the great tunnel-like vent, with a column of sparks.

Oliver Lennox of Lonewoodlee looked much older than his years warranted, for his wasted figure, clad in a well-worn Indian dressing-gown, or robe-de-chambre of the shawl pattern, tied by a cord and tattered tassel, was bent severely, and his face was furrowed by disease and the emotions of the mind, rather than time, for he was not more, perhaps, than fifty-five years of age.

His right elbow rested on the arm of his chair; his chin was placed in the hollow of his hand, and his keen, restless, yet clear blue eyes were fixed dreamily on the ruddy flame that lighted up his sharp aquiline features, and turned to threads of glittering silver his thin white hair that had once been a rich dark brown.

Seated on a tabouret or little stool by his side, was his daughter Mary, a girl not quite of twenty years; perhaps the only true friend whom many reverses of fortune left him; his sole attendant, save a couple of female domestics; others seldom remained long at the Tower, as a querulous master and a gloomy house, which had moreover the steady reputation of being haunted, rendered service unattractive at Lonewoodlee.

Mary knew he was dying of some internal and mysterious disease with which the doctors had totally failed to grapple-that, in spite of her

affection and their skill, of her prayers and their potions, he was slowly and surely passing away from her; and she left nothing unsaid or undone to soothe, by sweet devotedness, what she knew to be too probably the few months of his last year on earth.

He had survived the winter, but might never live to see the summer ripen into autumn, and the golden corn waving on the upland slopes that were his own no more.

To God and herself alone were known the terrible thoughts of Mary Lennox in the long, sleepless hours of the weary nights she passed; yet unswerving in her filial duty, tenderly nursing and ministering as only a woman-only a daughter or wife-can nurse or minister to the wants of a querulous patient; springing from her pillow with cheerful and affectionate alacrity, to anticipate his every wish, and smiling to hide the sorrow that preyed upon her own heart.

Pale and sad usually, her face was beautiful; yet sadness had not been its normal expression, but rather the result of local influence. Her features were not quite regular, but there was a divine delicacy about them; her finely lidded eyes were of that blue-grey which is aptly termed violet colour, and her mouth and chin were beautifully formed, so were her tiny ears and hands. Her whole figure, which was petite rather, and the contour of her head, with its

masses of rich brown hair, were eminently ladylike and indicative of high breeding and tender culture; and a charming picture she would have formed, as she sat then, with her father's passive left hand locked caressingly in hers, and her soft little face upturned to his, every feature teeming with affectionate solicitude.

Her dress was plain, inexpensive, and simple, for their means could not afford her many luxuries; but her starched cuffs and collarmade and dressed by her own hands—and the tiny velvet riband around her slender white neck, made it quite a pretty toilette, while, save an old ring or two that had been her mother's, she was destitute of ornament; and there the father and daughter sat long in silence, while the blustering March wind soughed in the old wood without, and the flood of red and wavering light from the capacious fireplace fell upon their faces, and fitfully too upon the portraits of those ancestors, who, if their exchequer had been as low as that of Oliver Lennox, would have chosen just such a moonless night for a quiet ride among the beeves on the southern side of the Border.

Oliver Lennox had once been a man of considerable influence in the Merse, and had even contrived to shine, for a short season, in London society. But deep play, some unlucky bets at Newmarket, one or two vexed law pleas with

Sir John Wedderburn, in which he had been nonsuited with great loss, domestic cares of many kinds, particularly the deaths of his wife and several children, all combined to break him down in health and spirit.

Much of his land had gone, piecemeal, to satisfy the creditors his London career had raised around him, and now the little that remained of Lonewoodlee was mortgaged to the utmost; and having but a bare annuity, he knew too surely that when he died there would be neither home nor shelter for his Mary.

He was a proud, fiery, and irritable man, who would brook neither the pity of his friends nor the scorn of his enemies; and the knowledge that his only child-his gentle and delicate daughter-would be left to the mercy of the world, or to support herself by the accomplishments she possessed, maddened him, so that there were times when his mind wandered, and then it was that the soul of Mary Lennox seemed to die within her with sorrow and terror!

"Shall I play to you, dear papa?" said she softly.

There was a wonderful chord in Mary's voice that made it very seductive, but she had to repeat the offer three times before the sense of it fell upon his drowsy ear.

CHAPTER V.

MARY LENNOX.

"SHALL I play to you, dear papa?" she repeated for the third time.

"No, Mary, no," said he, peevishly. "Your piano, child, is in that shabby chintz-covered den you call a drawing-room.'

دو

"Oh, papa; what served poor mamma may very well do for me."

"And I fear we can't afford a fire there as well as here."

"But if I keep the doors open you could The cold is not great to-night," she

hear me.

urged.

"No-no, child, thank you; but I wish to think."

"To-morrow, papa, I shall have my poor old piano brought here, and then I shall play to you some of the airs you love so well."

"Pet Mary-but music makes me sad." "But it soothes you too, papa."

"Your voice, my darling, would soothe any