and love? Of women I have known only you
two, and the models of the life-school; I have
had little reason to seek your society. Here at
least, away from you, I can think of you as I
would have you to be. These are my visions of
womanhood and home."

He drew aside the curtain, and let the
sunlightin upon his pictures, upon groups of happy
children, with a mother whose face was Daisy's
as it might have been, developing fron: her lovely
girlhood into a maturity of womanly and matronly
beauty. Godfrey had ceased to look at her; but
I, comparing the sweet and joyous features with
her face as life had painted it, saw the hollow
lines and grave mournful eyes in a new light,
and with a sudden apprehension.

But I saw in a recess of the attic, which was
still in deep shadow from a curtain falling over
it, some strange object half visible, that made
me think of the case in which Godfrey had
brought home that first painting of his, and I
moved towards it. Then for an instant he placed
himself before Daisy, so as to intercept her
view, but he drew back again with a half-smile
of contempt.

"A boyish whim," he said, " executed in the
first madness of disappointment. l am thoroughly
ashamed of it, yet I keep it for the portrait."

A coffin, in which was painted his own face,
as he had been eight years ago, only with closed
eyes, and with the colourless and livid hues of
death. I, his sister, felt a sudden chill and
shivering, as though I had pressed my lips upon
a marble forehead, and the cold contact had
numbed my warm life-current; while Daisy,
coming swiftly to my side at my start of fear,
bent down and read the inscription on the plate.
"Godfrey Lincoln. Died August 28th, 1850."
It was the date of her own marriage; and
muttering the words to herself, she fell
helplessly to the ground.

Ah, Godfrey! There is no efficacy now in
that tide of tenderness sweeping back from the
dull, low ebb of hatred. Gather her in your
strong arms, and wrap her to your breast, but
she shall be conscious of no shelter or refuge
there. Pierce her ears with words of repentance
and self-accusation, call aloud upon her by your
own old fond name of Daisy, there is no echo,
no entrance to her tortured brain. It was given
to you to bless her weary eyes with one more
sight of forgiving love, and to sound one more
note of harmony in her jarring life, and you
would not. She is deaf and dumb and dead to
you for ever now!

So I thought, not daring to interfere with
Godfrey's distracted efforts to recal Daisy to
consciousness; but she was not to leave us
thus, hunted by hatred as well as terror into
the mysterious life hereafter. We carried her
to the bedroom where our mother died, bidding
Godfrey and me to cleave to one another, and
she lingered there long enough to rest a little
from the troubles of the world—dwelling in an
ante-chamber of repose and consolation—to
recover some strength, before she went hence,
and was no more seen. Godfrey and I were
with her, and her little child, whom we sent for
to the mother's dying-place among the autumnal
hills, and Godfrey received the orphan into his
heart of hearts, for her sake promising to quit
his retreat, and dwell near to me, where she,
the little Daisy, could find brothers and sisters
among my children.

I sat with the child upon my lap, looking out
upon the moonlit hills, and the fir-coppice,
bearing aloft the homes of its colony of sleeping
birds, and the dimly-seen village, lying in the
valley like a fledgling in the shelter of a nest,
and I was thinking sadly how we mothers never
knew what path across the wide wilderness of
life our little ones might have to tread. I did
not care to turn my face towards the room, nor
would I, by any word or movement, interrupt
the communion, often silent for many minutes,
which Godfrey and Daisy held together in low
tones. Yet oh, how different to the love-like
conversations of former days!

"You will be happy," said Daisy.

"I shall be happier," he answered.

We buried Daisy beside our mother, and
Godfrey came home to live near me. But we
keep up the old homestead; the hedges are
planted again on their ancient boundaries; the
garden is enclosed and cultivated; the front
door is unfastened, and its threshold trodden
by many footsteps, during every month of the
summer-time, when Godfrey and I come down,
with our children, to study and paint among
the hills. Sometimes, when I have tried to
discover what thoughts are hidden under Godfrey's
grave face, for he is, and always will be,
reserved and reticent now, I fancy he is thinking
what I do—that if Daisy had come back to us,
and found him a happy man, surrounded by
children, even though he was altogether
separated from and independent of her, we might
have healed her broken spirit, and won her to a
placid and even life of peace upon this troubled
earth.

NEW WORK
BY SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON.
NEXT WEEK
Will be continued (to be completed next March)
A STRANGE STORY,
BY THE
AUTHOR OF "MY NOVEL," "RIENZI," &c. &c.

Now ready, in 3 vols. post Svo,
THE FIFTH EDITION of
GREAT EXPECTATIONS.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.