marriage. The latter interested me most. They
were addresses to my father, then a
commercial traveller, during his journies in the
country, and abounded with such pleasant
glimpses of the home that ought to have
been mine, and breathed such a spirit of
tenderness towards him to whom they were
addressed, that tears of yearning for my lost
mother stood in my eyes as I read; and the
vision of my cheerless life rose before me,
and struck chill to my heart. Gradually, as
I read, the interest deepened; and the last
two or three letters were filled with the
apprehension of some impending misfortune,
but which was alluded to in terms too vague
for me to divine what it really was. The
letters concluded suddenly without giving me
the wished-for information. I turned to the
newspapers, though with little hope of
enlightenment from them.

A paragraph in the first that I opened,
struck my attention at once. It was headed,
Trial and Conviction of William Wrangford
for Forgery. I read it through three times
with an unshaken quietude that surprised
me when I afterwards came to reflect on it;
and then, after replacing the newspaper and
letters, I took up my hat and went out—I,
the felon's son. By what paths I went, or
how I came there, I know not, but just as
the day was breaking I found myself on the
brink of Langley Farm. I stood there quietly
contemplating it for a long time, till the
morning-star had vanished, and the east was
all a-flame. A heavenly quiet seemed to
brood over those solemn depths. Why not
end there the pain and the shame that must
otherwise be my lot through life? A brief
struggle and all would be over. There
seemed no impiety in the thought. My
soul was weak, and fainted for the Comforter;
and would not He, who poured that beautiful
morning over the earth, comfort me, and
restore me to the arms of my long-lost
mother?

Suddenly, from the distant farmstead,
sounded the loud, steady lowing of kine, and
then, after a short time, I heard the pure,
quivering voice of some rustic maiden
singing, as she milked, some old-world ballad,
whose words I could not catch, but whose
melody comforted my heart, and filled my
eyes with happy tears. And so, after a time,
I arose and wandered slowly back to the
home that was to be mine no longer.

Mrs. Grayson's death, which took place
the following year, severed the last frail link
that bound me to Salome. For while the old
lady lived I heard frequently from London,
and sometimes there was even a message for
me; and once a lock of raven hair, which I
cherished as my dearest treasure. But after
Mrs. Grayson's death, Salome seemed lost to
me for ever. As time lapsed on, and my
mind ripened, I grew to regard her as a sweet
abstraction rather than as the living reality
I had known her to be. That brief epoch,
during which our shadows had mingled,
appeared in the mellow distance of years, as no
more than a lovely dream of childhood; in
time, I came unconsciously to regard her more
as a creation of my own fancy, than as anything
else, and as such she mingled in all my
day-dreams, flickering before me in the
firelight of winter evenings, and mingling with
my musings as I lay on the summer-grass.

I know not what would have become of
me after my grandmother's death, had not
Mr. Carnforth offered to retain me in the
school as an assistant. No offer could have
been more to my taste; so I was quickly
installed in my new situation. I went to live
with the master, and had a little attic for
my bed-room, lighted from the roof. In this
room I hung up my portrait of Salome, and
constructed a rude book-case to hold my few
treasured volumes.

This quiet and serene mode of life lasted
for several years without interruption. I
pursued my philological studies with ardour,
and became, in the course of time, somewhat
of an antiquarian also. On Saturday afternoons,
I took long excursions into the country,
visiting old churches, deciphering hoary
tombstones, and ancient brasses; or hunting
up the legendary history of some old ruin.
Like a tempered autumn day my life glided
gently on; fleckered, indeed, by light or
shadow, as the recollection of Salome, or my
father, arose in my heart; but unacquainted
with any great tempest of passion, and never
overcast by sombre clouds of grief.

My attainments in the way of languages
began to be noticed and commented on by
gentlemen visiting the school. I had several
old manuscripts to translate for them at
different times; and the way in which they
were done seemed to gratify my patrons.

I was nineteen years old. It was one chill
evening in September, too dark to read, and
too early to light the lamp, as I sat musing
by the fire, with my chin on my hand, and
my elbow on my knee, that I heard the rustle
of a silk dress behind me, as some one gently
opened the door. I turned instinctively, but
without curiosity. At last she was come back
to see me. There was no need for more light
to see who it was. I knew her in an instant.
There was the old smile, so faithfully
preserved in my portrait of her; there was the
old turn of the head that I remembered so
well; there was the old voice, made fuller
and mellower by years, but still the same.

"Salome!"

"Ralph!"

Our hands were together in an instant.
She sat down in the chair I had vacated, and
I placed myself on some ancient tomes at her
feet, and pressing her fingers to my lips.

"And what have you been doing all these
long years?" she asked.

"Expecting you," I replied.

"You have not forgotten me, then?"

"Never, Salome!"