ven o'clock, and on it came the York nursetender and her husband, who was a stalwart young gardener; and Grace felt that her dreary vigils were over. The old groom also said that her father had arrived the previous night, and was now in his bed at the Vicarage. As Grace passed down the staircase, she saw the idiot boy lounging lazily at the door of the cloisters; and stopping, she said, "James, what were you doing in the corridor and hall last night, and what had you in the bag on your shoulder?" The face of the boy expressed amaze, cunning, fear, and folly, all grouped together, like quarterings on a scutcheon. "I was a-feeding the house-rats, Miss. I gets out of my bed to meet them and feed them. I feeds them twice a-week, when the moon is full, for then I cannot sleep at all, except all day; so when night comes, I steals meat, and meal, and scraps from my grandaunt's room, to give the rats their supper; and they know me, and keep me company. They are the cloister rats, Miss-holy rats from the old abbey-walls; and so, Miss, when I fall asleep on the grass, they watch me, and will not allow the Black Angel to hurt me, or wicked old Friar Peter's ghost to bob at me with his big grey head, or to tramp poor silly James with his great flat, naked feet, when I am lying on the cloistergreen." The meeting between Grace and her father was fervent and affecting. He folded her in his arms, and said, "Dearest child, had I been at home, I could not have permitted you to go through so severe an ordeal, yet I bless God who has given you strength to meet it." Grace smiled, and then told her father her adventure with James Simpson, and how glad she was to have acquired an argument which would enable her, at all times, to disprove the silly ghost-story of the discalced phan tasm. Every day now Grace visited Miss Beaufoy, whose recovery was rapid. She who had so well nursed her body, now as faithfully ministered to her mind, which was naturally strong and highly educated, and was now greatly mollified and subdued by kindness, and ready to embrace anything which her dear young nurse might wish her to receive. Grace read to her the divine story of redemption from the heavenly volume; and commented on it with such simplicity, earnestness, and perspicuity, that Miss Beaufoy was first interested, then excited, and eventually absorbed in the subject; and a new and delightful dawning began to arise in her heart, accompanied with a sense of happiness to which she had long been a stranger, and which sensibly, though gradually, affected her whole tone of mind and temper. At other times, when Miss Beaufoy was dejected, Grace would go to the piano, and sing some of the wild melodies of her native land, with a voice at once so rich and thrilling, as would bring pleasant tears into Miss Beaufoy's eyes. Mr. O'Donel frequently now called as a minister and friend. The Pompadours had fled the country. They had evaporated in the yel low coach one fine morning on the wings of Febriphobia, perfectly horrified at the gipsy irruption, their camp, and their contagion, and taking with them the lowest possible estimate of the common sense of Grace O'Donel, whose conduct her ladyship was so far hurried into unwonted emotion as to pronounce "extremely improper." They were now seeking and finding repose for their wounded and lacerated minds in the listless dolce fur niente of a Leamington life. The gipsy wife was convalescent, and the Zingaree tribe had wandered elsewhere. One morning, during Miss Beaufoy's recovery, as the friends sat together, the old lady said— "Grace, no one can doubt your courage after so many proofs of your heroism, especially your nocturnal adventure with poor James and his cloister pets; but now let me see has my little friend sufficient prowess to take this key and unlock the door at the foot of the stairs which lead to the black wing.' I promise you that the rooms there are not haunted, save by the demon of dust, and, I suppose, a few ghostly cobwebs. In the second chamber you will find, in the old ebony cabinet, the box which contains the silver collar of Guy Martenbroke, which is really a curiosity, and which I have promised to show to your fa ther when he calls this morning. has told me that his family possess a relic as old, if not much older, than this; for I am well aware that your Irish He O'Donel blood is royal, and much nobler than what we poor Norman adventurers can boast or pretend to." Grace, smiling, took the key, and having opened the door, found herself in a square chamber, with small windows defended by iron bars, and looking out on what had been the Abbey garden. This apartment opened into a very spacious, though low-ceiled, room, with large windows, stoutly barred also, and a huge fire-place, with ancient dogs. On the walls were some half-dozen pictures of the Beaufoy family; and Grace, who loved deeds of chivalry, and was an admirer of Froissart's, recognised Sir Foulke Beaufoy, who fought side by side with Chandos and Clisson in Edward the Third's French wars. Here, too, was Henry Beaufoy, first and last Viscount Martenbroke, a royalist, who was knocked on the head by a crop-eared corporal in Oliver's regiment of Ironsides, in the rout at Naseby. This was the picture of a very handsome man, with a sallow, melancholy face, painted by Vandyke. Here, too, was Peter Beaufoy, a privy-councillor of Henry VIII., with a low forehead and a crafty eye a fine Holbein. Over the mantelpiece was Miss Beaufoy's grandfather, the Bishop