But, even as he spoke, the sense of his own utter helplessness weighed heavily upon him. She laid her folded hands upon his shoulder, and looked up like a troubled child; the poor, weary, wistful little face had lost its glow of colour, and, all wan and hopeless, looked up into his.

"Only tell me how to do my best, Gardy." Wondering at himself the while, he told her of his wanderings in foreign lands; of the accidental meeting with a friend; of what that friend had said, of simple Aunt Ellen's trouble and dismay; of his own anxiety and hurried return. But he was sorely put to it when he tried to speak of comfort for poor Mabel's sorrows, for he knew not where earthly comfort was to come from, and could only think, as he looked at her, so young and fair, and wearyhearted, "God help her!" in this acknowledging his human sympathy of no avail! He told her that he thought a young wife was better not so much in the gay world alone, and that drowning thought in excitement was but making greater sorrow for the future.

"If I were only like my mother!" she said. "Do you know what General Cameron told me of her to-night-that she found her happiness in her home, and cared for nothing beyond it?" Then followed questions as to her meeting with the General, Col. Thornton's old friend. "You must not judge yourself too hardly, Mabel, in thinking of what he said about your mother. It would have been strange indeed, with such a husband as your father, if her home had not been a centre of happiness. You will be brave, May, won't you, though your lot is so sadly different from hers?"

She did not answer, only bent her head, and pressed her lips upon the hand that held her

own.

That kiss quivered through his whole being: in spite of himself his voice shook and faltered. "It is getting late, child. I shall leave you now, soon, very soon to see you again."

To see her in such sadness had been torment keen enough; but to leave her to this life of loveless misery!

Her heart was full to overflowing, and bright tears glistened in her eyes. She felt so grateful for the delicacy of his thoughtfulness, in sparing her all reproach and abuse of her husband; for, womanlike, though not one semblance of love or tenderness was in her heart for the man whose name she bore, Mabel could not have listened to such words without flinching under them.

It was very hard to leave her: the soft, clinging hands were full of a mute entreaty, a magnetic power to keep him. He, so strong as he believed himself, felt powerless now. glanced at a clock upon the table-it was five minutes to the half-hour.

He

"When the five minutes are gone," he thought, "I will go."

"You are not angry, Gardy, are you?" said poor Mabel-"not angry with me-for-anything-"

The rosy colour flashed into her face again. He was tried beyond his strength.

She stood before him, in her beauty and humility, her proud young head bowed in sweet womanly shame, her whole face and form breathing a shy, appealing tenderness. He drew a long deep breath, and the strong will gave way; the self-imposed fetters broke asunder, his voice was full of a pent-up anguish.

"My God!-my God!-to think that it was all in vain! I did it for the best, God knows I did! But, oh, Mabel! I loved you—I loved you, my darling!"

Not Marguerite's exulting song-"Ei m' ama!" is more full of rapture than Mabel's half-whispered words, as she leaned forward to gaze into his now averted face, pressing her hand upon her breast to still its heaving. "He loved me!-he loved me!" It was herself speaking to herself-telling her own heart what seemed too sweet and strange for truth.

A moment more and she was clinging to his breast. He held her to his heart, and kissed her paling lips, with mad unthinking passion, that could remember nothing, save that the struggle of the past had been in vain-worse than useless; that she was there clasped close, as he had yearned for her so long-that she loved him, him only-not as his ward, not as his child, but even as he loved her, beyond all other! Mabel lay still against his breast, hereyes closed, her lips parted, her very soul hushed and stilled into calmness by intensity of joy. She had no thought of all that stood between themnone. No other thought could find a place in her heart, only this-" he loves me!"-nothing else: the world was shut out from her by this thought. What could be anything to her again by the side of this sweet truth?

He was the first to rally from this dream of rest and joy. Such dreams have an awaking bitter as death and pitiless as the grave. She felt his clasp grow closer, fonder; heard him murmur, "My poor Mabel! my lost love!" and then the present, with its dread reality, its inevitable decree of separation, came back to her. Hitherto she had only felt, now she thought; and, gliding from his arms, she sank upon her knees, sobbing out in piteous entreaty, "Leave me, oh leave me, or my heart will break !"

Without a word he went; the very echo of his footsteps died away, the night wore on, the grey dawn glimmered faintly in the sky, the light of the stars paled; but Mabel knelt on, her face buried in the folds of her shining dress.

CHAP. II.

