no stirring event, no exciting incident, to startle
us from the calm round of daily life.

One bright June day, we were sitting out in
the hayfield, my uncle, Mr. Norcliffe, and I.
A wide elm spread its fresh canopy above our
heads, there was a sleepy sweetness in the air,
and silence had come down on us softly, with
the peaceful shadow of the elm-tree. My uncle,
leaning back in his garden-chair, had fallen
asleep. Mr. Norcliffe lay on the grass, gazing
up into the depths of the foliage above us. All
at once he looked at me and said in a low
voice: "What did you tell me was the date
of your last letter from Canada?"

"The third of April. It is time I should
hear again."

"Your letter was from Madame de Beauguet?"

"Yes. It is long since I have had one from
Anna. But they are moving about, and at the
last accounts were in a wild, half-settled district.
It seems very strange to me that Horace should
have to be driven so from place to place."

"Ay. A rolling stone, you know——"

"But why should it be? It seems to me
very hard."

"Margaret," returned Mr. Norcliffe, after a
pause, "it is hard; but it does not surprise me.
With all your brother-in-law's talent and good
will to work, he lacks the mental and physical
energy necessary to attain success in such a
country as that to which he has gone. He will
fight, but hopelessly; and that is not the way
to win. When I saw him last, in the streets
of Willborough, he looked broken. The heart
had gone out of him. I saw it in his gait,
in the carriage of his head, in the look of his
eyes. Forgive me if I pain you, but you trust
me, and I must speak the truth to you."

"I know you will say nothing but what is
true and good," I answered; "but I cannot
help weeping to think of—of—Anna and the
child. It seems too terrible that I cannot help
them. Oh, if uncle would but hold out a
forgiving hand! From him, Anna would take
assistance. Could you not speak to him, Mr.
Norcliffe?"

"Heaven knows my readiness to do what I
can for your sister, Margaret. But do you not
see how much more difficult it is now, than it
was before, to appeal to Mr. Gough on her
behalf? The sums he has given you, he naturally
believes to have been applied to her use. If we
confess to him that she has obstinately and
implacably refused to receive them, as coming
through your hands, will that, think you, soften
his heart towards her?"

I was silent.

"However, I will try what I can do. I
understand well enough why—though your
influence with your uncle is strong on all other
points—your pleadings for your sister do not
avail to induce him to forgive her."

"Do you? Why?"

He looked at me curiously for a moment.

"Because it was you whom she most wronged,
Margaret."

My uncle awoke from his short sleep, and no
more was said between Mr. Norcliffe and me at
that time. But this was the first of many similar
conversations between us. He used his
influence with my uncle on Anna's behalf, though
without inducing him to take any active step
towards reconciliation. At length, however, he
prevailed so far as to gain from my uncle
a half promise that he would reconsider his
will. In the first force of his stern anger
against Anna and her husband, he had
entirely altered the original distribution of his
property, and had left everything absolutely to
me, as he had told Mr. Lee. Now he promised
Mr. Norcliffe that he would think of making
some provision for Anna's child. To her, or to
her husband, he steadily refused to bequeath a
farthing.

Thus the summer and autumn of that year
passed away, and I received no letter from
Anna. Our old schoolmistress still wrote with
the affectionate fidelity that belonged to her.
But she could give only meagre tidings of
Anna. Two sad facts were plain to her, she
said; that they were struggling with poverty;
and that Horace's health was fading beneath
the sharp breath of that inclement land.
Meanwhile, my uncle spoke to Mr. Norcliffe, from
time to time, of altering his will. He would
do it. He would think it out clearly. He
would set his house in order, before he should
be summoned away. He grew quieter and more
silent as the year went on, but you could not
say more sad. His manner—always kindly—
became softer than I had ever known it. Also,
he would sit for hours, neither reading nor speaking,
but; gazing out before him with a look that
seemed to contemplate something far, far away.
On Christmas Day we had been to church
together. It was bitter cold, and he was chilled
and numbed when we came home. I mixed him
some hot spiced wine after dinner, as my aunt
had used to do, and we sat listening to the
evening bells in the old fire-lighted room.

"Peace—and—good will," he murmured,
softly. "Peace—and—good will. How plainly
the bells say it, Madge!"

As if the words had been put into my mouth,
and were not my own, I rose and embraced
him:

"0, dearest uncle, forgive her, forgive her!"

He put me gently away from him, after a
while, and made me no answer. But, when we
parted for the night, he kissed and blessed me
solemnly, and the last words he spoke to me
were:

"Blessed are the peacemakers.—I will try,
Madge; I will try."

The sickly flare of a candle in the faint grey
wintry daybreak was the first thing that met
my eyes when I awoke next morning. The face
of the woman who held it in her trembling
hand, startled me into complete wakefulness at
once.

"Hester, what is the matter?"

"Miss Margaret! Master!"

"Is my uncle ill?"