square heavy chin left bare; overhanging eye-
brows, with small, restless, passionate eyes
beneath: in his whole face and bearing an
expression of temper amounting to ferocity.

He spoke to me peremptorily and haughtily;
asked me my name, age, family condition,
previous history, as if he had been examining me
on oath, scarcely waiting for my answers, and all
the while fixing me with those small angry eyes
till I felt dazed and restless, as creatures under
torture. Then he said, abruptly:

"You have a strange look—a scared look, I
may call it. How have you come by it?"

"I am of a nervous temperament, sir,' I
answered, pulling at the ends of my gloves.

"Nothing else? Nothing hereditary?"

"Yes, sir," said I, as steadily as I could;
"there is hereditary misfortune among us."

"Father or mother?"

"Mother."

"Ah!" said the man, rubbing his moustache,
and looking at me with eyes all a-flame; " so
much the nearer and more dangerous."

"I am not dangerous," I said, a little too
humbly, perhaps; but that man was completely
subduing me. "I am nervous, but I have no
worse tendency."

He laughed.

"Perhaps not," he said, with a sneer that
made my blood curdle; "no one ever has. Don't
you know that all maniacs are philosophers,
when they are not kings and queens? Shall
I take you on trust, then, according to your
own estimate of yourself, or discharge you at
once, according to mine?"

"I think I may be trusted, sir," I answered,
looking everywhere but into his face.

"What do you think, Mrs. Brand?" he said,
turning to the pale woman unravelling her strip
of muslin, and who had not, as I thought, looked
at me once yet.

"She is ugly," said she, in a dull, monotonous
voice; "I don't like ugly people."

Mr. Brand laughed again.

"Never mind that, Mrs. Brand; goodness
don't go by looks, does it Miss—Miss what?
Are you a name or a number?"

"Miss Erfurt."

"Oh yes! I forgot—Jane Erfurt—I remember
now, and a queer name it is, too. Does
it, Miss Jane Erfurt?"

"Not always, sir," I said, moving restlessly.

"Well, Mrs. Brand, what do you say?"

"She is ugly, and George will not like her,"
said the lady, in the same half-alive manner.

"Who the deuce cares!" shouted Mr. Brand,
flaming with passion on the instant. "Let him
like it or not, who cares for a stupid fool, or for
what he thinks? That, for his liking!" snapping
his fingers insolently.

The lady's face grew a shade paler; but,
beyond a furtive, terrified glance at her husband,
she took no notice of his words. He then turned
abruptly to me, and told me that I was to hold
myself engaged to perform the duties of
companion to Mrs. Brand, and that I was to enter
on those duties early next week.

"But without the lady's consent?" said I,
too weak to resist, and too nervous to accept.

She put away her muslin and rose. "Mr.
Brand is master here," she said; "do what he
tells you: it saves trouble."

The week after I went to Fenhouse, as the
companion of Mrs. Brand.

The first day's dinner was a strange affair.
After we had seated ourselves, to what was a
very scanty supply, there lounged in a youth of
about seventeen: a heavy, full-blooded, lumpish
being, with a face devoid of intelligence, but
more animal than imbecile; not specially good
tempered, but not vicious, a mere idle, eating
and drinking clown, scarcely raised above the
level of a dog or a horse, and without even their
instinctive emotions. What an unwholesome,
unnatural circle we made! I longed for a littte
healthy life among us, and turned with a feeling
of envy and relief to the common-place servant-
maid; who, if not intellectual, was at the least
more in accord with pure ordinary life than we.

There was ill-blood between Mr. Brand and
Master George, as the boy was called; and I
soon understood why. His mother's only son
by a former marriage, and heir of the neglected
lands lying round Fenhouse, he stood in the way
of his step-father, whose influence over his wife
was supreme, and who, but for the boy, would
have absolute possession of everything. He had
married for money, and had been balked of half
his prize. I used often to wonder that the two
were not afraid to trust themselves in the hands
of one so passionate and unscrupulous; but,
though Mrs. Brand was undisguisedly afraid of
her husband, and the boy was not too stupid to
understand that he was hated, and why, neither
seemed to look forward to evil days. I do not
think that they had mind enough to look to the
future in hope or dread. Mother and son loved
each other, with the mute instinctive love of
dumb animals—a love in which both would be
helpless to save if bad times came. They were
not much together, and they seldom spoke when
they met; but they sat close to each other,
always in the same place and on the same chairs,
and Mrs. Brand unravelled her eternal slips of
muslin, while her son gathered up the threads
and thrust them into a canvas bag.

I had been there a fortnight, and I never saw
either of them employed in anything else; and
I never heard half a dozen words pass between
them. It was a silent house at all times; and,
more than this, it was a house full of hate.
Save this dumb-animal kind of love between
the two, not a ray of even kindly feeling existed
among any of us. The servant, was the mark
for every one's ill-temper, while I stood out
as a kind of pariah among them all, not even
dignified by active dislike. I was shunned,
and could not understand why I was there at
all. The lady never spoke to me, not even to
say good morning; she gave me no duties,
but she forbade me no employment. I was
free to do what I liked, provided I did not
make my existence too manifest to her, and did
not speak to her husband or Master George. If