very poor, then?" he said.

"So poor," answered Annie, "that she asked Miss Waldron and me if we could give her any work to do."

"Yet Hester has just taken in a poor woman," observed Grant, "and fitted up a little out-building at the back of the house for her. She asked me to go to see her yesterday. A poor creature. I found her almost frightened to death by some London fellow, who told her her lungs were almost gone. I don't believe it. I dare say it is she who wants the sewing, for she must live."

"But why should not Hester tell us so?" asked Annie.

"There is some mystery about it," he replied "the woman has evidently been an educated woman. I asked her age particularly, and she said she was thirty-four. She seemed oppressed by a peculiar kind of fear which I could not account for. I have my suspicions."

"What are they?" asked Carl, looking up eagerly. Grant leaned over the table towards him, and lowered his voice to a whisper which would have been inaudible to the keenest ear outside the room.

'That this woman is no other than John Morley's lost wife," he said. "Mark you, it is no more than a suspicion, and it must be sacred with us. But if it be so--"Then God bless and help Hester!" cried Carl, rising suddenly, and making his escape to his study.

The conjecture just thrown out by Grant, which had struck his mind with the force of truth, moved Carl's heart to its depths. The thought of Hester very poor, and asking for work from Miss Waldron and Annie, had been enough in itself to awaken the most chivalrous sympathies of his nature; but if Grant's suspicions were true, what a story hung upon it! He pictured to himself John Morley, lost and buried in gloom, with his dreary house peopled by memories which were half a shame and half a sorrow; and this pale, lost shadow, haunting, unknown to him, the home of her happier days, but separated from him, not by walls merely, but by an impassable abyss which she dared not attempt to cross. And going from one to the other was Hester, speaking with the same tone, and looking with the same tenderness upon each of them. If he had but the right to share her secret! If he could only strengthen and uphold her when her spirit failed her along the straight and difficult path!

Underneath all these thoughts which stirred him there was a disguised and subtle undercurrent of emotion. If Hester had found and received to a shelter near herself, the lost Rose, would it be possible for her ever to become Robert Waldron's wife?

Miss Waldron heard no more of her gift to Hester. By one common consent, arrived at by different processes, all those who had become acquainted with the circumstance permitted it to drop into apparent oblivion. Hester knew nothing of Annie's plan of revenge which had been prematurely nipped; and as she never mentioned Miss Waldron's present again, Annie did not care to speak of it. She could not but acknowledge that her husband and Carl were right when they said that the whole thing must be suffered to pass, and that it would be dangerous to make an enemy of Miss Waldron. But she was glad Robert knew, exceedingly glad. She had no doubt it would come out some day or other from his lips, and cover his sister with confusion. In the meantime it was very difficult to maintain a pleasant and cordial demeanor towards her, when she came to see her and Carl so often.

This action of Miss Waldron had thrown difficulties into the paths of all. To Hester it made it a far from easy task to go to Aston Court, as she felt herself compelled to, in order to finish the business arrangements with Mr. Waldron, who had insisted upon advancing a sum of £500 instead of £200, which would set John Morley clear from his liabilities for about twelve months to come. Robert, on his part, found it so hard to keep this secret, and restrain his wrath, that he was not sorry when some pressing business demanded his presence in London; though it prevented him seeing Hester upon her rare visits to his father.

But for Carl the difficulty was tenfold. He had now been pastor of the Church at Little Aston for more than six months, and Miss Waldron began to be impatient at the slowness of his comprehension with respect to the marks of preference she showered upon him. She had become at last aware of a growing coldness in Annie Grant's manner, which was at once unaccountable and unpardonable, seeing that both Grant and Carl were under the patronage of her family. She could not brook any caprices in her inferiors but it was necessary to overlook those of Annie Grant, on account of Carl, whose study she could not invade if she had any serious disagreement with his sister. Her attachment for the young, handsome, and eloquent minister was growing into a folly, for the sake of which she was ready to sacrifice any pique, or endure any coolness from Annie. She fostered a hope, gathering strength every day, that Carl would at length take courage to woo the wealthy and eminent daughter of his patron.

