do my commissions; I think that had better be Will, for I can put no confidence, just now, in Hugh." "Of course it must be Will," said Hugh. " A squire of dames requires age and solidity. It is not an office for a younger brother. Your time will come, old fellow; it is mine now." "Yes, I suppose it is yours now," said Will. confidence in the brightness of their own dawning lot. Mary sat at the head of the table, with the urn before her, superintending all. The uneasiness of last night had passed from her mind; her cheek was almost as round and fair as that of the girl by her side-fairer perhaps in its way: her eyes were as bright as they had ever been; her dress it is true was still black, but it had not the shadowy denseness of her widow's garb of old. It was silk, that shone and He did not not mean to put any extraorgave back subdued reflections to the light, dinary significance in his tone, but yet he and in her hair there were still golden was in such a condition of mind that his gleams, though mixed with here and there very voice betrayed him against his will. a thread of silver. Her mourning, which Even Winnie, pre-occupied as she was, inprevented any confusion of colours, but termitted her own thoughts a moment to left her a sweet complexioned woman, rich look at him, and Hugh reddened though he in the subdued tints of nature, in the soft could not have told why. There was a cerausterity of black and white, did all for her tain menace, a certain implication of so nethat toilette could do. This was the figure thing behind, which the inexperienced boy which her son Wilfrid saw at the head of had no intention of betraying, but which the pretty country breakfast-table, between made themselves apparent in spite of him. the flowers and the sunshine an unblem- And Hugh too grew crimson in spite of ished matron and a beloved mother. He himself. He said, "By Jove!" and then knew, and it came into his mind as he looked he laughed, and cleared his mind of it, feelat her, that in the parish, or even in the ing it absurd to be made angry by the petcounty, there was nobody more honoured; ulance of his boy-brother. Then he turned and yet He kept staring at her so, and to Nelly, who had drawn closer to him, grew so white as he did so, and had so fearing that the quarrel was about to take scared a look in his eyes, that Mrs. Ochter-place as it takes place in novels, trembling lony herself perceived it at last. a little, and yet by the aid of her own good sense, feeling that it could not be so serious after all. "What is the matter, Will?" she said; "I could think there was a ghost standing behind me, from your eyes. Why do you look so startled?" 66 Nothing," said Will, hastily; "I didn't know I looked startled. A fellow can't help how he looks. Look here, Nelly, if you're going home to-day, I'll go with you, and see you safe there." "You'll go with her?" said Hugh, with a kind of good-humoured elder brotherly contempt. "Not quite so fast, Will. We can't trust young ladies in your care. I am going with Nelly myself." "Oh! I am sure Will is very kind,” said Nelly; and then she stopped short, and looked first at Mrs. Ochterlony and then at Hugh. Poor Nelly had heard of brothers being jealous of each other, and had read of it in books, and was half afraid that such a case was about to come under her own observation. She was much frightened, and her impulse was to accept Will's guardianship, that no harm might come of it, though the sacrifice to herself would be considerable; but then, what if Hugh should be jealous too? | "If we are going to the Lady's Well we must go early," he said; and his face changed when he turned to her. She was growing prettier every day, every day at least that she spent in Hugh's society, opening and unfolding as to the sun. Her precocious womanliness, if it had been precocious, melted under the new influence, and all the natural developments were quickened. She was more timid, more caressing, less self-reliant, and yet she was still as much as ever the head of the house at home. "But not if it will vex Will," she said, almost in a whisper, in his ear; and the close approach which this whisper made necessary, effaced in an instant all unbrotherly feelings towards Wilfrid from Hugh's mind. They both looked at Will, instinctively, as they spoke, the girl with a little wistful solicitude in case he might be disturbed by the sight of their confidential talk. But Will was quite unmoved. He saw the two draw closer together, and perceived the confidential communication that passed between them, but his countenance did not change in the slightest degree. By this time he was far beyond that. "You see he does not mind," said Hugh, carrying on the half articulate colloquy, of which one half was done by thoughts instead of words; and Nelly, with the colour a little deepened on her cheek, looked up at him with a look which Hugh could but half interpret. He saw the soft brightness, the sweet satisfaction in it tinged by a certain gleam of fun, but he did not see that Nelly was for the moment a little ashamed of herself, and was asking herself how she ever could, for a moment, have supposed that Will was jealous. It was a relief to her mind to see his indifference, and yet it filled her with shame. When the meal was over, and they all dispersed with their different interests, it was Mary who sought to soften what she considered the disappointment of her boy. She came to him as he stood at the window under the verandah, where the day before Percival had given him his fatal illumination, and put her arm within bis, and did her best to draw his secret from his clouded and musing eyes. "My dear boy, let us give in to Hugh," said Mary; "he is only a guest now, you know, and you are at home." She was smiling when she said this, and yet it made her sigh. "And then I think he is getting fond of Nelly, and you are far too young for anything of that