R

A Novel.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

BY

EVANGELINE F. SMITH.

"This should have been a noble creature: he
Hath all the energy which would have made
A goodly frame of glorious elements,

Had they been wisely mingled; as it is,

It is an awful chaos-light and darkness-

And mind and dust-and passions and pure thoughts-
Mix'd and contending without end or order,

All dormant or destructive: he will perish,

And yet he must not;

* * * * * * *

IN A VAIN SHADOW.

CHAPTER I.

To sit and curb the soul's mute rage,
That preys upon itself alone;

To curse the life which is the cage

Of fettered grief that dares not moan,
Hiding from many a careless eye,
The scorned load of agony.

SHELLEY.

THE afternoon was closing in-wet and dreary-with a moaning wind, which drove the rain in sheets across wood and moorland, and heavy clouds, which, like a grey cotton umbrella, hung over the earth to keep it from any glimpse of the sun's rays. It was an ugly, hopeless, pitiless, drenching downpour -a downpour that wetted to the skin, that brought down the leaves prematurely from the chestnuts, and piled them in rotten heaps beneath, that pattered dismally against roofs and windows, and made streets and gutters run with mud. Dismal was the whole town of St. Dunstan's, its dismality culminating in the railway station. It was too early in the season for fires, and the waiting-room, with its rusty grate, dirty

VOL. III.

B