the fire. We did not talk much; our thoughts
were too strange to be put into words. Miss
Pollard glanced fearfully at me from time to
time, and averted her eyes as if dreading I
should read her mind. Every now and again
she made some ingenious suggestion as to what
might have happened to keep Luke and Sylvia
abroad. Two or three times I slipped up-stairs
and listened at my father's door, and once I
stole into his room, and saw that he slept peacefully.
That was the last time I saw him living.
I came down again, and found that my faithful
little friend had fallen asleep on the sofa by the
fireside. I covered her up with shawls, and then
I passed another hour walking restlessly about
the room, racked with a thousand bewildering
thoughts. At last, I threw myself into an
armchair in a state of utter exhaustion, and
remembered nothing more till I wakened with a
sudden shock, and the conviction that
something strange and awful had occurred. The fire
had died out, and Miss Pollard was gone. There
were confused sounds outside the door, hurrying
feet, and smothered exclamations. I flew to
the door and opened it, expecting to see Luke
or Sylvia lying dead in the hall. But it was not
that which had sent this panic through the house.
I rushed up-stairs, crying, "What?—what?
Tell me, for God's sake!" But people met me
on the lobby and dragged me into my room. I
heard Dr. Strong's voice on the lobby, and a
feeble sound of Elspie weeping. By-and-by
Miss Pollard came to me, and then I learned it
all. My father was dead. A second stroke of
paralysis had come upon him in his sleep, and
he had died on the instant.

Later on in the morning they allowed me to
go into his room, which was all hung with black
and white, and kneel down close by the poor
grey head that lay so stiff on the pillow, and
have out my passion of grief and forlornness,
no eye being there to see. Oh, the poor grey
head! the straight meek figure, the hand that
could never more receive a benefit from me!
What mute, piteous reproaches I suffered in
those hours, looking at the silent lips from
which I could not now remember to have ever
heard a hard or angry word. I could only
recollect my own bitterness and rebellion against
his will, and the sole comfort I had was in the
reflection that my enforced obedience had saved
him in the day of his tribulation.

I had wearied myself out with weeping, and
was kneeling with my face buried in my arms,
half stupified, when the door opened, and Sylvia
came in softly, a streak of sunshine creeping
after her into the gloomy room. It did not
shock me to see her. I had so forgotten her
absence that it required her restored presence
to make me remember all that had occurred
before my father's death had stunned me. She
came slipping in, gathering her silks about her
for fear of noise, knelt and kissed the poor dead
hand, while the tears came down her face.
Presently she was weeping convulsively, quivering
and sobbing; I had never seen her so before.
But after she had done, it seemed that it could
not have been grief that had shaken her, but
rather that she had been casting off with these
showers of tears the last of a heavy load with
which her heart had been burdened for many a
day. She looked more bright and lovely than
ever when she came and put her arms round
me, and said:

"Poor Mattie! poor Mattie! Come away, I
must speak to you."

She drew me out of the room with her. As
soon as we were out on the lobby she stopped,
and looked in my face.

"Mattie," said she, "there is one thing I
must speak of before anything else. I am
married to Luke." And she laid her pretty
hand on mine, showing the ring shining on her
finger.

"You chose a strange time and a strange
manner for your marriage," said I.

"It was accident," said she; "but you are
worn out, your head burns." She almost lifted
me in her arms, and carried me into my room,
covered me up on the bed, pulled down the
blind, bathed my head in cold water, and then
she sat down beside me.

"Now you must listen to my story," said
she. "I shall not fatigue you by making it
long. I am not going to ask your pardon for
what I have done. It will be as much for your
happiness as for mine."

"Let that pass, Sylvia," I said. "You
consulted your own happiness. Never mind
mine."

"You are ungrateful, Mattie, for I did think
of you," she said. "But this is how it happened.
We drove very far away to a village—I do not
know its name—quite close to the sea. The
furious rain and storm came on, and we had to
seek shelter in a cottage on the roadside. The
night got worse and worse, and the people in
the cottage assured me that I could not go
outside the door before morning. I went up to
Luke and asked him what I should do. He
said, 'Remain,' and I did not say another word
against it. I knew then that my fate and yours
were both sealed. The poor woman of the
house, who was a respectable widow, made me
a bed in her own little room, and I was
comfortable enough, but I heard Luke walking up
and down the kitchen all night. In the morning,
however, when I came out to look about
me, he was not to be seen. I put on my bonnet
and walked out, asking my way to the village
church. Some marriages were going on, and I
sat down in a pew and witnessed them. By-
and-by I saw Luke come in and stand waiting
beside a pillar. When the other people were
ready to go away, he beckoned to me, and I
followed him up to the altar, and we were married.
I think it was the oddest marriage I ever
heard of."

I said I dared say it was, and I felt Sylvia a
greater puzzle than ever as I looked at the glow
of intense feeling in her face, contrasting
curiously with the coolness of her matter-of-
fact recital. But some one came in at the