was no occasion to meet Christmas in the country, when the duties of Sir George Harcourt's position summoned him to the city; and after repeated delays, the girls had at length the satisfaction of knowing that the day was fixed for their re-inauguration at the government-house. The carnival was about to commence. Balls and rumours of balls were rife in the garrison; and though Sophia bore the prospect of their renewed gaieties with suitable serenity, poor Emma could scarcely restrain her spirits to becoming decorum, as she reflected that, once more domesticated under the same roof with Arthur Seton, he would be no longer able to assume a coldness where he had it not; and that the preference he had fully betrayed during their first six weeks of intimacy-the preference which fully sanctioned her own, would again melt in his looks, and soften his manly voice.

"Whatever may be the motive of his recent reserve," thought the poor girl, "I may at least henceforward enjoy his society as a friend.'

Even Sir George Harcourt, who had written home for the fullest particulars concerning the young man in whom he took so deep an interest, the moment he determined on admitting him into his household, was delighted at the thoughts of having his little circle once more collected around him enjoying the appropriate pleasures of their age.

"To-morrow!" whispered Emma to her sister, as they stood inspecting together the packing of their harp and piano, and the removal of their music-books," to-morrow, we shall be once more happy. Dearly as I love Santa Chiara, I long to find myself again on the old ramparts! I will never again complain of the noise of the parade! The bay affords such a cheering prospect!"

"And the Alegone arrived yesterday," added Miss Harcourt. "Lord Algernon may have perhaps brought us letters from England, which he did not think it worth while to ride over here and deliver, as we were expected so soon."

"With his help, we might surely get up some tableaux or charades -as they did in the garrison the winter before our arrival?" observed Emma. "What they managed to do without our aid and that of Arthur Seton, they might certainly accomplish now!"

"Hush! here comes Aunt Martha, who seems to have taken an aversion to every thing like attempts at gaiety," whispered Miss Harcourt. "I am afraid she is come to scold us for our tardiness in packing!"

But no! The frown upon the maidenly brow of the spinster was produced only by the inconsistency of her brother: who, after expressing so vehement a desire for their arrival at ——, had just despatched an orderly with instructions for a counter-march! They were on no account to leave Santa Chiara till they heard further from him. He would ride over next day, or the day following, and explain his

reasons.

Pre-assured that his "reasons" were excellent, the girls resigned themselves as patiently as they could to the delay. But by the following evening, they had begun to discover that Santa Chiara in its present dismantled state, was a most cheerless residence, and that the rainy season in Greece is as disagreeable as it is everywhere else. The bitterns screamed mournfully as they flew over the low roofs of the

villa towards the marshes; and the dim sky was as dispiriting as their

own state of suspense.

"Just like my brother!" was the peevish ejaculation of Aunt Martha.

"So unlike papa on the contrary, that I am beginning to be almost alarmed!" was the murmured observation of Sophia to her sister, when the middle of the second dreary day arrived, without bringing further orders, or an explanation of the preceding ones.

"This place was never intended for a winter residence. One has not a single comfort about one," said Mrs. Martha Harcourt, looking disdainfully at the cane-mats of the drawing-room, which a few juniper logs on the hearth were beginning to fill with smoke.

"But, dearest aunt, it was by your own express wish we remained here so long?" returned Sophia.

"Certainly-so long as the fine weather lasted. But when once my brother had issued orders to break up the establishment, he might surely have known his own mind? I always determined to eat my Christmas dinner at —

"And so you will! We have still a week before us. Depend upon it, we shall welcome in the new year by a merry dance at the government-house!"

As Miss Harcourt uttered these words, the sound of horse's hoofs was heard in the court; and in a moment the girls rushed to the halldoor to welcome their father. It was still daylight; and both at the same moment perceived that his countenance was sad, and that he wore a crape round his hat.

"You have no bad news from England?-my cousin Harcourt is well?" cried Emma, perceiving that the sister was too much agitated to give utterance to the inquiry.

"Quite well! I have had no news from England," he replied, imprinting a kiss alternately on the foreheads of both, ere he advanced towards the drawing-room, on the threshold of which stood Aunt Martha, with an air of offended dignity; and, to their great surprise, almost before he shook hands with her, the general, who was the most abstinent of men, asked for a glass of wine! So tremulous, moreover, was the hand which raised it to his lips, that Emma discovered his agitation to be greater than even that of her sister. A sudden apprehension glanced into her mind; but she had not breath to name "the once loved name."