On his part, Carl without Annie's aid, perhaps, would have been no slower than any other young man to understand her tokens of preference; but they were no pleasure to him. How to act he did not know. He was most anxious to put an end to them; but he did not at all see how it could be done. His delicate reverence for womanhood, and his dignified sense of duty as a pastor, imposed upon him the task of setting her to rights as soon as possible. He felt that their present intercourse hampered and fettered him in many of his duties; and he waited with impatience some opportunity for gently and considerately dispelling her illusion. The opportunity arrived at last.

"You regard me as a sister, Carl," she said to him one evening as they crossed the park together in the dusk, after she had stayed so long at Grant's house as to be afraid to return home alone. She had of late relinquished her strong mindedness.

"Certainly," answered Carl, somewhat absently.

"Then you ought to tell me of my faults," she said, plaintively; "I know I have so many faults, and by this time you must have discovered them. Poor dear Mr. Watson used to say he could not see any; but you have keener sight than he had, Carl."

She dropped her eyes, and half turned away her face, lest Carl's keen sight should read her thoughts too plainly.

"How I would conquer any fault you pointed out," she continued, with effusion. "Oh! this would be true friendship! I should like you to tell me all you think of me. Could you not tell me all you think of me, dear Carl?"

"I am afraid I should offend you," said Carl, in a low voice, the tone of which she misunderstood.

"Oh, no! you could not offend me," she replied; "it would be impossible! O Carl, you don't know how I should love the truth from your lips. Sometimes while you are preaching I wonder if anybody can attain to the standard you set before us. Do you know anybody who is even striving after it, Carl?"

"Yes, one," he answered.

"And who is that one?" she asked with a beating heart; "is it yourself, dear Carl."

"Not even myself," he said, gravely; "I think my standard is simply this; 'If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.' I dare not say that I have attained to this forgetfulness of self, this daily cross."

"But who then is the one that does?" demanded Miss Waldron.

"Hester Morley," answered Carl, with a secret exultation and great gladness of spirit.

Miss Waldron felt herself pierced through with this poignant shaft. She half withdrew her hand from Carl's arm; but he, with an involuntary sympathy for the pain he had inflicted, pressed it closer to his side; and with a fresh hope she laid it again more firmly and heavily upon its resting-place.

"I can tell you," he said, rapidly, "what I can say to no one else, with what delight I have watched Hester. She is more than what I once dreamed of women in my college days. My dreams were poor and vague. I did not know then what a woman's heart is."

"And you love her?" murmured Miss Waldron.

"Yes," he answered, lifting his hat from his head, with an instinctive gesture of reverence. "I love Hester as I love all that is good and true and lovely. I should be blind and foolish if I could do otherwise."

"Hester Morley!" cried Miss Waldron, in a voice of anguish; "and I warned you against her!"

"If I had received a thousand warnings," said Carl, "it would have been the same."

"And you have proposed to her!" she exclaimed. "You are engaged to her?"

"No," he replied; "I do not know that I shall ever tell her that I love her. She has another suitor, far above me, who has perhaps won her love. If Hester is not tempted by your brother's riches, I shall ask her to share my poverty."

"My brother!" ejaculated Miss Waldron.

"Yes," he said; "you told me yourself that he met her clandestinely. I know that he formed an attachment for her many months ago."

"Do you suppose that Robert Waldron, of Aston Court could ever marry John Morley's daughter?" she asked, bitterly.

Carl did not answer, and she walked beside him for some minutes in silence, striving to keep down the passion which would fain have found vent. She could not conceal from herself the reason of this confidence reposed in her before he had owned his love to Hester herself. He had detected the sentiments which she had cherished for him. He the unknown, penniless, friendless student, chosen by herself, put into his living by her hand, had discovered that she loved him,--and rejected her! She knew very well that she had not attempted to hide her affection for him but her mortification was none the less bitter.

"I do not ask you to keep my secret," said Carl gently. I do not know that I wish it to be a secret. If it were not that I have promised to leave Hester unbiased; if my honor was not pledged to do so, I should have asked John Morley for his daughter before this. Not that we could marry at present; we are both young. But that I might have the right to help her, that we might help each other, to bear the sorrows of life."

