to the words, "Captain Allan Fairfax, severely," there were tears dropped upon the paper, and she laid it down with a heavy sigh.

Two years had passed since Fairfax was at Brownswick, and Margaret had laid by her widow's weeds. Young, beautiful, graceful, excellent, and bright, who, with free heart and hand would not have sought her? But the life she lived was so retired that no one had any opportunity of pleading love. She came upon the people in the neighbourhood by glimpses. Some persons were necessarily admitted on business. The Rector of Allenchurch, and the Vicar of Allerdale, dined with her often, with their wives, bringing the daughter of the latter: the former had no children. But Margaret had made a hard bargain with them, that they were never to ask her in return. There was only one other person of whom she saw much; and that was a Miss Harding, who had acted as bridesmaid on her marriage to Dr. Kenmore. She was the daughter of a neighbouring clergyman, who, at his death, had left her in great poverty: but she had received a very good education, and sang beautifully. Without hesitation, she had instantly applied herself to earn her own bread by teaching music, and she had been Margaret's first instructor. Her conduct had been praiseworthy in every respect; her manners were graceful and ladylike; and though she was fifteen or sixteen years older than her pupil, a friendship had arisen between them, which Mr. Graham had always encouraged, though his wife had not appeared to approve of it. In the day of their adversity, Miss Harding had been of service in many respects; and now she was Margaret's frequent companion during her solitude, taking part in her pleasures, and, with a gentle cheerfulness, brightening a house into which melancholy thoughts would still intrude frequently.

One day, when she was sitting with her friend, shortly after the news of the battle which I have mentioned had arrived in England, she looked up from the part of the newspaper she was reading, asking, "Did you not once know a Mr. Fairfax, Margaret?" "Yes," answered Margaret, with a sudden start.

about him there ?-I did not see it."

"Is there any thing

“It is about some relation of his, I suppose" replied Miss Harding. "See here- "Death of Sir William Fairfax.-We regret to announce that Sir William Fairfax, Member for the Western Division of the County of departed this life on Tuesday last, at his house in Portland Place. He is succeeded in his title and the family estates by his cousin, Captain Allan Fairfax, who lately distinguished himself so much in India, the late baronet having only left daughters. Sir Allan is expected daily in England.'"

Margaret was drawing; and she continued to draw; but, after a few minutes, she rose and left the room; and when she returned, Miss Harding thought she had been weeping. From that moment the latter never mentioned the name of Fairfax in Margaret's hearing. Two more months passed over without any event, and Margaret Graham reached her four-and-twentieth birth-day. Miss Harding passed the day with her, and Margaret would fain have engaged her to stay several more; but her friend replied,

"I cannot, Margaret. I am engaged to-morrow evening to Sir Wild Clerk's, to sing, you know," she added, with a smile, "and I have still to gain my bread."

"You need not unless you like, Eliza," replied Margaret.

"What, change the friend for the dependant, Margaret ?" said Miss Harding; "no, no; it is better as it is. At all events, I must go to these good people, for I have promised; but, if you like, I will come back the next morning."

"I do like, very much," answered Margaret, with a smile: and so it was settled.

CHAP. XII.

A COUNTRY ROUT.

THE party at Sir Wild Clerk's was as large as the neighbourhood of Brownswick would furnish. He was a wealthy man, a man of ancient family in the county, and in fact a very good sort of person; but he had been seized with a desire of seeing his eldest son, a raw lad from college, represent a borough in parliament, and therefore he crammed his house full once or twice a month. Something had delayed Miss Harding till more than one-half of the guests had arrived. She expected no very great attention; she knew that she was invited for her voice, and as she had no vote, that if she had not been able to sing and amuse others she would not have been invited at all. She was accustomed to the thing-had made her mind up to it, and therefore was not at all surprised that, with the exception of two or three of her pupils, who, in the simple kindness of a young girl's heart, greeted her warmly-nobody took much notice of her till Lady Clerk asked her to sit down to the piano, and she sang a little ballad of which she was very fond and Margaret also. At the end of the first stanza she raised her eyes, and saw a gentleman standing beside the lady of the house (who seemed to be paying him very great attention), with his face turned towards her, gazing at her steadfastly. She thought him remarkably handsome, and certainly there was something in his air and manner which distinguished him from every one else in the room. He was a young man, too, tall and spare in form with a face very pale, and an air of thoughtful gravity which always has something of dignity in it. The moment that her eyes met his, he averted his glance, and continued with his head bent as if to hear what Lady Clerk was saying, but yet there was a look of abstraction on his face which did not seem to show any great attention. When her song was done, the lady, to her surprise, moved up to thank her and to express her pleasure, and she was followed by the stranger, who was introduced to her by a name which she did not hear; for a patronising connoisseur young lady-they are a class-came up to declare she was enchanted, and to beg that the next thing she sang might be "So-and-so."

