seemly to close your ears to the dear child's urgent entreaties."

"If you thought so, why did you not speak?" began Mrs. Bradshaw, but her utterance was choked by a stormy sob, and she fell back into her seat.

Henry Middleton had sat apart from his companions at a table in the background, his face buried in his hands. He had been trying in thought to follow the soul of his friend's child in its mysterious flight, endeavouring to trace the passage of the frail bark as it went out into the night, upon the dark ocean that washes round our mortal life. The voices of his relations recalled him suddenly, he looked up and spoke in solemn tones.

"Do not let us desecrate this hour by vain recriminations," he said. "It is God's hour. He has been among us, and has lessened our number, and has shown us the vanity of earthly hopes and schemes, and our complete helplessness in His hands. 'Except the Lord keep the house, their labour is but lost that build it.'"

His words were succeeded by another deep silence. Mr. Bradshaw even, perhaps struck by the true ring of his brother-in-law's speech, for once kept his electro-plate religion to himself. The Doctor alone emitted the groan of perfunctory assent which propriety demanded.

"How much," resumed Middleton, rising,

VOL. III.

DD

and joining the group round the fire, "how much have I not hoped and toiled and ventured for this dear child! And now at the very moment when success beyond all expectations had crowned my efforts, and I was looking forward to the reward of seeing her grow up to carry out her father's dearest wishes, and to be the joy and companion of my solitary life, one little act of unkindness cancels all, and leaves me a prey for ever to aching regret. Why did I not force you to listen to her entreaties, Mabel? You, no doubt, believed you were acting for her good, but little as I know of children, my instinct warned me you were wrong. Don't distress yourself by useless selfreproach," he continued, as through the tears that dimmed his eyes he saw his sister rock herself to and fro in a frenzy of agitation, "but do learn henceforward to be merciful to the weaknesses of others."

There was another pause, broken finally by Robert, who, in an abrupt, husky voice, gave utterance to the thought that was in the minds of all.

"Who is the next heir, pa, now the poor little girl is dead?" and he shuddered as he said the word.

"Sir Kenelm has come in for it again," replied the Doctor, and, as he spoke, all present cast their eyes upon the ground.

All this while, old Oscar, who had been driven from the Banqueting Hall-Oscar, for

whose life Dolly would have pleaded on the morrow, Oscar, faithful to the family which for generations his ancestors had servedwatched in the deserted room by the side of the orphan girl, licking the cold hands and the little blood-stained face with its halfopened eyes and awful smile of peace. He had taken the post of guardian and watcher so naturally, that the old woman from the village, whose office it was to usher the Rotherhame people into the world, and decently to superintend their exit, and who had duly come up, summoned by the affrighted servants to inspect the corpse, did not even suggest that he should be driven away. So that night Oscar left his young master's burial place un visited, and the pale moon, rising high in the wintry heaven, peeped in through the oriel window on the fair dead child, and on the faithful dog watching at her feet.

Next day a coroner's inquest gave verdict of accidental death, occasioned by a fall that had fractured the skull. But no inquest could throw light on the cause of the catastrophe, whether the fatal slip had indeed been purely accidental, or whether, as Mrs. Bradshaw's self-reproachful fears cruelly suggested, the child's access of anguished terror had unnerved her, and suddenly losing her head upon the stairs, she had missed her footing, and, with one vain cry for help, had fallen to rise no more. But peace! What

ever the occasion of her early and tragic end, henceforth no vision of affright shall evermore vex the soul of little Dolly, gathered gently to the Breast of Him

Whose Arms Eternal are young children's Home.

Lady Rotherhame's tenure of the honours and properties of her ancestors had been of very brief duration-the legal process even by which these were to be secured to herself and her heirs for ever had scarcely been begun-but in their last resting place a niche was found for her. The tiny coffin, with its coronet and engraved list of high-sounding titles, was followed to its burial by a long train of mourners, members of the Bradshaw and Bogle families, the tenantry and servants. Mr. and Mrs. Bradshaw, however, were not allowed the honour of acting chief mourners. As the coffin was borne into the black-draped church, a murmur passed through the crowd at the door, and a huge dog, forcing a path through the people, pushed past the Bradshaws, and took his stand by the open vault. Oscar had come to pay his little dead mistress the last tribute of a reverent farewell.

L'homme propose, mais Dieu dispose!

CHAPTER XXIV.

Come what come may,

Time and the hour runs out the roughest day.

THAT Something out of the common going forward in the city of St. Dunstan's on the afternoon of the fifteenth of March, in the Year of our Lord 18- was evident to the most casual observer. Shopmen were standing at their doors, obviously more intent on what was passing in the old-fashioned High Street than on attending to their customers. Indeed there were no customers to attend to, and the interior of the shops were empty and deserted. The windows were all alive with eager faces, and, braving the whistling blasts of the harsh east wind, and the clouds of gritty March dust which swirled in unguarded eyes and mouths, a large crowd had collected, growing denser in the direction of a tall brick building, whose approach was guarded by policemen with rods. A stream of people descending its steps poured out to mingle with the waiting mob on the strawcovered road, and a tumult of talk arose from a thousand tongues-talk apparently so absorbing, that the shouts of coachmen, endeavouring to force a passage towards their mistresses, went contemptuously unheeded, and ladies in sealskin coats and silk trains were jostled, driven back, and elbowed