sort," Mrs. Ochterlony said, with anxiety and a little doubt, looking him in the face all the time. "There are some things I am not too young for," said Will. "Mamma, if I were Hugh I would be at home nowhere unless you were at home there as well." "My dear Will, that is my own doing," said Mary. "Don't blame your brother. I have refused to go to Earlston. It will always be best for me, for all your sakes, to have a house of my own." "If Earlston had been mine, I should not have minded your refusal," said Will. Perhaps it was as a kind of secret atonement to her and to his own heart that he said so, and yet it was done instinctively and was the utterance of a genuine feeling. He was meditating in his heart her disgrace and downfall, and yet the first effects of it, if he could succeed, would be to lay every thing that he had won by shaming her, at her feet. He would do her the uttermost cruelty and injury without flinching, and then he would overwhelm her with every honour and grandeur that his ill-got wealth could supply. And he did not see how inconsistent those two things were. "But my boys must mind when I make such a decision," said Mary; and yet she was “You "I not displeased with the sentiment. shall go to Carlisle for me," she added. want some little things, and Hugh very likely would be otherwise occupied. If you would like to have a little change, and go early, do not wait for them, Will. There is a train in half an hour." "Yes, I would like a little change," he answered yaguely-feeling somehow, for that moment solely, a little prick of conscience. And so it was by his mother's desire to restore his good-humour and cheerfulness, that he was sent upon his mission of harm and treachery. CHAPTER XXXIV. WHILE Hugh showed Nelly the way to the Lady's Well with that mixture of brotherly tenderness and a dawning emotion of a much warmer kind, which is the privileged entrance of their age into real love and passion; and while Will made his with silent vehemence and ardour to Carlisle, Winnie was left very miserable in the Cottage. It was a moment of reaction after the furious excitement of the previous day. She had held him at bay, she had shown him her contempt and scorn, she had proved to him that their parting was final, and that she would never either see or listen to him again; and the excitement of doing this had so supported her that the day which Aunt Agatha thought a day of such horrible trial to her poor Winnie, was, in short, the only day in which she had snatched a certain stormy enjoyment since she returned to the Cottage. But the day after was differ ent. He was gone; he had assented to her desire, and accepted her decision to all appearance, and poor Winnie was very miserable. For the moment all seemed to her to be over. She had felt sure he would come, and the sense of the continued conflict had buoyed her up; but she did not feel so sure that he would come again, and the long struggle which had occupied her life and thoughts for so many years seemed to have come to an abrupt end, and she had nothing more to look forward to. When she realised this fact, Winnie stood aghast. It is hard when love goes out of a life; but sometimes, when it is only strife and opposition which go out of it, it is almost as hard to bear. She thought she had sighed for peace for many a long day. She had said so times without number, and written it down and persuaded herself that was what she wanted; but now that she had got it she found out that it was not that she wanted. The I don't think it would be possible to do me harm here." 'It is because you don't know him," said Winnie. “He would do the Queen harm in her own palace. You don't know what poison he can put on his arrows, and how he shoots them. I believe he will strike me through my friends." Cottage was the very home of peace, and | me. had been so for many years. Even the growth of young life within it, the active minds and varied temperaments of the three boys, and Will's cloudy and uncomfortable disposition, had not hitherto interfered with its character. But so far from being content, Winnie's heart sank within her when she realised the fact, that War had marched off in the person of her husband, and that she was to be "left in peace," horrible words that paralysed her very soul. This event, however, if it had done nothing else, had opened her mouth. Her history, which she had kept to herself, began to be revealed. She told her aunt and her sister of his misdeeds, till the energy of her narrative brought something like renewed life to her. She described how she had herself endured, how she had been left to all the dangers that attend a beautiful young woman whose husband has found superior attractions elsewhere; and she gave such sketches of the women whom she imagined to have attracted him, as only an injured wife in a chronic state of wrath and suffering could give. She was so very miserable on that morning that she had no alternative but to speak or die; and as she could not die, she gave her miseries utterance. "And if he can do you any harm if he can strike me through my friends," said Winnie, "if you know of any point on which he could assail you, you had better keep close guard." Oh, my dear love!" said Aunt Agatha, with a troubled smile, "what harm could he do us? He could hurt us only in wounding you; and now we have you safe, my darling, and can defend you, so he never can harm us." "Of course I never meant you," said Winnie. "But he might perhaps harm Mary. Mary is not like you; she has had to make her way in the world, and no doubt there may be things in her life, as in other people's, that she would not care to have known." Mary was startled by this speech, which was made half in kindness, half in anger; for the necessity of having somebody to quarrel with had been too great for Win nie. Mrs. Ochterlony was startled, but she could not help feeling sure that her secret was no secret for her sister, and she had no mind for a quarrel, though Winnie wished it. "There is but one thing in my life that I don't wish to have known," she said, "and Major Percival knows it, and probably so you, Winnie. But I am here among my own people, and everybody knows all about do All this time Aunt Agatha looked at the two with her lips apart, as if about to speak; but in reality it was horror and amazement that moved her. To hear them talking calmly of something that must be concealed! of something, at least, that it was better should not be known! - and that in a house which had always been so spotless, so respectable, and did not know what mystery meant ! Mary shook her head, and smiled. She had felt a little anxious the night before about what Percival might be saying to Wilfrid; but, somehow, all that had blown away. Even Will's discontent with his brother had taken the form of jealous tenderness for herself, which, in her thinking, was quite incompatible with any revelation which could have lowered her in his eyes; and it seemed to her as if the old sting, which had so often come back to her, which had put it into the power of her friends in "the regiment" to give her now and then a prick to the heart, had lost its venom. Hugh was peacefully settled in his rights, and Will, if he had heard anything, must have nobly closed his ears to it. Sometimes this strange feeling of assurance and confidence comes on the very brink of the deadliest danger, and it was so with Mary at the present moment that she had no fear. 46 He will As for Winnie, she too was thinking principally of her own affairs, and of her sister's only as subsidiary to them. She would have rather believed in the most diabolical rage and assault than in her husband's indifference and the utter termination of hostilities between them. strike me through my friends," she repeated; and perhaps in her heart she was rather glad that there still remained this oblique way of reaching her, and expressed a hope rather than a fear. This conversation was interrupted by Sir Edward, who came in more cheerfully and alertly than usual, taking off his hat as soon as he became visible through the open window. He had heard what he thought was good news, and there was satisfaction in his face. "So Percival is here," he said. "I can't tell you how pleased I was. Come, we'll have some pleasant days yet in our old age. Why hasn't he come up to the Hall ?” life." There was an embarrassed pause -em- for to-day, or to-morrow - it is for your barrassed at least on the part of Miss Seton, and Mrs. Ochterlony; while Winnie fixed her eyes, which looked so large and wild in their sunken sockets, steadily upon him, without attempting to make any reply. "Yes, Major Percival was here yesterday," said Aunt Agatha with hesitation; "he spent the whole day with us - I was very glad to have him, and I am sure he would have gone up to the Hall if he had had time- But he was obliged to go away". How difficult it was to say all this under the gaze of Winnie's eyes, and with the possibility of being contradicted flatly at any moment, may be imagined. And while Aunt Agatha made her faltering statement, her own look and voice contradicted her; and then there was a still more embarrassed pause, and Sir Edward looked from one to another with amazed and unquiet eyes. "He came and spent the day with you," said their anxious neighbour, and he was obliged to go away! I confess I think I merited different treatment. I wish I could make out what you all mean "The fact is, Sir Edward," said Winnie, "that Major Percival was sent away. He is a very important person, no doubt; but he cannot do just as he pleases. My aunt is so good that she tries to keep up a little fiction, but he and I have done with each other," said Winnie in her excitement, notwithstanding that she had been up to this moment so reticent and self-contained. "Who sent him away?" asked Sir Edward,with a pitiful, confidential look to Aunt Agatha, and a slight shake of his head over the very bad business- - a little pantomime which moved Winnie to deeper wrath and discontent. "I sent him away," said Mrs. Percival, with as much dignity as this ebullition of passion would permit her to assume. "My dear Winnie," said Sir Edward, "I am very very sorry to hear this. Think a little of what is before you. You are a young woman still; you are both young people. Do you mean to live here all the rest of your life, and let him go where he pleases- to destruction, I suppose, if he likes? Is that what you mean? And yet we all remember when you would not hear a word even of advice would not listen to anybody about him. He had not been quite sans reproche when you married him, my dear; and you took him with a knowledge of it. If that had not been the case, there might have been some excuse. But what I want you to do, is to look it in the face, and consider a little. It is not only Winnie gave a momentary shudder, as if of cold, and drew her shawl closer round her. "I had rather not discuss our private affairs," she replied: "they are between ourselves." "But the fact is, they are not between yourselves," said Sir Edward, who was inspired by the great conviction of doing his duty. "You have taken the public into your confidence by coming here. I am a very old friend, both of yours and his, and I might do some good, if you let me try. I daresay he is not very far from here; and if I might mediate between you A sudden gleam shot out of Winnie's eyes- perhaps it was a sudden wild hope perhaps it was merely the flash of indignation; but still the proposal moved her. "Mediate!" she said, with an air which was intended for scorn; but her lips quivered as she repeated the word. "Yes," said Sir Edward, "I might, if you would have confidence in me. No doubt there are wrongs on both sides. He has been impatient, and you have been exacting, and Where are you going?" "It is no use