wore on, and year after year the sea gradually
receded from the town, these projects had to
be abandoned, and people began to see that
Lichendale was doomed to sink into a quiet,
decaying town; instead of rising to any great
maritime importance, and they almost
questioned the necessity of its being represented.
The constituency was small and tractable,
with but vague political notions. Colonel
Peterson had been elected more on account
of his high character as a squire and country
gentleman, than for anything else; and even
though Sir Edward should enter the lists,
with his brilliant talents and strong opinions,
yet it would be doubtful, unless his character
could bear comparison with the honest old
colonel's, whether he would succeed in his
attempt to wrest the borough from his hands.

On the afternoon of the day which followed
Sir Edward's return, Paul bade me get ready
to go and call with him at the Hall. I dared
not disobey; yet the thoughts of venturing,
even with my brother's protection, within
that terribly grand house and encountering
its master, made me feel shy and frightened.
But our walk through the park, with our
feet sinking deep into the mossy, daisy-spotted
grass, and the sea-wind making a low, surging
sound in the dark pine trees round us,
freshened me up, and gave me a merry
courage. I danced along, laughing at the
notion of my going like a grand dame to
call on the lord of the manor in the afternoon,
—I who had spent the morning in
mending stockings, and shelling peas. At
another time, Paul would have reproved me
for my wild spirits; but he was now busy
turning over and over and perfecting the
speech of welcome and thanks with which
he meant to greet his patron. We reached
the great portico. I had once been shown
over the Hall by a cross old housekeeper, but
I had never before called there, or leisurely
examined any of the beautiful rooms; so
that I was quite delighted that Sir Edward
delayed coming to us, and left me time to
look at all the curiosities with which the
spacious ante-room was filled. Sir Edward
kept us waiting a long time; and when he at
length entered, he looked pre-occupied and
somewhat constrained. He was about thirty,
to all appearance; tall and firmly built, with
a face passion-worn and pale, yet strangely
attractive. He hardly raised his eyes to our
faces as he approached us; but once, when the
conversation flagged and he turned them
full on me, I quailed beneath their steady,
lustrous gaze.

"Paul," I said, as we walked home, "I did
so wish you would have asked Sir Edward
about Lawrie. He might have remembered
much to tell us if you had but begun
the subject, which perhaps he did not like to
introduce himself."

"I could not mention his name to a
stranger: it would not be right in me, if I
could. You talk about Lawrence freely and
often, as if you felt no shame in his death;
but when you grow older, you will feel as I
do, and shudder when you remember that
he was a duellist."

Poor dead Lawrie!  I felt as if it was
some great moral want in me that prevented
my blaming him as Paul did. To Paul a
duel was murder in its most cold and wilful
form. He seemed to forget the temptations
to which Lawrence had been exposed, and
the fact that he was the challenged—not
the challenger; nay, sometimes it seemed
as if he forgot that it was his own brother
whom he so relentlessly condemned. I
could only pity Lawrie, goaded—as I felt
he must have been, by false shame, and not
by any unforgiving passion—to that last
act which he had expiated with his life.
But Paul, as I have said, felt differently.
It hurt his pride of goodness that his
brother should have died such a death. He
hushed it up as much as he could;
not-withstanding, the report spread through
Lichendale that  "young Mathewson had died
far away across seas in a murdering-match;"
and deep words of wrath against his
murderer were mingled with regrets for my
father; whose death, it was known, had been
caused by the sudden sorrow. With whom
Lawrence had fought, we did not know. No
details had been given in the letter with my
father had received; and Paul would never
make inquiries, either as to the cause of the
duel, or the name of the challenger; so that
the suspicions which rested, with but little
ground, on a French artist were never
confirmed. "Vengeance is mine; I will repay,
saith the Lord,"  Paul would repeat to
himself, half aloud, whenever people talked of
the chance of discovering the unknown
murderer; as if it gave him a kind of grim
pleasure to remember into what Almighty hands
he had yielded his cause. Surely, I thought,
the Creator in his great goodness judges more
mercifully than men judge."

CHAPTER THE THIRD.

THE morning after our call, Paul was out,
and I had gone up-stairs to get my hat for a
stroll, when Jane came panting up the stairs,
breathless with astonishment, for  "Sir
Edward was in the parlour!"  What could he
want?

"Did you tell him Mr. Paul was out,
Jane?"

"Yes, Miss Helen; but he asked if you
were in the house, and he comed in almost
afore I'd time to answer yes."

He must have called on some urgent business,
I thought; and I hurried down to him.
His ride through the fresh morning air had
flushed his cheeks, and he looked very handsome.
His half-haughty, half-careless bearing
impressed me as something strange and
striking; it was so different from Paul's grave,
slow manner.

"You must not think me an impertinent