Somewhere once I read that "nevermore" was of all words the saddest; but I say, Not so; for who can say that in its fullest, highest sense, "nevermore" is a reality? Who shall dare to cut us off from the hope that, once death's

portal passed, "nevermore" shall cease to be? No; there is a sadder, far sadder, thought than this a thought that, like a shroud, holds a dead past" It might have been."

A lost life-the pitiful pathos of a lost existence-is in these words; the more so because they tacitly imply one's own hand has helped to make it so. A knowledge gained too late-a something that "might have been," and yet "is not." A night is bright and beautiful; hill and dale, flooded with silvery moonlight, derive new loveliness from the glistening haze (like a young bride seen fairer through her veil)-a sudden cloud, and all the tender light is gone. So | imagination paints to us a life that "might have been." All looks fair in Fancy's silver light; but in a moment, cloud-like comes the thought "It is not so; it only might have been !"--the light is gone, and nought is left us but the dark and stern reality-bleak desolation!

**

*

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**

It was thus with Mabel on that strange, eventful night. All the latent strength and courage of her nature was revealed to her own heart. Bitter hours of anguish, inaddening thoughts of what life "might have been" to her, and what "it was," aroused her to the need of looking boldly in the face a drear future that stretched on before her. Hitherto Mabel had never pondered thus, or tried to "think it out" and discern what she ought to do. Stung to bitterness by her wrongs, she had answered hard words in their own kind, given "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." She had brooded over and resented her husband's faults towards herself, but had never asked her own conscience, "Have I done my best towards him?" She thought of all this now. One day she had been plunged in useless repining, the next seeking forgetfulness in scenes of gaiety and excitement-herself the life and spirit of the whole. Poor weary soul! tossed about by the caprice of the hour, leading an aimless, unstable life, "seeking rest and finding none!" But now she had a motive-power for striving towards a higher standard, a worthier life. Like a sweet haunting melody, through all the sadness and the weight of misery, ran one blessed thought, "He loves me."

For this she would strive, for this she would struggle to be worthy of this love-this great precious love that she had found! Though they never met again, never any more till death gave them to each other, this thought, the knowledge of his love, would keep him safe would strengthen and uphold her, so that even he should say "You have done well!"

When General Cameron paid his promised visit, the day following Mrs. Somerton's party, he found Mabel so quiet and subdued, so unlike the radiant beauty of the previous evening, that he reproached himself with having been unjust to her in thought. He noted the simple morning dress, without a single ornament, the sad reposeful face, and wondered to see how different she looked by day and night; but he did not

know (how should he?) that a whole lifetime of feeling lay between that time and this? The General's visit was the first foundation of a friendship that never afterwards knew "a shadow of turning." His previous knowledge of the mother, whose memory many revered as something sacred, gave the old soldier a peculiar interest in her eyes-and all his chivalrous devotion was called forth by the sight of one so young and fair neglected and uncared-for by her natural protector.

She could have had no better friend; there was a stern purity about the old Indian, that rebuked all lightness in others. Once the name of Mrs. Arthur Stanley was mentioned in his presence in that half-jesting manner which is more hurtful to a woman's fame than the assertion of real evil. You can grapple with the one, but the other is impalpable, and yet, like fine dust, soils what it falls upon.

"It is a cowardly thing, sir," said the old soldier, whom all had supposed buried in his newspaper, turning a pair of hawk's-eyes on the discomfited speaker"a most cowardly unmanly thing, to speak in that manner of a woman -more especially of one whom we all know to be so entirely unprotected as Mrs. Arthur Stanley. In my presence it shall not be done!"

And before the astonished scandal-monger recovered his self-possession sufficiently to meditate a reply the General had left the room. No one again ever regaled him with the on-dits of the gay world. But to return.

Ever haunting Mabel's memory were the words her guardian had spoken on that night— "You will be brave, won't you, Mabel?" And in her thoughts she answered, "I will, I will !” And she was brave, and enduring, and patient; so that her husband wondered at the change, and thought how much more "manageable she was becoming-for she had baffled his powers in the managing line more than once before. All this effort and activity of mind and feeling tried her bodily powers more than Mabel knew; and at length there came a morning when she was overpowered by a sense of feebleness, and lay still all-day, hoping that the morrow would bring renewed strength; but the morrow came without the health or energy; so Dr. Leopold was sent for, and came softly into the room-darkened, because she did not like the light-and there he found her, lying pale and wan, with violet circles round her wistful eyes; and yet she seemed to have no ailment to which he could give a name. The little round man carried a kindly, chivalrous heart under his white waistcoat (always the most prominent feature in his general appearance): some suspicion that, in this case, his verdict of " rest and quiet" was applicable to the mind as well as to the body, gave such a gentleness to his manner, that Mabel (with whom he had always been a favourite) found real comfort in his visits, and Arthur Stanley felt constrained to something like sympathy and kindness towards his wife when Dr. Leopold happened to be present.