of D——, looking as humble on the canvas as prelates usually look in common life. Grace knew all these pictures, and whom they represented, at once, from frequent descriptions of them by Miss Beaufoy. The collar was in an oak box, lined with tarnished blue velvet. Just as Grace had lifted the case, she saw, at the angle of the room, a door, which, painted like the rest of the wall, she had mistaken for a large panel. She advanced, and passing through it, found herself in a small bedroom and boudoir furnished in French fashion. Here were three large pictures. First in the catalogue was the late Mr. Beaufoy, in faultless clerical costume, with the snowy superciliousness of his surplice his bands falling like two correct cataracts of cambric over his cravat-his Ox. ford hood floating down his back, and his gentleman-commoner's cap in hand, looking decidedly handsome and aristocratic, yet with an expression in his face as if he were displeased with the artist for looking at him too familiarly as he painted him. The next picture exhibited Miss Beaufoy in her riding habit, her horse behind her, pawing the ground, a stately and handsome woman about thirty years of age. The third picture was standing on the floor, but, like a naughty boy, its face was turned to the wall. Grace took the trouble to reverse it, and, as the noonday light fell upon it, she saw it was the likeness of a very young and lovely girl of about seventeen, a Beaufoy, no doubt, from the likeness to the other pictures, but wanting their distinguishing trait of pride. Grace gave but one look, and hastily replacing the picture as it had been, she sped back with Sir Guy's collar in her hands. Too frank to conceal where she had been and what she had seen, she at once said "Dear Miss Beaufoy I have exceeded my commission, for I was not contented with forming a friendship with your ancestors in the large room, but, in an over-curious spirit, I penetrated into the little boudoir, saw your picture and your brother's, and had the audacity and, I fear, the bad taste, to turn the third picture, and looked upon some lovely Beaufoy, of whom I know nothing." During this speech Miss Beaufoy was much agitated. She covered her face with her hands, and appeared to be mastering some strong feeling. Apparently, she succeeded; for, withdrawing her hands, she addressed Grace in a calm voice "Six months ago, no one had dared to speak to me of that picture; but now I feel it to be a relief and comfort to my mind to tell you of her whom it represents, and only hope you will not hate me for the wicked pride and cruelty in which the narrative will portray me. The picture is that of my half-sister, Flora; she was the only daughter of my father's second wife. For fifteen years he mourned for my mother, and then married a Miss Hilary, who was an amiable and attractive person. She survived the birth of her child only a few days; and my father, broken by age and sorrow, outlived her but one short year, leaving Flora to the care and guardianship of my brother and me. We then lived in Cumberland, on a small property of my brother's; but afterwards, on his entering the ministry, we removed to London, and finally to the city of York, where Reginald had a living and church. I was then thirty years of age, and my picture faithfully tells what I was in appearance. The beauty has past away, and I ardently pray that the pride may also depart; for it tortured that poor young sister, then only seventeen, and engendered passions and produced actions, the remembrance of which now covers me with shame and remorse. - not "A regiment of the King's Horse Guards were then quartered in York, and a gentleman who had a troop in the corps, and was a cousin of my mother's, came often to visit us. He was about forty-five years of age. young, indeed, but a fine, soldierlylooking man, and the only son and heir of an old Scotch Earl. As we were near relatives, we soon became intimate, and passed much happy time together, walking on the ramparts of the ancient city, or making excursions to Studely or Knaresborough on horseback. Lord St. Hilda was much to my taste; he was high and reserved in his manners, but a man of the strictest conduct, and a splendid cavalry officer, He was fond of music, and we sung together: each day found him at our house, and though, as yet, he had made no formal declaration to me, yet his manner could not be mistaken; and it was the common topic of the York coteries that I was engaged to my cousin. "Just then Flora, who had been in Wales with a delicate aunt, returned home and certainly a more lovely young creature you could scarcely see anywhere. Her manner, too, was charming, simple, easy, affectionatewith a good sense pervading her whole bearing and converse. Like you, too, dear Grace, she was unaffectedly pious, which I did not then understand; and in a short time I perceived my noble admirer was utterly captivated by her. To do her justice, she never encouraged him; nay, when he offered her his hand and coronet, she refused him, on the simple plea of the difference of their ages, and her affections being still her own; but her rejection, though gentle, was decided; and next day he quitted our house for ever, in a trans of wounded pride and affection. I am sure the former passion was much stronger than the latter; though, when men love in the meridian of their life, the feeling is of a more absorbing, as it is of a more exacting and jealous nature than more youthful fancies. "Thus I lost my