evening, she was always thoroughly exhausted, and obliged, though she fought hard against it, to give way to fatigue, and collapse on an arm-chair. All this might have been merely the excitement natural to her very new mode of life; but I saw, with uneasiness, that she was evidently not well. In spite of her long walks, her appetite flagged, her attitudes became languid, her step lost its spring; and remembering her childhood, I began to feel as if, in some mysterious way, Athelstanes was destined to be fatal to her.

About this time our few neighbours began to call, and invitations to arrive, chiefly to stately dinners, or sometimes to dine and sleep-entertainments, to me, of the deadly-lively order, but which were apparently to Lelgarde's taste, for she always accepted them, and was invariably brighter for some days afterwards, especially when we had spent a day or two from home.

One evening, as I was crossing the hall on my way to dress, I came full on Lelgarde, emerging from the door of what we still called "poor Miss Hilda's room." She gave a start, like a guilty thing, and shrank into the dark doorway. I stopped short, and began to give her a good scolding.

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Lelgarde, you are really very silly to be always haunting that cold dreary room. If you fancy it as a living-room, why not order them to light a fire there, and let us sit there altogether?"

"No, I thank you," she answered. "And as to being cold, feel." She put her hand in mine; it was hot and feverish, and the light from the hall-lamp showed that her face was flushed, and her eyes unnaturally brilliant.

"Do you think I am in much danger of catching cold?" she asked, with a nervous laugh, which sounded as if it might quiver off into a cry. I was really frightened.

"Child, what is it?" I asked, going with her into her bedroom; "is anything vexing you? Are you fretting?"

I stopped short; the idea of Harry Goldie occurred to me.

"Fretting? What should fret me ?" she answered, pettishly. "Come, it is high time to be dressing." And she rang for her maid, evidently glad to be quit of me and my questionings.

We were going to dine at the rectory. Our rector and his wife were pleasant people, and kind neighbours, and we were always

glad to go there. To-night the party consisted only of ourselves and the rector's brother, a barrister, now attending the assizes, which were going on in the nearest town. He was a little, black-looking man, with sharp eyes, and a quick manner, and a certain air of being condescendingly amused at everything, and knowing all about it, which I have often remarked since in those of his profession. I saw his quick glance run over Lelgarde with keen appreciation-admiration is scarcely the word-and he took an early opportunity of seating himself by her side. Certainly she appeared to singular advantage, the flush on her cheek and the feverish light in her eyes supplying all that her face was sometimes wanting in. Her graceful halfmourning became her well, and the one or two pearl ornaments which she wore were like herself, I thought, so pure, and fair, and delicate. Her ease in society was always a marvel to me, considering how she had been brought up. She was entirely what she should have been, retiring, quiet, but perfectly unembarrassed. No wonder Mr. Seymour Kennedy's quick eye marked her down at once.

He and his brother came into the draw. ing-room after dinner, eagerly talking over a case which had been pronounced the case of the assizes; its chief feature being the discovery of a will after it had been lost for many years.

"The attempt to prove it a forgery broke down utterly,' down utterly," said Mr. Seymour Kennedy; "and rightly, for it was undoubtedly genuine, but the story of the discovery was so strange that it gave fair ground for the trial."

"A curious case of sudden recollection, was it not ?"

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Quite so. The old man's adopted son, the present possessor in fact, after having acquiesced in the estate going to the heirat-law, the will being missing, one day, on chancing to be shown into a different dressing-room from usual to wash his hands, suddenly remembered having seen his father, as he had always called him, put away the will, calling his attention to the fact, in the drawer of an old bureau, which had stood neglected in the corner for years and years. The young man was six years old when the will was placed there. He is nearly thirty now."

"Memory plays us strange tricks, I know, sometimes," said the rector. "Witness Walter Scott's story which he cooks up in the Antiquary."

"And I once met with another case,' said his brother, addressing Lelgarde all the time, where a will was discovered in an almost similar way; but then the finder believed himself to have received a visitation from his late father, who revealed the hiding-place to him in a dream. Evidently the force of memory working unconsciously on the sleeping brain."

Mr.

"Do you think so?" Lelgarde began; her voice was hoarse and died away. Seymour Kennedy turned towards her, and, in the courteous, lowered tone he always assumed in addressing women: "You were speaking," he said. She gathered voice and went on : "In this last case there was an apparition—a spiritual visitation. Do you put that down as a mere trick of memory ?"

"I see you resent the slur upon the ghosts," he answered, playfully. "Is it unfair to ask if you believe in them ?"

She hesitated, and her glowing cheek grew quite pale. We all looked at her in surprise, she seemed to take the subject so unnecessarily to heart. Suddenly she looked full up in his face, and spoke quickly and eagerly:

"No, I do not. I will not believe in them. