no trace of Adelaide was found, except a lace
cap which lay soiled and wet with dew near
to one of the tarns which we three had visited;
but without discovering it then. Mrs. Vernon
rallied our hopes and energies long after all
reasonable ground for either was lost, and then she
fell into a depression of spirits which almost
threatened a renewal of her early malady. She
collected all Adelaide's little possessions, and spent
many hours of each day among them in her own
apartments; but she was always ready to leave
them, when you, in your sore grief, wandered to
the old home of the lost girl; and then she
strove to console you with a patient tenderness
strange to see in a woman so rigid and haughty.
But you refused to be comforted; and putting
on one side all the duties of your office, you
roamed ceaselessly about the hills; dragging
yourself back again almost lifeless to our house—
for your own you would never enter—and asking
me night after night, as the sunset and darkness
spread upon the mountains, if there were no
place left unexplored. As though it were possible
to call back again the dead past, and find her yet
alive among the desolate hills!

In the midst of it all another trouble befel
us. Before the new year came in, my mother
fell ill of the sickness in which she died. I
think that first roused you from the solitude of
your despair. Though you could not yet front
the kindly familiar faces of your old congregation,
there seemed to be some little break in the
cloud of hopelessness which hung about you, in
the care you began to feel for her. It was but
a few days before she died, and after you had been
reading to her, as she lay very feeble, and often
dozing away with weakness, that she suddenly
roused herself, and looked at you with eager, eyes.

"You'll always be fond of Jane, Owen?"

"Always. She has been the truest of sisters to me."

"Ah!" sighed my mother, "you little think
how she has loved you. Not one woman in a
thousand could have done as our Jane has. Boy, it's
not possible you'll ever be loved so again on earth."

You had never thought of it before, and
your face grew paler than my mother's. I sat
behind the curtains, where you could see me
though she could not; and you looked across
at me fixedly, still keeping your station by her
side. I smiled with the tears standing in my eyes,
but with no foolish burning in my cheeks, for if
it would comfort you in any degree, I was neither
afraid nor ashamed that you should know it.

"Ever since you came," my mother
murmured, "smoothing every stone out of your
path, and only fretting because she could not bear
every trouble for you! If you ever marry, Owen,
she will live only for you, and your wife and
children. You will always care for her, Owen?"

"I will never marry any other woman," you
said, laying your lips upon my mother's wrinkled
hand.

I know it was a comfort to you. Perhaps in
the suddenness and mystery of your loss, you
felt as if everything was wrecked, and nothing
remained to life but a bleak, black dreariness.

But from that hour, there was a light, very
feeble and dim and lustreless a mere glow-worm
in the waste wilderness—which shone upon your
path. You began to return to your old duties,
though it was as if you were leaning upon me,
and trusting to my guiding. There was no talk
of love between us; it was enough that we
understood one another.

We might have gone on quietly thus, year
after year, until the memory of Adelaide had
faded away, but that it was not many months
before my father, who had been younger than my
mother, and was a fine man yet, announced to
me that he was about to marry again. The
news had reached you elsewhere; for, on the
same evening, while I was sitting alone with my
troubled thoughts, you called me into the blue
parlour, and made me take my old seat in the
corner of the chintz-covered sofa, while you
knelt down beside me.

"Jane," you said, very gently, " I want to
offer my poor home to you."

"No, no, Owen," I cried, looking down upon
your face, so grey and unsmiling, with dark
circles under your sunken eyes, "you are young
yet, and will meet with some other woman—a
dear sister she shall ever be to me—younger
and brighter, and more fitted for you than I
am. You shall not sacrifice yourself to me."

"But, Jane," you urged, and a pleasant light
dawned in your eyes, "I cannot do without you.
You know I could not go alone into yonder
little house, which stands empty by the church;
and how could I go away from. Ratlinghope,
leaving you behind me? I have no home but
where you are; and I love you more than I
ever thought to love any woman again."

Maybe you remember what more you said;
every word is in my heart to this day.

I thought it over in the quiet night. You
were poor, and I, inheriting my mother's fortune,
could surround you with comforts; secretly in
my judgment, there had grown the conviction
that you would never be what the world calls a
prosperous man. The time was come when we
must be separated or united for ever; and if
you parted from me, I could never more stand
between you and any sorrow. So I became
your wife nearly twelve months after your great
loss and misery.

Those first weeks of our marriage had more
sunshine than I had ever dared to hope for.
You seemed to shake off a great burden,
now that it was irrevocably settled that our
lives were to be passed together. Not a single
lurking dread remained in my heart that you
were otherwise than happy.

We came back to England some days earlier
than we intended, for a letter reached me after
many delays, with the news that Mrs. Vernon
was ill, and implored us to hasten our return.
We stayed on our way homeward at the
rectory, where I soon left you with Mr. Vernon,
while I was conducted to the entrance of the
long passage which led to Mrs. Vernon's apartments.
Her lady, the servant said in a whisper,
was ailing more in mind than in body, and she