lover-my own kinsman, too-and my almost certainty of a countess's coronet. My love, my pride, my ambition-all crushed out by the cruel contretemps of a childsister coming home a few days too soon. I confess I hated her for it, and poured reproaches on her, accusing her of having acted deceitfully, and done this thing of design; for, dear Grace, the actings out of pride are amongst the meanest things our nature is capable of. "These charges, which I knew were untrue, Flora responded to meekly, but firmly; and for five years, during which she lived with us, I continued to treat her with harshness and want of affection. My brother did not know of this domestic persecution; he was wrapped up in antiquities and ecclesiology, and was writing a Treatise on the Minster.' Had he seen it, he would not have suffered it; for, with many faults, poor Reginald was a gentleman. And Flora never told him; but I have reason to believe she was not so silent to her mother's family, for, at the age of twenty-one, her uncle, Sir John Hilary, came to claim her, and his manner was very distant and reproachful to me. Her fortune was then to be made over to her, and she was to live in Wales. She took leave of my brother with tears; and then coming to my room, she said Dear sister, I have ever loved you, and do so still. I forgive you all your unkindness, which God he knows I never deserved. Now, kiss me, and let us part friends.' But, God forgive me, I turned away, and cried No, never; you have ruined me, and poisoned my life. I never will forgive you. [Miss Beaufoy here paused, and went on, with a broken voice]She went to live with the Hilarys, and shortly afterwards married well, with a young gentleman of some property, a Mr. Mostyn; but, unfortunately, a relative bequeathed him, the year after their union, a district of leadmines, to work which he dipt his estate, and lost all he had by the mines proving a failure, and then he and his wife retired to the Continent. I think they had a daughter; but I cared not to inquire for them-the bad and wicked feeling remaining with me year after year, and so intense at times, that I turned her picture to the wall as you found it, for I could not bear to look upon it; and, as if I was not, or had not been, wicked enough, another wretched passion sprung up, as age came on for our vices, dear Miss O'Donel, like flowers, have their seasons; and what suits the springtime of life, will scarcely bud or bear fruit in the more advanced autumn of our days; and thus many obtain credit for parting with wrong habits, when it is the sin which leaves them. My new passion was avarice-a vice which had been taught me by poor Reginald. People thought me poor, and I was glad of it, for the plea of poverty screened and excused the viler habit. I am not poor-I am wealthy. I live in this old chateau because it is my humour, and on a tenth of my available income; and I have saved enough of money for the last thirty years in the old Bank at York, as would build me, at my death, a monument in the Minster, equal, for price, to that of King Mausolus. I intended leaving all this money to a young relative of my mother's, whom I never saw. He is an officer of hussars, and I conditioned that he was to assume our name and coat of arms, for, alas! we Beaufoys are a few and a failing race; but since this illness I have made other testamentary dispositions, more congenial to new feelings, and to my sense of what is right. "And now, my dear, that I have confessed my sins unto you, we will look at Sir Guy's collar; and when I am strong enough, we will make a pilgrimage together to the Dark Wing,' and turn poor Flora's beautiful face once more to the sun's gaze; nay more, to show you how entirely I hate myself for past haughtiness, and how changed I am, I will hang the fair creature up in this very room, and will begin to love her now as much as I formerly used to dislike her." From that day forward, Miss Beaufoy's health rapidly amended. Much of her moral dross appeared to have been consumed by the fire of her fever; and her attachment to her fair young nurse seemed to have opened a new existence to her. Her pride gradually lost all its offence, and was now nothing more than simple dignity; her acrimony had softened down to perception of character; and her penuriousness had all melted, like a bank of ice, and was flowing round her in a hundred kindly channels of beneficence to her poorer neighbours, and a bright and sunny evening seemed to have set in to gild and to gladden the decline of her chequered life. About this time Mr. O'Donel happened to have some business with one of his churchwardens, who was a respectable village lawyer. And when sitting together in the Vicarage study, the good man was speaking of Miss Beaufoy's illness; and after eulogising Grace's conduct, which he declared to have been as heroic as any deed of fame in ancient story, he added, "I am Miss Beaufoy s legal adviser; and though she has bound me up to silence as regards the details of her new will, yet I may say so far, that when somebody dies, a person whom we all love and admire will turn out to be a great heiress." Mr. O'Donel coloured up painfully at this intelligence; and when the good but gossipy lawyer had taken his departure, the father sought his daughter, and told her all he had heard. Grace was beyond measure distressed at the tidings, for, from various little phrases which Miss Beaufoy had let fall of late, she felt certain it was substantially true. Her