Miss Harding sang it at once, though she disliked it very much, and then retiring quietly took a seat in the next room, till she should be called upon again. There was a vacant chair on one side of her and a deaf old lady on the other, who asked her why she did not sing that night; and while she was explaining, as well as she could to one who could not hear, that she had just been singing, the gentleman to whom she had been introduced came and sat down beside her.

"That is a delightful ballad, Miss Harding," he said; "I mean the first one you sang, not the second, which did not please me as much. Can

it be procured? I have heard it once before, and to hear it again has the effect of the poet's spice winds in the Indian seas, which bear over the wide waters the perfumes of bright lands left far away. It calls back happy days that never will return."

"I do not know that any one has a copy of it but myself and one friend," replied Miss Harding; "the music was composed by my father, who is dead, the words by a young friend who is dead also," and she sighed.

"May I ask who is fortunate enough to possess the other copy ?" asked the stranger.

"Oh, yes," she answered, "it is Mrs. Kenmore, formerly Miss Graham. Perhaps you may have heard her sing it."

The stranger's cheek flushed for a moment as if the sudden blaze of a fire had flashed upon it, and then turned deadly pale again, but he made no answer for several moments. When he did speak, he asked somewhat

abruptly,

"Is she still living in this neighbourhood?"

"Oh, yes,” replied Miss Harding, "she is living at her house at Nutley, about two miles from this place. Indeed she never quits it."

"I have just heard," said the stranger, in the same abrupt manner, "that her husband is dead."

upon a spot on the

Miss Harding gazed at him for an instant, for she thought his tone was very strange; and she saw that his eyes were fixed floor, while his lip was quivering as if with strong emotion. he has been dead for more than two

Yes," she replied, coldly,

years. He was murdered on his wedding-day."

The stranger started as if she had struck him; but for several minutes he uttered not a word, and thinking him both odd and disagreeable, she was going to cross the room to some people whom she knew and saw at the other side, when he renewed the conversation with a very much altered

manner.

"You must think me very strange," he said; "but first your song, and then your conversation, recall times long past and persons long gone. I must not make you think me quite a savage, however, although I have lived long in very uncivilised places, which must plead my excuse for all that you see odd. The sight of white people thronging the roads and thoroughfares does not always bring back our European notions at once." "Have you lived, then, so many years amongst blacks ?" demanded Miss Harding; "I should think you had hardly had time to forget the customs of your own land; but I certainly do not mean to imply that you have done so, although some of your questions were abrupt enough." "Time to forget!" repeated her companion, "it does not depend upon time, my dear lady. Time slowly grinds out the characters of the past: there are events that efface them in an instant. Long habits, cherished ideas, feelings that we think engrafted in our very nature, will sometimes give way under bitter sorrows, or severe disappointments, or acts which sweep the world of the heart like a hurricane, and leave nothing to be remembered but themselves."

"I know it," replied Miss Harding.

"Do you?" inquired the stranger; "I am sorry for it; for none can know and comprehend such things but those who have suffered them." "Women often suffer more than men know," replied his companion,

"but they have greater powers of submission, if I may use the term. They have an instinct that they are born to endure, and they endure more patiently than men."

"Or perhaps than men can conceive," replied he.

66

"Assuredly," answered the lady; we have an instance of it very Dear. I do not believe that any man could imagine, unless he had seen and known it all step by step, how much has been endured with unmurmuring patience and high resolution by Margaret Graham-for I must still call her so. She is ever Margaret Graham to me.

66

Oh, yes, call her so, call her so," said the stranger, earnestly, so earnestly that the lady gazed at him, but no longer with surprise.

"You must have known her well," she said.

The stranger did not reply for a moment, and then answered in a low

tone,

"I thought so."

