stronger than her judgment, a woman with a gentle disposition, hating to give pain-that such a character could act as she had acted toward Bernarda and her boy. It seemed to Judith that what her mother had done had been much the same as if one had met a child in a narrow path, had pushed it aside, and marched onward, not looking behind, but leaving the child, either to recover its footing, if lucky, or, if not, to fall over the precipice and linger in torture at the bottom, till death should be kind enough to release it.

"We should say that the person was an inhuman monster who did that," she reflected. "Yet she knew that if Mrs. Ralph Aglionby's health gave way, if she were incapacitated for work, or work failed, she must starve or go to the workhouse, and the child with her. I cannot see that she was less inhuman than the other person would have been. . . . She has always appeared tranquil; the only thing that troubled her was an occasional fear lest Uncle Aglionby should not leave his property exactly as she desired. Was she tranquil because she knew Mrs. Aglionby to be in decent circumstances, or was it because she knew that she was safe from discovery and that whatever happened to them she was secure of the money ?"

Judith's face was haggard as she arrived at this point in the chain of her mental argument. It would not do to go into that question. She hastily turned aside from it, and began an attempt to unravel some of the intricacies which her discovery must cause in the future for her sisters and herself. She felt a grim pleasure in the knowledge that in the past they had gained nothing from their mother's sin. They had rather lost. In the future, how were they to demean themselves? "We can never marry," she decided. "As honest women, we can never let any man marry us without telling him the truth, and it is equally impossible for us deliberately to expose our mother's shame. That is decided, and nothing in the heavens above or the earth beneath can ever alter that. We can work, I suppose, and try to hide our heads; make ourselves as obscure as possible. That is the only way. And we can live, and wait, and die at last, and there will be an end of us, and a good thing too."

She pondered for a long time upon this prospect; tried to look it in the face, "Je veux regarder mon destin en face," she might have said

with Maxime, "the poor young man," "pour lui ôter son air de spectre." And by dint of courage she partially succeeded, even in that dark hour. She succeeded in convincing herself that she could. meet her lot, and battle with it hand to hand. She did more; she conjured up a dream in which she saw how joy might be extracted from this woe not that it ever would be-but she could picture circumstances under which it might be. For example, she reflected:

"They say there is a silver lining to every cloud. I know what would line my cloud with silver-if I could ever do Bernard Aglionby some marvelous and unheard-of service; procure him some wonderful good which should make the happiness of his whole life, and then, when he felt that he owed everything to me, if I could go on my knees to him, and tell him all; see him smile, and hear him say, 'It is forgiven,' then I could live or die, and be happy, whichever I had to do."

A calm and beautiful smile had broken over the fixed melancholy of her countenance. It faded away again as she thought, "And that is just what I shall never be allowed to do. Does he not say himself that there is no forgiveness; for every sin the punishment must be borne. And I must bear mine."

The dusk had fallen, the air was cold with the autumnal coldness of October. Judith, after deciding that she might keep her secret to herself for to-night, went down-stairs to meet her mother and sisters with what cheer she might.

CHAPTER XXIII-AGLIONBY'S DEBUT. AGLIONBY, casting one last look after Rhoda's figure as it disappeared, turned his horse's head, and drove homeward dreamily. Not a fortnight -not one short fourteen days had elapsed since he had been summoned hither-and how much had not taken place since? He could not have believed, had any one told him earlier, that he had so much flexibility in his character as to be susceptible of undergoing the change which certainly had taken place in him during that short time. In looking back upon his Irkford life, it appeared like an existence which he had led, say ten years ago, and from which he was forever severed. The men and women who had moved and lived in it trooped by, in his mind, like figures in a dream; so much so, indeed, that he

presently dismissed them as one does dismiss a recollected dream from his head, and his thoughts reverted to the present; went back to the parlor at Yoresett House, to Mrs. Conisbrough's figure reclining in her easy-chair, and to the figures of his three "cousins." All over again, and keenly as ever, he felt the pain and mortification he had experienced from Judith's fiat as to their future

terms.

"By George," he muttered, "I wonder I ever submitted to it! I can't understand it-only she can subdue me with a look, when any one else would only rouse me to more determined opposition."

Arrived at Scar Foot, he entered the house, and in the hall found more cards on the table, of neighboring gentry who had called upon him. He picked them up, and read them, and smiled a smile such as in his former days of bitterness had often crossed his face. Throwing himself into an easy-chair, he lighted his pipe, and gave himself up to reflection.

"I must decide on something," he thought. "In fairness to Lizzie, I must decide. Am I going to live here, or am I not? I should think the question was rather, 'can I? will Lizzie?' Of course I must keep the house on, here, but I know Lizzie would not be happy to live here. Two houses? one here and one at Irkford? How would that do? Whether Lizzie liked it or not, I could always fly here for refuge, when I wanted to dream and be quiet. I could come here alone, and fish -and when I was tired of that, I might go to Irkford, and help a little in political affairs. Perhaps some day I might catch my cousin Judith... in a softer mood, and get her to hear reason. He looked around the darkening room, and started. There was the soft rustle of a dress—a footfall-a hand on the door-his eyes strained eagerly toward it. Judith always used to come down in the twilight. She enters. It is Mrs. Aveson, come to inquire at what time he would like to dine. He gives her the required information, and sinks discontentedly back into his chair.

"The fact is," he mentally resumed, "I am dazed with my new position; I don't know what I want and what I don't want. I must have some advice, and that from the only person whose advice I ever listened to. I must write to Aunt Margaret."

(Aunt Margaret was his mother's sister, Mrs. Bryce, a widow.)