"Poor thing! poor thing!" you might have

The Vulture had dropped in, to spend an hour with Mrs. Leo, and been edified by an account of how she, Mrs. Leopold, had seen "with her own eyes" (was there a probability of her making use of anyone else's optics?) "a note, on pink paper, with a crest on the envelope hand bearing a torch-that she knew it was from young Mrs. Stanley, and wondered greatly what was wrong"-that she should like to make her mind easy as to whether there was any chance of an heir to Weylands. "Old Mrs. Stanley's property, you know, dear Lady M'Alpine, it's entailed: so you see she really ought to have a son!" Or perhaps there had been a domestic disturbance, and the lady's nerves were suffering.

"I should not wonder, either," said this charming woman : "for really, the way she goes on-well, well, I know what my husband would say !"

Now (figuratively speaking) the plumage of the Vulture was not a little ruffled. Lunch was by no means to her mind; the soup was chilly, and the patties had a superabundance of pepper; so she amicably replied, "Don't distress your self about it,my dear; pray don't. I can assure you, my respectable friend, your husband will never be disturbed, either by you "going on or going off."

Her victim plumed herself upon her own incomparable virtue, and looked so wonderfully self-complacent, that the Vulture's eyes twinkled with delight.

"You are right, dear lady McAlpine, as you always are; I hope I have more principle and self-respect than to do either the one or the other."

"I don't know about that," was the unlooked for reply; "what I meant was, that you'll never have the chance." We must make the overpeppered patties responsible for the angry glow on Mrs. Leo's ample face, and thank Heaven that the Doctor made his opportune appearance at this critical moment.

"How is Mrs. Arthur Stanley?" was the first question his wife greeted him with.

But his only answer was, a request for some of the tepid soup, before alluded to; and when the query was repeated, he put another on his own

he said, "I do not often interfere with what you say or do, my dear; but understand one thing, I will not have remarks made about my professional affairs." And this was all that the Doctor's wife ever learnt of Mabel's illness, beyond what everybody knew-that Mrs. Arthur Stanley was "not well enough to see anyone." Is my reader ready to say that this is an exaggeration, that such women as Mrs Leopold do not exist? Alas! they do, to the discomfort of all around them.

Such women have a never-resting, never ceasing, longing to pry into the concerns of other people, as much perhaps from idle, vulgar curiosity, as anything else. From a love of talking of the affairs of their friends and neighbours, they speculate upon the motives prompting actions of which in reality they know nothing; thus working an amount of evil, making an amount of mischief, almost incredible.

I give Mr. Leopold as a specimen of a class only too numerous, and which all who have any regard for their own peace and comfort will religiously avoid.

*

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*

Mabel was a very submissive patient, ready enough to act up to her doctor's direction as to rest and quiet. The truth was, she felt glad of time for thought-glad to lie for hours unspoken to, solving the problem of her own life, past, present, and future. Twice only was she energetically determined to have her own way-once when her husband suggested that Mrs. Stanley, sen., should be sent for in the capacity of sick-nurse; and again when a letter from Miss Thornton announced her intention of coming to town on the same errand.

"I will not have anyone; I shall get well best alone," said May, with angry eyes, and two hot pink patches burning on her cheeks, And Dr. Leopold let her have her way. He had seen enough of her home-life to understand that May was better left to fight her battle alone, "And a hard battle it is too," said he to himself; "but she is a brave woman-a brave woman!" (and, if a sigh heaved the white waistcoat, as the thought crossed his mind-" Il y a des femmes et des femmes," the little doctor was far too loyal to give it utterance).

"She doesn't want me to go to her," said Aunt Ellen, coming in dire distress to the Colonel's study, a letter from Mabel in her hand. This she tried to read aloud, but the tears ran down her face and fell upon the paper; so she gave it up, and fairly wrung her hands. "She says she's best alone-and she can't be, I'm sure. She was always so imprudent: didn't she go and wander about in the garden, all among the wet trees and things, and come to my room, with her hair as damp as if she'd just been bathing, only the very night before her wedding?"