66 Then you did," replied Miss Harding, warmly, be deceived in Margaret Graham."

"for no one can ever

"Did you ever watch the clouds," asked the stranger, "when on a calm autumnal day they float slowly along the verge of the evening sky, changing their forms as they pass along, and showing us, now snowy mountains and towering alps, now castles and palaces, king's thrones and heads of giants; now wolves, or lions, or crocodiles, or sometimes a mighty eye looking out in radiance upon us from the midst of a thick veil? Who can say how much of all we see is the work of our own fancy, how much in reality the forms presented to us ?"

"I have," she answered, "and have often thought those cloudy shapes are true images of the objects of man's desires. But Margaret is not one of those shapes. The finest essences exist in the most solid substances. Though her imagination may be as varied as the clouds you have spoken of, the beauty of her character is in its reality."

"I applied my illustration to myself, not to her," replied her companion, "I may have fancied what does not exist-I have often done so with inanimate objects, why not with a thinking being, without that being having any share in the deceit?"

"I cannot answer your why not,'" said the lady, "and yet I do not believe it. There is a convincingness in Margaret's truth which makes me feel that it is almost impossible to mistake her."

"And does she live quite alone?" demanded the other, suddenly changing to another part of the subject.

"I am often with her," said Miss Harding, "but at other times she does live quite alone."

"And is she happy?" asked the stranger.

"Nay! what a question," exclaimed Miss Harding, with a smile; "if you will define happiness, perhaps I may be able to answer you."

"That is impossible," he said, "it is one of those simple objects which, like the great facts of an abstract science, are felt though undefinable. We know what they are, we admit them to our minds at once. They are truths-to man's moral consciousness what an axiom is to his intellectual faculties. We do not doubt them though they cannot be explained to us, nor by us to others. I have known what happiness is in myself. I have seen it; but, alas! it is rarely that those who deserve it best find it in this world—but there is another."

Miss Harding was about to reply, but at the moment one of the daughters of the house approached to ask her to sing again, and the conversation dropped.

"Who is that gentleman?" she inquired, as she walked towards the piano with her young companion; "I did not hear the name when Lady Clerk introduced him."

"Oh, don't you know ?" replied the girl, "that is the Indian hero, Sir Allan Fairfax."

Miss Harding mused, but made no reply.

CHAP. XIII.

RE-UNITED LOVERS.

"COME, Eliza, put on your bonnet, and go with me to Halliday's cottage," said Margaret, the morning after the party at Sir Wild Clerk's. "Oh, stay a little while till I have finished copying this song," replied her friend, "you will have plenty of time afterwards."

Margaret stayed; but Miss Harding was very long in copying the song, longer than Margaret had ever seen her at a similar task. When it was done, she had some other little matter to do, and she was very slow over that, too. Margaret wondered what could be the matter with her, till at length her companion rose with a sigh, and looked out of the drawing-room window.

"Do

think it will continue fine?" she asked. you "Oh, yes," replied Margaret, "there is not a cloud in the sky.. Come, Eliza, you are idle this morning, or tired with that party last night. The air will do you good," and Miss Harding went to put on her bonnet and shawl, saying to herself, "now he will come while we are out. I do believe there is a fatality in these things."

She did not hurry herself, however, but nevertheless, she was dressed for her walk and out of the garden gate with her friend without any visitor making his appearance. Passing on their way they proceeded through some rich, green lanes, the paths sometimes winding on between high banks which shut out the scenery around, sometimes mounting up and affording a view, over the hedge and between the trees, of the sweeping lines of the lower ground, with hill and moor rising purple behind. How beautifully nature often frames her pictures, and how much more they gain by that frame-work of green boughs, or gray rocks, or old church window, or heavy-browed arch than by all the carving and gilding in the world. It was a fine summer's day, bright, yet no longer without a cloud, for a few masses of vapour low down in the sky, white at the edges and fleecy brown at the centre, were moving slowly along through the air and sweeping the earth with their blue shadows. Margaret often paused to gaze, for, to use a curiously constructed phrase, she had much of the poetry of the painter in her nature. Miss Harding had less. She had more of the ear than the eye; her imagination revelled in sounds, and she was fond of shutting her eyes, not as some people do to see undisturbed the pictures of Fancy, but to hear her songs. Besides, she was anxious to get back again as soon as possible, so that she often called Margaret forward when her fair companion, all unconscious of what was pass