"I believe," he then began to think, "that if I did what was best-what was right and my duty I should set things in train for having this old place freshened up. I wonder what Judith would say to that-she has never known it other than it is now-and then. I should go to Irkford, tell Lizzie what I'd done, ask her to choose a house there, and to fix the wedding, and I should get it all over as soon as possible, and settle down and that is exactly what I don't want to do. I wish I knew some one to whom I could tell what I thought about my cousins; some one who could answer my questions about them. I . feel so in the dark about them. I cannot imagine Judith asking things she was not warranted in asking-and yet, blindly to submit to her in such an important matter

He spent a dreary evening, debating, wondering, and considering-did nothing that had about it even the appearance of decisiveness, except to write to Mrs. Bryce, and ask her to sacrifice herself and come into the country, to give him her company and her counsel, "both of which I sorely need," wrote this young man with the character for being very decided and quick in his resolutions. As to other things, he could make up his mind to nothing, and arrived at no satisfactory conclusion. He went to bed feeling very much out of temper, and he too dreamed a dream, in which reality and fantasy were strangely mingled. He seemed to see himself in the Irkford theatre, with Diplomacy" being played. He was in the lower circle, in evening dress, and thought to himself, with a grim little smile, how easily one adapted oneself to changed circumstances. Beside him a figure was seated. He had a vague idea that it was a woman's figure-his mother's—and he turned eagerly toward it. But no! It was his grandfather, who was glaring angrily toward a certain point in the upper circle, and Bernard also directed his glance toward that point, and saw, seated side by side, his friend Percy Golding and Lizzie Vane. They looked jeeringly toward him, and he for some reason, or for none-like most dream reasons-felt a sudden fury and a sudden fear seize him. He strove to rise, but could not. His fear and his anger were growing to a climax, and they at last seemed to overpower him, when he saw Mrs. Conisbrough suddenly appear behind.

Percy and Lizzie, laughing malignantly. It then seemed to him that in the midst of his fury he glanced from her face toward a large clock, which he was not in the least surprised to see was fixed in the very middle of the dress circle. "Ten minutes past ten," so he read the fingers; and his terror increased, as he thought to himself, "Impossible! It must be much later!" And he turned to the figure of his grandfather by his side, perfectly conscious though he was, that it was a phantom. "Shall I go to them ?" he inquired. "Yes," replied the apparition. "Bat the time !" continued Aglionby frantically, and again looked toward the clock. "Ten minutes to two," he read it this time, and thought, "Of course! a much more appropriate time !" And turning once more to the phantom, he put the question to it solemnly, "Shall I go to them?"

"N-no," was the reluctant response. With that, it seemed as if the horror reached its climax, and came crashing down upon him, and with a struggle, in the midst of which he heard the mocking laughter of Lizzie, Percy, and Mrs. Conisbrough, he awoke, in a cold perspiration.

The moon was shining into the room, with a clear, cold light. Aglionby, shuddering faintly, drew his watch from under his pillow, and glanced at it. The fingers pointed to ten minutes before

two.

"Bah! a nightmare!" he muttered, shaking himself together again, and turning over, he tried once more to sleep, but in vain. The dream and its disagreeable impression remained with him in spite of all his efforts to shake them off. The figure which, he felt, had been wanting to convert it from a horror into a pleasant vision, was that of Judith Conisbrough. But after all, he was glad her shape had not intruded into such an insane phantasmagoria.

The following afternoon he drove over to Danesdale Castle, to return the call of Sir Gabriel and his son. It was the first time he had penetrated to that part of the Dale, and he was struck anew with the exceeding beauty of the country, with the noble forms of the hills, and above all, with the impressive aspect of Danesdale Castle itself. There was an old Danesdale Castle-a grim, halfruined pile, standing "four square to the four winds of heaven," with a tower at each corner. It was a landmark and a beacon for miles around, standing as it did on a rise, and proudly looking VOL. XVII.-21

across the Dale. It was famous in historical associations; it had been the prison of a captive queen, whose chamber window, high up in the third story, commanded a broad view of lovely lowland country, wild moors, bare-backed fells. Many a weary hour must she have spent there, looking hopelessly across those desolate hills, and envying the wild birds which had liberty to fly across them. All that was over now, and changed. "Castle Danesdale," as it was called, was nearly a ruin, a portion of it was inhabited by some of Sir Gabriel's tenantry; a big room in it was used for a ball for the said tenantry in winter. The Danesdales had built themselves a fine commodious mansion of red-brick, in Queen Anne's time, in a noble park nearer the river, and there they now lived in great state and comfort, and allowed the four winds of heaven to battle noisily and wuther wearily around the ragged towers of the house of their fathers.

Aglionby found that Sir Gabriel was at home, and as he entered, Randulf crossed the hall, saw him, and his languid face lighted with a smile of satisfaction.

"Well met!" said he, shaking his hand. "Come into the drawing-room, and I'll introduce you to my sister. Tell Sir Gabriel," he added to the servant, and Aglionby followed him.

"For your pleasure or displeasure, I may inform you that you have been a constant subject of conversation at my sister's kettledrums for the last week," Randulf found time to say to him, as they approached the drawing-room, "and as there is one of those ceremonials in full swing at the present moment, I would not be you."

"You don't speak in a way calculated to add to my natural ease and grace of manner," murmured Bernard, with a somewhat sardonic smile, a gleam of mirth in his eyes. Sooth to say, he had very vague notions as to what a kettledrum might be; and he certainly was not prepared for the spectacle which greeted him, of some seven or eight ladies, young, old, and middle-aged, seated about the room, with Miss Danesdale dispensing tea at a table in the window-recess.

An animated conversation was going on; so animated, that Randulf and Aglionby, coming in by a door behind the company, were not immediately perceived except by one or two persons. But by the time that Mr. Danesdale had piloted his victim to the side of the tea-table, every tongue was silent, and every eye was fixed upon them.