standing there beside me in that stately, regal manhood of his, with that princely pride of port and gesture, I could yet find that in him which for me would always be most tender and true; that, facing the world, as he did often, with a cold, stern, Alpine ridge of snow, there would always for me be sunshiny rifts, warm and pleasant, where the beautiful home flowers of love and peace would grow; and where, how rugged soever for passing travellers they might seem, I should always find shelter and rest. Philip, my king, my only one!

It was very, very still, so still that when the ten o'clock railway whistle sounded clear and long upon the Marbrook line, it made us start as if from some dream. Poor Maud! how often she had to hear that sound which had once told of his coming, but could now never speak to her of anything but heavy, life-long sadness. Her hand that I held in mine shook a little, just a very little; but when I turned and looked at her face, as I could see it in that dim uncertain twilight, there was still the same great calm upon her forehead, and the same warm flush

upon her cheek, and a glorious hopefulness in her eyes; as if the soul within, overpassing all that lay before her of sorrow and waiting and longing, had rested on that future of perfect love, that other, and blessed, and far-off land, from which the former things have passed away.

And then I remembered, what through these hours of quick upspringing joy, I had too selfishly forgotten

This was to have been Maud's wedding-day.

CHAPTER VII.

IT was the time of the Marbrook October

races.

People always noticed that Miss Nunly was quieter than usual at such times as these, and seemed to have a weight upon her mind until they were over; as indeed most thinking people have, though not from the same cause perhaps. And when, as night drew on, and the crowded course disgorged its hundreds of populace into the quiet little streets, filling them with low revelry and drunken merriment-there came a look of great sadness and anxiety upon her face, and she would often remain for hours in her own room; some thought, to pray for the multitudes who were thus running to do evil; others, for those poor weary wives and mothers who had no heart to pray for themselves.

Marbrook was passing gay to-night, for the great race ball was being held, to which the rank and beauty of the whole county came, resplendent in plumes and diamonds, together with a shoal of lesser lights, younger sons of the aristocracy, and stiff old spinsters who lived very upright on their family pride and a small annuity. Carriages were flashing hither and thither along the streets, carriages of all shapes and pretensions; from the Duke of Chartermayne's crested equipage, into which had any one looked with sufficient impertinence, he might have caught a glimpse of ancestral jewels glittering in the lamplight, and a warm glow of crimson opera cloaks down to the ancient black-hooded vehicle which conveyed the two Misses Farbelook, in sober coloured array, to this their annual episode of gaiety. For these most unexceptionable virgins, though daughters of the late esteemed Rector, and though having promised at an early period of their lives, in common with most other ballgoers, to renounce the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, were by no means averse to a spice of mundane vanity; and did not consider their

weekly ministrations in the tract district, No. 10 Braeton parish, in any way hindered' by a few preparatory quadrilles. Sir Everard Albyn, Lord of the Manor of Braeton, was there too, with his three fair daughters, floating masses of white drapery, picked out with jasmine and blush roses from the head milliner. And Mr. Euston Kaye talked pretty sentiment in the intervals of waltzes and polkas, or looked his sweetest smiles over glasses of strawberry cream in the supper-room. And old dowagers, with hearts as flinty as the diamonds which sparkled in their false ringlets, paraded magnificently up and down, keeping a sharp look-out over the prospects of marriageable daughters. And beautiful young mothers were there, dancing away beneath gaslight and artificial flowers, while at home their innocent children pined and wearied in the care of hirelings. And proud women stepped queen-like through quadrilles, and smoothed the care-marks from their high marble foreheads, and wreathed their rosy lips into stateliest smiles; wondering all the while what luck their husbands were having at the gaming-table, or whether the bet then