His voice, which had been calm at first, faltered as he uttered the last sentence, and fell into such a tone of tenderness that Miss Waldron felt as if she could not bear to hear him speak another word. At that moment, for the first time in her life, she felt old. These two young creatures, Carl who was ten years her junior, and Hester whom she had scarcely ceased to consider as a child, stood before her for an instant in a separate world of youth and glory. How warm and bright and joyous was the youth she had left behind her! She felt herself suddenly at a great disadvantage. She was a thing laid aside, a being passed by; while Hester rejoiced in a wealth which no money could ever purchase. She shivered at the thought of being old. A desperate struggle was going on in her mind. Only one thins was clear to her,--she must bear herself bravely before Carl.

"You have taken me a little by surprise," she said "yet now I come to think of it, nothing could be more natural. You recollect I predicted something like this. Hester is of your own age, and your own rank in life; you could not look much higher. She is the only girl in our congregation who is your equal by birth and education; the others, no doubt, are somewhat beneath you. I wish for your sake, that John Morley was not so greatly involved in difficulties."

"I know they are poor," said Carl.

"Worse than that," continued Miss Waldron. "After your confidence, I feel justified in telling you all I know. John Morley is in imminent danger of bankruptcy and disgrace. In fact, but for my father he would have been a bankrupt already."

It was Carl's turn to feel a painful contraction of the heart. If John Morley had surrendered his ancient resentment so far as to suffer himself to be saved from bankruptcy by the Waldrons, could it be anything but a sign of what must be in the end? He had never before chafed at his narrow means; but now, as he compared his own salary of £150--for £50 had been added to it since the old pastor's death,--with the large income of Robert Waldron, he felt that life was very unequal. Almost any passionate emotion makes man long for that lost equality, which is, perhaps, part of the forfeit for the original sin of ambition. It seemed preposterous to Carl that Robert should receive monthly twice his annual income. Set them down in circumstances on a perfect level, and see which would prove himself the better man! But now, because Robert could rescue Hester and her father from poverty and disgrace, he would no doubt attain his end, and Hester would be lost to himself.

"Miss Waldron," he said, after a long pause, "I do not suppose I shall ever tell Hester of my love. It seems to me as if she will never belong to me. But I shall never love any other woman as I love her. If John Morley were branded for the vilest of crimes in the face of the whole world, she would still be the woman I love."

"It is an infatuation!" muttered Miss Waldron, between her teeth.

"Perhaps so," he answered, calmly; "but it is an infatuation sweeter than any pleasure I ever tasted"

"You are not the devoted servant of God I thought you," she said, austerely.

"I trust I am His servant," replied Carl with increasing calmness; "and I hope that every day will find me more devoted to His service. But He does not require me to be blind. If He should give Hester to me, I will take her as His most precious gift. But if not, what else can I do but submit myself to His will?"

Miss Waldron did not answer, but she withdrew her hand finally from his arm. Carl understood the significant action, and felt sorry for it; but he fancied that her good sense, if not her religion, could at least restore peace between them in the course of a few days. It was most desirable that he should continue to be on friendly terms with the most influential woman belonging to his Church. He believed firmly in her goodness still, though he had sounded the shallowness of her mind; and it did not occur to him that she might nurse her jealousy and disappointment into revenge. In silence they completed their walk; and when Miss Waldron dismissed him coldly, without asking him to go in, he turned away a little sorrowful for her, but not in the least apprehensive for himself.

Miss Waldron was doomed to receive a second blow the same night, almost as severe as the first. Before she had time to yield to the passion which Carl's confession had awakened, her father entered the room, where she was still sitting with her bonnet and shawl on in an apathetic state of bewilderment. Mr. Waldron was growing impatient for the success of his schemes; while Robert was hanging back from the fatal moment which must decide the future relationship between himself and Hester. It was all in vain that his father reminded him that faint heart never won fair lady. There was one memory which always made his heart faint, whenever he thought of asking for the hand of John Morley's daughter. Mr. Waldron resolved at last to consult his daughter. If she, the infallible oracle of the house, could be won over to his side, Robert would surely lay aside his fears.

"My dear," he said, "it is probable that Robert will at last consent to marry. It is what we have both desired for years. You have never given me a moment's uneasiness; but for him I am still anxious. To marry a religious woman might be the salvation of his soul. For what says the apostle, 'The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife?'"

As he uttered the familiar quotation, conscience carried back his memory to the day when he and his old pastor had gone to expostulate with John Morley upon his approaching marriage. But this case, he said to himself, was altogether different. His son, though not a professed member, was as it were in the porch of the Church, and needed only Hester's hand to guide him into its inner sanctuary.

"