the sisters was to make Martha more silent, and
Hester more timid and easily startled than
usual. They were sitting now on the seat under
the great cedar-tree on the lawn; and as the
spreading branches stretched over them, throwing
them into deep shadow, you might have
fancied they were women of death sitting in the
gateway of the tomb; nothing more funereal
could be seen anywhere than those two in their
deep mourning— Martha with her close black
cap covering all her hair, and Hester with her
golden uncurled tresses falling over her face
like a veil for her sorrow— as they sat under the
great cedar-tree in what might have been a
garden of graves, for its solitude and desolateness.

Looking up from a small piece of work she
held in her hand, Martha said, suddenly, "It is
dull for you here, Hetty."

Hester opened her clear childlike eyes, and
put back the crowding hair from her face.
"Dull?" she said, in a tone of surprise. "I
am very happy here with you, Martha; what
more do we want than we have got?"

"You are young, dear, and ought to see a
little of the world. We have money, and could
travel, if you would like it; or our cousins have
asked us to stay with them, if you would like
that better. I had a letter from Susan this
morning; 'Faber will be here to-day,' she
says."

"To-day!" echoed Hester, in a voice of
dismay. "How I wish he was not coming!"

"So do I; but that does not answer my
question about going away."

"I will do as you like, Martha," Hester
replied, meekly; "but I hate gaiety, as you
know."

"Dear child!" interrupted her sister, smiling,
"have you ever known it?"

Hester smiled too. "Not much of it,
certainly," she said; "but you understand me,
don't you?"

"Yes. Still I think a little change would
do you good, my dear. You are too depressed
here, and I have seen how nervous you have
become lately. I should like you to leave Fellfoot
for a little while."

"Me to leave!" cried Hester, with quick
alarm; "not without you, Martha."

"Certainly not. There, see how that has
fluttered you!— but both together; perhaps to
Switzerland in the spring, after a winter in Paris
or Italy. Would you like that better than
Greymoor and the Faber Todyeares?"

"Oh, anything better than that!" cried
Hester. "I have such a strong presentiment
against those people."

"So have I," said Martha; "but such feelings
are very foolish, and, indeed, wrong if indulged
in."

"Who is that?" Hester exclaimed, pointing
to the one turn of road which they could see
from the garden.

It was a solitary horseman, picking his way
down the steep path carefully.

"I dare say that is Faber Todyeare," said
Martha; and she, too, turned a little pale, and
her teeth set themselves together as if she had
a task before her both difficult and disagreeable.

Soon the horseman was out of sight, lost in
the windings of the wood-path; and presently
they heard the gate-bell ring loudly as he reined
his horse at the entrance. The servant opened
the gate, and a tall, dark, handsome man, first
asking if the ladies were at home, dismounted
and came quickly towards them.

"How like papa," said Hester, shrinking
away. "Oh, Martha, he has come for no
good."

Why did she say that? It is not usual for
young women to regard the advent of
handsome cousins with displeasure or terror, and
Faber Todyeare was one whom most girls would
have welcomed very cordially; yet both sisters
shrank from him, in their several ways, as if he
had been something terrifying or frightful. He
was neither. He was a tall, handsome, manly-
looking person, with nothing specially noteworthy
about him, save a blandness of manner
that seemed a little excessive and out of
harmony with his character, as judged of by his
face. That a man with inscrutable eyes,
penthouse brows, a flat forehead, a broad jaw, and
thin, closely shut lips, should be as gracious
and gallant as a Bath M.C.— that so supple a
back should lead up to so stern a head, might
seem, to a close observer, out of course and
misfitting; yet there was nothing about him to
which the most fastidious could object, so
perfectly well bred, well looking, and well
appointed was he.

He raised his hat as he came near them, and
held out his hand. Martha gave him hers with
strange coldness, Hester with repugnance.

"I am sorry I could not come in time," he
said; "I should have liked to pay the last
respects to my poor uncle."

Martha slightly moved her head. "Thank
you," she said; and that was all.

"I suppose his last moments were peaceful?
they generally are in such cases as his," he asked.
"Did he recover at all? I mean, was he sane
at any time before his death?"

"Sane! he was never insane," said Martha,
bluntly. "He was depressed and melancholy,
but he never lost his intellects."

Faber smiled blandly, but unpleasantly. "He
left a will, that means?" he said, with his
interrogative accent; "one made quite of late, I
presume?"

"He left no will," said Martha, and looked
him straight in the face.

"Indeed!" and as he spoke he glanced round
him, at the house and garden and the woods
about, as if with a new interest. This did not
escape his cousin.

"He wished my sister and myself to inherit
equally, so there was no need for any will," she
added.

Again Faber Todyeare raised his heavy
eyebrows and smiled.

"The very reason why he should have made
one, while his mind was capable of an