"You will perceive from my dress," said the old soldier, his voice faltering with emotion, "that I have-that- But Sergeant Hanson probably warned you."

Emma now caught wildly hold of his arm, while Aunt Martha, alarmed in her turn, assured him that the orderly had merely delivered his letter, and galloped off. At the moment Sir George Harcourt forgot that such had been his express orders.

"I fear then," said he, averting his face, and speaking more deliberately, "that I shall be the first to bring the ill news of poor Seton's untimely end. I am come from attending his funeral."

Rightly had he judged that, since the worst must be known, it could not be told too abruptly; the gradual enkindling and stifling of hope

produced by over-cautious revelations being simply a prolongation of agony to the hearer. Nevertheless the shock of the communication was stunning; and while poor Emma remained stupified and exhausted by a series of fainting-fits, from which she was with difficulty recovered, her father proceeded to unfold to Sophia and his sister the cruel particulars of an event which even the severe spinster consecrated by her

tears.

"The poor lad was sacrificed," said Sir George," absolutely sacrificed! I am afraid that, as the world contemplates such matters, there was no help for it; but, in the eyes of common sense and Christian principle, poor Seton might as well have had his throat cut!"

"A duel, then?" demanded Sophia, in a subdued voice.

"A duel."

"And could not the interference of seconds-"

66

No, my dear! Had I myself been one of them I should have said that he must fight. The circumstances were very peculiar. The quarrel arose from an accusation of cowardice,-of a duel evaded,— which. But it is a long story, of which, at present, I can tell you only that, on the day of the arrival of the Alegone, when Lord Algernon caught sight of Seton for the first time, he foolishly exclaimed, What that fellow in the -th? I thought he had been forced to leave the army.' The brother officers of poor Seton of course insisted on an explanation, which, on finding what a storm he had raised by his chattering, Lord Algernon positively refused. One or two of those officers of the garrison, however, who have shown jealousy of Seton's rapid advancement, took care that the story should reach his ears, and His demand for an explanation from Lord Algernon was not of course to be denied like the rest. Heberden took him the message. The answer consisted in the haughty taunt of "Tell Captain Seton I had the honour to visit Bermuda shortly after his retirement from the -5th!'"

"There was some foundation then for the contemptuous observations of Lord Algernon?" inquired Aunt Martha, eagerly.

"You shall hear, my dear sister,-give me time and you shall hear. Foundation or no foundation, Seton conducted himself in such a manner towards Lord Algernon within an hour of receiving his message, that a meeting was indispensable!"

"Indispensable!" murmured Sophia Harcourt, whose tears were now falling unrestrainedly.

"Though I can assure you that Lord Algernon made a concession of accepting poor Seton's challenge! Under all the circumstances, I feel that I should be justified in refusing,' said he. But I am not the fellow to skulk out of an affair provoked by my own rashness; and, from all I have heard of Captain Seton during the last four-and-twenty hours, shall not be sorry, if the opportunity avails, to restore him to the position in public estimation which, for his own sake, I trust he has unjustly forfeited.""

"A wondrous act of kindness, certainly!" cried Sophia, bitterly.

"It was, my dear, I promise you, in a professional point of view. According to poor Seton's death-bed avowals to me, few could have blamed Lord Algernon for refusing to go out with him. For Seton, though as

brave a fellow as ever trod the earth, had incurred a fatal imputation! Poor lad! poor lad! He went through tortures during the seven hours he survived his wound!" faltered Sir George. "He-he was carried to the hospital. It was there I visited him; it was there he relieved his mind by delivering to me a written explanation, which he had prepared previous to the meeting. Poor fellow! Doubtless it was some comfort to him that I was able, after perusing it, to shake him by the hand with greater affection than ever. I told him I could not wish a son of my own to have acted otherwise! Poor fellow. I believe it was a comfort to him to hear as much;—and I closed his eyes with all the less heaviness of heart for having afforded it. But the world does not deal tenderly with such matters; and I am sadly afraid that by the many to whom it is impossible to communicate Arthur Seton's justification, his name may still come to be harshly dealt with, and myself to be severely handled for the tenderness I have shown towards his memory!"

