"Let us go to Felicia," I said, a long time
afterwards, when the evening brightness was
fading away; and he led me along the passages
trodden by children's feet to the parlour, where
we found her sitting in the twilight, with little
Bell lying languidly in her lap. She smiled
brightly when Mr. Garforth told her of our
betrothal, and put the child down to take me
into her arms.

But Bell, the little, excitable, sensitive child,
as if foreboding some separation, wept bitterly,
and I could not comfort her, though Mr. Garforth,
who had never fondled her before, tried playfully
to soothe her. Ever since my protracted illness,
her merry ways had changed into a listless and
pensive quietness. Of late, whenever I was not
with her, she had been used to climb up to the
window, and press her tiny face against the panes
in wistful watchings for the mother who never
came, until my heart ached at having filled her
with a hope that now was less likely to be realised.

During the next month, while we were busy
making preparations for the intended emigration
as soon as Pim was released, and for my dwelling
with Mr. Garforth's mother until our
marriage, I found courage at last to approach the
tacitly forbidden theme, and besought him to
let me keep the child with me; but he refused
this, my first request, with a brief decision that
silenced me at once, though it awoke a dread ol
him, and of the time when I should be left alone
to his stern authority. A reserve sprang up
between us. But my adopted little one was
declining now visibly and surely, and every other
interest was engrossed in my care for her.
Perhaps that low ebbing of my life, which she
had seen with the bewilderment and vague feai
of childhood; or the mysterious sleep she had
witnessed in my father, when he did not awake
at the sound of our crying; or the oppression of
Felicia's sadness, that had so often weighed me
down; all, and privation and care, had burdened
the young heart till it shuddered at life, recoiling
from it, dimly conscious of its struggles.

It was the evening I had been looking forward
to so long, and Mr. Garforth was gone to Shawbury
to bring Pim home once again to the
school-house. Through many hours of the day
I had carried the darling child—a light burden
now—to and fro in the deserted schoolroom,
resting now and then, but only for a few minutes,
for she would lie in no other arms than mine.
Felicia followed us unceasingly, with hopeless
and helpless eyes seeking mine to ask unutterable
questions. She was asleep now upon my
lap, as she had slept the first night we had found
her; and Felicia, on a low chair upon the hearth,
had buried her face from all sight and sound, in
an attitude of motionless anguish. The room
was as still as it had been then, except for the
moan of the child; yet they entered so
noiselessly, with such a solemn hush of care, that I
did not know they were come, until Mr. Garforth
laid.his hand upon my head, and I looked up into
poor old Pim's face stooping over us, with tears
streaming down his pale and sunken cheeks.

"The Lord love her!" he said; "the dear
Lord love her, and keep her for ever!"

"Pim," I whispered, "I do so long for the
poor mother to be here. The child ought to
die in her arms, not mine."

I spoke so softly that the child in its sobbing
slumber did not move; but Pim groaned aloud,
and stretched out his hands beseechingly to me,
while he cast an awe-stricken glance at Felicia.
I, too, gazed with terror at the tall, slender,
bending figure, gliding towards me with an air
of indescribable pleading and humiliation.

"Oh, Bessie, Bessie," she cried, sinking to
my feet, and hiding her face in my dress, "I
never wanted you to know it; but"—I could
hear her heart beat—"but, little Bell is——"
She whispered the rest passionately into my ear.

Even at that moment, with the awe and shock
of this confession, I looked to Lawrence. His
tranquil face smiled back upon me a grave and
quiet comfort, while he laid his hand once more
gently upon my head.

"Speak to her," urged Pim; "tell her that
you'll not cast her off. For your mother's sake,
forgive her; God knows what she has suffered.
Speak to her, or she'll die, Miss Bessie."

"Little Bell's dear mother is come at last,"
I said, and the wonderful childish eyes kindled
with a strange glow as they gazed up fixedly
into mine. "Call your mother, little Bell."

"Mother," breathed the faint voice, and a
smile, like a feeble moonbeam upon some little
mountain-stream, glimmered on her face as she
turned her wistful eyes away from me in earnest
expectation—not vainly, for Felicia was bending
over her with the sacred love and anguish of a
mother gleaming through her familiar features.
The child was satisfied, and lifting feebly her
little fingers, let them flutter for a moment
playfully upon the mother's forehead and the
golden hair falling over it; but the effort lasted
only for a moment. A distant forgetting look
passed over her innocent face, and once again
she spoke to Felicia:

"Good-by, mother," she whispered, with the
faintness of death.

        NO NAME will be completed next week. In the
succeeding Number a New Story, by the Authoress of
        "MARY BARTON," will be commenced, entitled
                         A DARK NIGHT'S WORK.
   This will be followed, in March, by a New Serial Work
                                    of Fiction by
                        CHARLES READE, D.C.L.,
        Author of "IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND."

                 Just published, in Three Volumes, post 8vo,
                                           NO NAME.
                               By WILKIE COLLINS.
              SAMPSON LOW, Son and Co., 47, Ludgate-hill.
*** The author begs to announce that he has protected his right of
property (so far as the stage is concerned) in the work of his own invention, by causing a dramatic adaptation of "No Name" to be
written of which he is the sole proprietor, and which has been published and entered at Stationers' Hall as the law directs.