a living spirit, I will come and tell thee where he is. For he must let the world know he is alive."

"What has the world to do with Lancelot's life or death?"

"If Lancelot were dead, Sally Wood of Wood Hall, eldest daughter of my husband's eldest sister, is the next heir. And what does ta think? Joshua Newby is courting her. Newby says he is bound to hev Leigh, either by wedding or deading, if gold willn't do it; and I hev told him, he niver shall hev the right to enter Leigh. But does ta see what the scoundrel is after? His son will wed Sally Wood, and then he will buy the right from Sally, and come in here, and spread himsen before the living and the dead, as master of Leigh. I could not bide that, neither for the love of heaven nor the fear of hell. I would come back and slay him, someway. I would! I would! So thou must keep

Lancelot in the land of the living.

Thou understands?"

"Yes, mother."

That is thy part.

"If any one says, 'Lancelot is dead,' threep them down as liars. Leigh House must stand empty till a Leigh comes to dwell in it. It niver hes gone in the female line, and it niver shall."

The subject excited her very much, and Francesca tried to pass it over, and talk of Martha's own condition.

"You ought, for Lancelot's sake," she said, "to live, and so take care of yourself. If Lancelot could see you and his home now, how distressed he would be!"

"Thorpe says I hevn't long to live. If I wanted to

live, I shouldn't die; but I don't want to live. I can do a deal more for Leigh out of the body than in it.” "Should you not have more warmth, more comforts, a servant to wait upon you?"

"I live as I want to live. I hev plenty of money. I need not grudge mysen any comfort-and I don't. But heat or cold, comfort or discomfort, when you are companying with death and racked with pain-what does it signify? Nothing at all." She was silent a little, and then she asked suddenly:

"Thou means to marry Lancelot when he comes back?"

"Yes. I mean to marry no one else."

"I will be glad to think of thee here. I like thee now. I wish I hed always liked thee; things might hev been a good bit different. Come here as often as ta can, when ta is married to Lancelot. I shall know it, I'm sure, and I will give thee a blessing."

So they talked until it was near two o'clock. Then Francesca bid her "Good-bye." She did not wish to make Clara's conciliation harder than need be, and she walked in the avenue until she heard the Atherton carriage approaching. It stopped at the gates of Leigh House, and Clara met her with that effusiveness of welcome which indicated a prior dispute. The squire was undoubtedly angry, but he folded the carriage. wraps tenderly round his daughter, and felt a painful sense of heartache when he saw how wan and sorrowful she looked.

"How is Mrs. Leigh?"

It took him a few moments to compel himself to this courteous inquiry, but the kindness done, he felt its

influence; and when Francesca answered, "She is dying, alone, without a friend, and careless of all help or comfort," he felt honestly sorry.

"She is a very proud, sensitive woman," he said. "She was very rude to me once, but she did not know. It was the day of the funeral. I thought her slightly— off her judgment. God pity her!"

And even while the kindly prayer was uttering, Martha, half-unconsciously, was making for herself the same petition:

"God pity me! I meant to do right! God pity me if I hev done sinfully!"

For her punishment had become almost unbearable. The silence of her son was a cruel sorrow, but if the law should construe this silence as death, and suffer the next heir even a partial or limited possession, how could she bear it? She did not like her niece Sally; she hated young Newby. Sometimes she felt she could live in perpetual agony, only to live and keep Leigh House until her son came home to claim it. doubt invaded even this resignation. live in it if he came back? right would keep others out. Francesca understood and would carry out her desires.

Then a miserable

Would Lancelot Perhaps not. Still, his And she had a hope that

But what miseries sat in the lonely house with the lonely woman. She fought them with all her power; but intolerable pains and intolerable despairs filled her with mortal and immortal suffering. The house permeated with such influences took on, as a countenance would, an expression of being haunted. An unhappy atmosphere was reflected from it, and at night its one feeble light in an upper room thrilled every heart that

looked toward the forlorn dwelling with pity and with terror. What Martha Leigh was doing there and what she was enduring, no one knew. She made no complaint, and asked for no human help. In moments of intolerable anguish it was God she to God only she cried: "Pity me! member that I am but dust!"

spoke to.

It was

Pity me! Re

A

CHAPTER XIII.

MARTHA LEIGH ATTAINS UNTO PEACE.

A Soul...

Joying to find herself alive,

Lord over nature, Lord of the visible earth,
Lord of the senses five.-Tennyson.

We hurry to the river we must cross,

And swifter downward every footstep wends;
Happy, who reach it ere they count the loss

Of half their faculties and half their friends.-Landor.

LIFE filled with duty may be a very noble life, but

the heart craves some tender resting-places built by love, and wanting them, duty is very like a day of sunshine, or an orchard without singing birds. It was these little resting-places built by love and sympathy that made life endurable to Francesca during the following weeks. Her hopeful conversations with Clara -the tears she could shed in her company-the letters sent here and there for information-the things supplied topics of conversation that touched Lancelot, and made tangible sources of comfort and compassionate interchange of feeling, and thus enabled the unhappy girl to bear the long recurring days that brought her yet no tidings of her lover.

They were not days, however, devoid of interest in other directions. Clara was moving them in many respects to wise and kindly ends; for, from her first com