simple and upright mind could now see but the one path of action, and that was the straightforward way; and in all her views on the matter her father, who was one with her in feeling, cordially agreed. She instantly rode over to Darkbrothers, where she found the old lady superintending the re-creation of a garden, and putting down violetroots in the rich loam, where formerly abbots walked and mused, and monks delved, her hands being protected by a pair of gauntlet gloves, so thick and long that they might have been worn by old Sir Guy himself, when he was knocking the Saracens about. Grace asked her to walk with her towards the house, and at once entered upon the subject, which she treated with great delicacy and tact, but with perfect candour. At first Miss Beaufoy was more amused than offended. She acknowledged that it was quite true, and that she had left all her property, to the amount of £40,000, to Grace alone. "Surely you must permit me to be grateful. There is no one on earth so justly dear to me as you. I owe you my life-nay, more than life; and I have positive happiness in making you my heir." "And I," said Grace, "shall be perfectly miserable in being so. I want it not; I wish not for it; and my father is, I assure you, as much distressed as I am at the idea. Dearest Miss Beaufoy, if you so love me, give me simply your heart; reserve your wealth for those who need it. Do not disinherit the young gentleman you told me of; or rather, seek out your sister's family -surely they are to be found. and think of the happiness of seeing them, receiving them here, perhaps enriching them, if they should prove to be poor. And," continued Grace, in a lower tone, "Oh, think of the blessedness of making reparation for what you have so often lamented over. I beseech you, cancel, destroy this unjust will. I never will be, or could be, your heir. As long as God spares you, I am rich in the many pleasant hours I pass with you; and when I shall lose you, I shall need nothing to remind me of my dear Miss Beaufoy, for the thought of her will be sweet in my memory as long as life shall last." Grace spoke this with flushing cheek, and her eyes full of tears, and with the tones of her most musical voice all tremulous with emotion. The old lady was greatly affected, and kissed her, weeping. "Ah, dear child, how are you so noble, so unselfish, and so generous! Ah! would that I were like you. However, all must be done as you please; and since you will not consent to be mistress of my fortune when I die, you shall be mistress of my actions while I live-as indeed you have been the little queen of my heart for many a day. Rely on the honour of Jane Beaufoy, the will shall be burnt before the sun sets, and my agent in York shall have the amplest commission to advertise in all the English journals for the widow or heirs, if any, of Owen Mostyn, Esq., late of Llandwyllyn Hall, Flintshire. And now, Grace, come in and rest on my sofafor I never saw you look so tired or so distressed, while I am performing the auto-da-fe on the parchment body of the wicked will-an adjudged heretic, at all events, in your eyes; and then I shall order my horse, and ride with you back to the Vicarage, and we will think and talk no more on this subject." In about a year after this, Mr. O'Donel's health having been a good deal tried, he consulted a London physician, who ordered him travel and a two months' holiday. On this he determined to pass into Ire. land, and visit some property he had there, which extended along the wild and rocky coast of Donegal, and where he had not been for several years. Grace was to accompany him. Crossing the Channel, they travelled in a light carriage of Mr. O'Donel's, with post-horses, taking their time, and seeing the country. The father and daughter were greatly attached — Grace loving him as a superior being, and the deep affliction he sustained in the loss of her mother throwing round him a loving interest ever in her eyes; and he having the truest perception and admiration of the simple, noble, and resolute character of the young girl, while her beauty and her youth delighted him. Their tastes, too, were similar. They both loved books, pictures, music, and wild scenery; and on matters connected with the invisible world which is around us, or the better, brighter world which is above us, their thoughts and aspirations all travelled in the one path. Their journey was, therefore, delight ful; and before a week had elapsed, Mr. O'Donel's health was almost reestablished. It was late in the evening when they reached a small sea-side village in Donegal; and on driving to the inn, they ascertained that every room was engaged, in consequence of a great wool-fair having been held there on that day. In this dilemma, the landlady, who knew who Mr. O'Donel was, and who was struck with the charm and sweetness which ever hung around Grace, despatched a message to a lady who lived near the town; and an answer came back at once, saying how happy Mrs. Ashley would be to accommodate Mr. and Miss O'Donel for the night. house was on the cliff, a few perches from the town. It was small, but airy, and exquisitely bright and neat. Mrs. Ashley they saw but for a moment after they had had their supper. They were both travel-dulled and sleepy, and eagerly embraced their hostess' offer to retire to their rooms, where in a short time father and daughter were locked in soundest slumber. The The early sun darting through the snow-white drapery of her bed, caused |