heirship, she herself shared them. She never
for a moment doubted that he was made the
heir, and that only a small marriage portion
had been reserved for her when Paul
—artistic, unpractical Paul—might be able to
marry her, and keep a house wherein to hold
her.

The whist party proved a failure for the
calculating Andrew. Eyes as sharp as his, and
senses as keenly alive to all the possibilities
of trickery, were there with him; and his
clever device, first suspected and then
discovered, ended only in a scene of violence and
tumult, where everybody was robbed and everybody
beaten, and the blame of all thrown on
the cheating host;—where, moreover, he had
to pay a large sum of money to prevent the
affair being carried into the hands of the
police, as some of the neediest and most
disreputable of the guests threatened.

The next day he came down to Oakfield,
battered and jaded, and out of humour
enough. Everything had been arranged for
the funeral, which was to take place to-morrow
by his wish; and the house was full of
that terrible stillness which the presence of
death brings with it,—a solemn unearthly
stillness—the shadow of God's hand. There
was the close smell thoroughout, which a
single day's want of air and sunshine will
produce, mingled with the scent of lavender
and dried rose leaves, and dying flowers,
generally. The servants moved about gently
and spoke in whispers; Magdalen sat
attempting to work—sometimes taking up a
book as if to read—but her tears fell over her
hands instead, and blotted out the page.
Paul wandered mournfully from room to
room, his sympathy falling far short of
Magdalen's sorrow; "But," as she said to herself,
"who could console her?— no one in the
world!" When, in the midst of the
passionate anguish and the solemn silence that
sat side by side, like grim angels by the
threshold, a carriage rolled noisily to the
door, and Andrew's voice was heard, swearing
at the man for having driven past the
hall-step.

Dressed with every attribute of the man of
slang and vice, loud in voice, noisy, rough,
and vulgar in manner, his once handsome
face lined and attenuated by dissipation, and
all his intellect put into the exaggeration of
vulgarity, Andrew entered the hall, where
Paul and Magdalen waited to receive him.
He made no attempt, no feint, at sympathy
or sorrow. So far, at least, he was honest.
But how frightful it was to her who had sat
so many hours by that dying man, till her
whole soul had become interpenetrated by
his—how terrible it was to have this gross,
rude shadow flung between her sorrow and
that sacred memory—to feel the spiritual
death which, in her brother's presence,
removed her father again from her! The
loneliness of the first hours of her orphanhood
was nothing compared to the sickening
loneliness of her feeling now. The coarseness of
indifference with which he asked, first broadly,
and then in detail, for information of his
father's last moments,—the coldness with
which he listened, rubbing his eyes and
yawning noisily, when she told him such and
such facts as for the mere sympathy of a
common humanity would have touched the
heart even of a stranger—the very boast of
carelessness in every gesture; lounging against
the chimney-piece; flinging himself into an
easy-chair, with one foot raised on his knee,
or else with one hand doubled against his
side, and the other playing with the little
dog—all was torture to Magdalen, who felt
that she also was included in the shameful
disgrace of her brother.

"Ah, and so this is your Joe?" he asked,
looking at Paul through his half-shut eyes;
then, turning to his sister, he said, in a loud
whisper, "I say, Mag, there's not too much
good stuff in him! He's a fine lad as far as
face goes; but hang me if I wasn't more of
a man at fourteen than he is now. However,
that's no affair of mine."

"I hope you will be good friends," said
Magdalen, choking, "and that you will never
have cause to regret your relationship."

"That's a sensible speech, Mag, proper to
the occasion. I say, did the old boy like the
match?"

"Do you mean papa?" said Magdalen,
very coldly.

"Of course, I do!" and Andrew laughed.
How loud and long his laugh was! It chilled
Magdalen's very heart within her.

"Oh, Andrew, don't laugh now! " she
cried, laying her hand on his arm. "It terrifies
and shocks me, when, you know what
lies above our heads."

"Don't be a superstitious fool, Magdalen,"
said Andrew, savagely; "and don't tell me
what I am to do and what not! You foolish
girls stay down here moping in the country,
till you don't know how to live. You get
into a world of ghosts and shadows, till you
are frightened at the very sound of your
own voices." Andrew re-crossed his legs, and
played with the dog's ears till it howled and
slunk away.

Paul looked at the Londoner with a mild
curiosity, as if he had been a kind of
privelged wild beast; and then, satisfied that
he could do nothing towards taming him, and
feeling ill at ease in his society, he went away
for a time, much to Magdalen's relief and
Andrew's disappointment; for he had
promised himself good sport in baiting him.

Hearing that Andrew had arrived, old
friends of the family had assembled by degrees,
to hear the will read, and to offer
assistance or condolence as their position
warranted;—some with a vague feeling of
protection to Magdalen; for Andrew had the
worst character possible in the neighbourhood;
and more than one thought it not
unlikely that his sister might need some