"What did she wander in the garden for?" said the Colonel, in a set, quiet voice, that told

of some effort, and looking steadily out of the window.

"I'm sure I don't know," sobbed Aunt Ellen. "She never was like anyone else, you know; she said she saw you through the window, and you looked so lovely, and- O, good gracious! William, I wish the child had never left us!"

Not half so much-oh, not one-half so much as he! Thus learning new and touching proofs of a love that he had been too blind to see, he echoed her wish with passionate longing, and felt that for evermore he must go on

'Bearing a life-long hunger at his heart!"

set! Even Lady M'Alpine doesn't visit there; and for her to take up' Mrs. Arthur Stanley !” "I don't know about 'taking up,' said the Doctor; "but they seem great friends; and I am very glad of it, very. People will be less uncharitable now."

For once his lady let him have the last word; she was silently wishing that several suggestive remarks (as to Mabel's illness being caused by some storm of a domestic nature) made to one or two lady friends were unsaid; but such inuendos are not easily cancelled; they are like a stone thrown into a pond! you can never tell how far the circles will extend.

affair, however, as the gentleman was apparently suffering from the fatigues of a recent toilet).

He made many an effort to fly from this lovely shadow; but it would not be driven away. If he plunged into a learned and scientific treatise, a phantom hand was laid upon his shoulder-a phantom voice pleaded to be told "just a little about it-only a little." This one presence, the lost Mabel of the past, was all-pervading, everhaunting, until at last he fled from it no more; but grew to love and cling to it, just as, in the first bitterness of bereavement, the miniature that is the shadow of what we have lost is too painful a sight to look upon; but time mellows our grief, and then we find delight in gazing on that which has clinging about it so many precious memories.

Before long May's letters spoke of renewed health and strength. There was comfort in this to Aunt Ellen; but she had strong, though vague misgivings that something was amiss 66 a cloud of some sort between her brother and his ward. But the good lady had an oldfashioned belief in Christmas as the panacea for all misunderstandings-the bond that reunited all severed links. "We shall be all together then," she thought; but who can say for the future, "We shall do this or that?" Alas! for the uncertainty of all things in this world of change.

*

"Is Mrs. Stanley here?" said the Doctor's wife, as her liege lord insinuated himself into a vacant chair by her side at a fashionable concert, the programme of which promised a rich treat to every real lover of music.

"Yes," he replied, "with Lady Osbaldiston."

"With whom?" (this in a higher tone than society usually considers quite the thing).

Dr. Leopold repeated his former assertion. "Well, I never! Why, she's so dreadfully exclusive; everybody is dying to get into her

"O yes!" briskly replied the lady: "don't you see him talking to Lady Osbaldiston?" And she tried to suppress her exultation at this fact.

66

"Ah!" said the languid one, with sudden animation, "there is Mrs. Arthur Stanley. I'm weally wevy glad-pon honor, now, I am-to see her out again! Oh, of course, she's been ill for a long time. I never saw a person so changed, so fearfully altered-she used to be so very good-looking."

By a curious spasm of the facial muscles the exquisite dropped his eye-glass, that had been focused upon Mabel and her friend. An idea (curious coincidence!) crossed that vapid brain of his-an idea that the plain woman by his side was envious of the pretty woman at the other end of the room.

"Aw! weally-I don't know; she's wevy transparent and ethereal, you know; but I like that sort of thing-I do, now, 'pon honor!" and he was soon making his way through the crowd, towards the "Osbaldiston set," which seemed, on this occasion, to consist of Mabel, her ladyship, and General Cameron.

"I wish I were nearer to them," pondered Mrs. Leopold; "perhaps she could manage to introduce me.'

The head of the Vulture now appeared, agitating itself among the audience, as though seeking a quarry to alight upon.

"There is room by me, dear Lady M'Alpine. Leo will give you his chair."

But the bird of prey had other game in view, and heeded not. She made her way to Mabel, profuse in her expressions of delight at her reappearance in the gay world.

Nothing could be more gentle and courteous than Mrs. Stanley; but the lady in violet velvet, the grand object of the Vulture's ambition, was apparently oblivious of everything save the music; so (no other vacant place presenting itself) the turbaned dame subsided into Dr. Leopold's chair, and snubbed his wife for the remainder of the evening, till that oppressed woman looked quite limp and dejected. In the simplest coiffure and toilet possible, Mrs. Stanley was again the Mabel of the Beechwood days.