It was some time before Sophia could absent herself sufficiently long from the bedside of her sister to entreat from her father the further explanations she was unwilling to ask in presence of one so ill inclined towards him who was gone from among them, as her aunt. She was, however, too well aware of the necessity of being able to meet the interrogations of poor Emma with more consolatory intelligence than she had yet to give, not to seek the first occasion of being alone with Sir George. "I see that my fears had not outstripped the truth, Sophy," said he. "The affections of my poor girl were given to this noble fellow! What shall we-what can we do to comfort her! She must not, at present, go back to. His death-bed is there, his grave is there; and though the sympathies of the whole garrison are enlisted on his side, I should be sorry that the state of her feelings became a matter of publicity. I have, therefore, desired my sister to prepare for spending the winter here. I have ordered every thing to be replaced in its usual state. As soon as the spring breaks, we will travel; we will visit the Morea."

"Alas! my dear father, considering the delight with which he used to contemplate joining us in that very expedition, and the number of times that Emma and he have traced it out together, I fear such a tour would do more harm than good.”

"We will go to England, then; anywhere-anywhere likely to restore my poor dear child to herself! For my sister was right, Sophy; after all, my sister was right. There was no excuse for my throwing a handsome young fellow so much into your society, of whose antecedent life I knew so little?"

It was not likely that Sir George's self-accusations would be lessened on perceiving in the sequel, by the calm desperation of poor Emma's grief, how far more serious than he supposed, was her ill-starred passion! The rapidly conceived attachments of very young persons are only too apt to strike thus deeply into the virgin soil of the heart. Had time been allowed, sunshine and prosperity might have dwindled its growth. But misfortune seemed to have consecrated it for ever-perpetuated it as with the changelessness of marble.

"All is over for me, father!" murmured the heart-broken girl, in reply to his exhortations. "Tell me only how he died, and that his grave is not dishonoured in your eyes!"

While the general devoted himself to upraising this broken reed, Sophia hastened to acquaint herself with the details contained in the papers committed by Arthur Seton to her father.

"Aware that disastrous circumstances, aided by my own inexperience of the world, have exposed me to obloquy," wrote the unfortunate young man, "I prepare myself for the fate-I will not say awaiting me, but the fate I am about to seek, by enabling the few whom I would fain interest in my memory, to judge with leniency the perplexities of my brief career.

"I am the only surviving son of the late Admiral Sir Arthur Seton. My mother having married again shortly after his death, I was educated in the family of my guardian, a clergyman, a distant kinsman, whose affection more than supplied the parent I had lost. Inheriting from the admiral a fortune of twenty thousand pounds, Mr. Otway judged it expedient that, previous to entering the army, which I had selected as my profession, I should pass a few years at Sandhurst; and it was only during my vacations that I was a member of his family circle.

"It was perhaps because that family consisted of two daughters, nearly of my own age, that as I advanced to manhood, he so strongly insisted on the necessity of a military education. For though he loved me as a son, and, I am convinced, desired nothing more earnestly than that I should bestow my heart and hand on one of his girls, he was too conscientious a man not to feel that it became him, as my guardian, to prevent my entangling myself in an engagement till I had seen more of the world. He might have spared himself all uneasiness! Young people brought up so familiarly together as I had been with Mary and Lucy, seldom fall in love. The girls were to me as dear sisters,-dearer perhaps than real sisters, from the very circumstance of the reserves produced by want of kindred; and when at the early age of seventeen, Mary Otway fell a victim to a malignant fever, caught in administering aid to one of her father's parishioners, I doubt whether even her father or her heartbroken sister lamented her more fondly than myself.

"Now, however, that Lucy was left alone, there was additional motive for objecting to me as an inmate at Harbstonge Vicarage; and it was the consciousness of this that determined me to accept a proposal made to me, previous to the last vacation I was to spend at Sandhurst, by one of my brother cadets, the eldest son of an Irish baronet, to join him in an excursion to the lakes. It was arranged that we should proceed together to Westmoreland, but the consent of Mr. Otway being indispensable to our project, Pakenham was to accompany me for a few days to Harbstonge. "In those few days he became so captivated by poor Lucy's beauty and simplicity of character, as to contrive the postponement of our tour; and so well did he recommend himself both to the hospitable vicar and his daughter, that an invitation to prolong his stay was a matter of course. In short, he remained till he had won the confidence of the one and the affections of the other. As there wanted a year to the completion of his majority (till when it was useless he thought to provoke the interference of his father), he prevailed on Miss Otway to content herself with a clandestine engagement; and the good vicar, who was any thing but a man of the world, regarded his departure without uneasiness, entreating him to visit Harbstonge again as soon as he should obtain his commission.