continuing this conversation," said Winnie. "I am going to my room. If I were to have more confidence in you than I ever had in any one, it would still be useless. I have not been exacting. I have been- But it is no matter. trust, Aunt Agatha, that you will forgive me for going to my own room." I Sir Edward shook his head, and looked after her as she withdrew. He looked as if he had said, "I knew how it would be;" and yet he was concerned and sorry. "I have seen such cases before," he said, when Winnie had left the room, turning to Aunt Agatha and Mary, and once more shaking his head: "neither will give in an inch. They know that they are in a miserable condition, but it is neither his fault nor hers. That is how it always is. And only the bystanders can see what faults there are on both sides." "But I don't think Winnie is so exacting," said Aunt Agatha, with natural partizanship. "I think it is worse than that. She has been telling me two or three things". 66 Oh, yes," said Sir Edward, with mild despair, "they can tell you dozens of things. No doubt he could, on his side. It is always like that; and to think that nothing would have any effect on her!-she would hear no sort of reason though you know very well you were warned that he was not immaculate before she married him : | keepers, looking after the young pheasants nothing would have any effect." But what could he want going into Carlisle. Is Percival there?" "Oh, Sir Edward!" cried Aunt Agatha, with tears in her eyes; "it is surely not the moment to remind us of that." "For my part, I think it is just the moment," said Sir Edward; and he shook his head, and made a melancholy pause. Then, with an obvious effort to change the subject, he looked round the room, as if that personage might, perhaps, be hidden in some corner, and asked where was Hugh? "He has gone to show Nelly Askell the way to the Lady's Well," said Mary, who could not repress a smile. "Ah! he seems disposed to show Nelly Askell the way to a great many things," said Sir Edward. "There it is again, you see! Not that I have a word to say against that little thing. She is very nice, and pretty enough; though no more to be compared to what Winnie was at her age But you'll see Hugh will have engaged himself and forestalled his life before we know where we are." "I hope not," said Mary, with sudden anxiety. It was an idea which had not entered into her mind before. "Why should you hope not? If he really wants to make peace with Winnie, I should think it very natural," said Sir Edward; "and Will is a curious sort of boy. He might be a very good sort of auxiliary in any negotiation. Depend upon it, that's why he is gone." "I think not. I think he would have told me," said Mary, feeling her heart sink with a sudden dread. "I don't see why he should have told you," said Sir Edward, who was in one of his troublesome moods, and disposed to put everybody at sixes and sevens. "He is old enough to act a little for himself. I hope you are not one of the foolish women, Mary, that like to keep their boys always at their apron-strings? With this reproach Sir Edward took his "It would have been better had they leave, and made his way placidly homebeen a little older," said Mary; "but other-ward, with the tranquillity of a man who wise everything is very suitable; and Nelly has done his duty. He felt that he had disis very good, and very sweet charged the great vocation of man, at least Again Sir Edward sighed. "You must for the past hour. Winnie had heard the know that Hugh might have done a very truth, whether she liked it or not, and so great deal better," he said. "I don't say had the other members of the family, over that I have any particular objections, but whom he shook his head kindly but sadly as only it is an instance of your insanity in he went home. Their impetuosity, their the way of marriage-all you Setons. aptitude to rush into any scrape that preYou go and plunge into it head foremost, sented itself- and especially their madness without a moment's reflection; and then, of in respect to marriage, filled him with pity. course, when leisure comes I don't mean There was Charlie Seton, for example, the you, Mary. What I was saying had no father of these girls, who had married that reference to you. So far as I am aware, man Penrose's sister. Sir Edward's memyou were always very happy, and gave your ory was so long, that it did not seem to him friends no trouble. Though in one way, of a very great stretch to go back to that. course, it ought to be considered that you Not that the young woman was amiss in did the worst of all." herself, but the man who, with his eyes open, burdened his unborn descendants with such an uncle, was worse than lunatic — he was criminal. This was what Sir Edward thought as he went quietly home, with a rather comfortable dreary sense of satisfaction in his heart in the thought that his own behaviour had been marked by no such aberrations; and, in the meantime, Winnie was fanning the embers of her own wrath, and Mary had sickened somehow with a sense of insecurity and unexplainable apprehension. On the other hand, the two young creatures were very happy on the road to the Lady's Well, and Will addressed himself to his strange business with resolution: and, painful as its character was, was not pained "Captain Askell's family is very good," said Mary, by way of turning off too close an inquiry into her own affairs; " and he is just in the same position as Hugh's father was; and I love Nelly like a child of my own. I feel as if she ought to have been a child of my own. She and Will used to lie in the same cradle "Ah, by the way," said Sir Edward, looking round once more into the corners, "where is Will?" And then it had to be explained where Will had gone, which the old man thought very curious. "To Carlisle? What did he want to go to Carlisle for? If he had been out with his fishing-rod, or out with the |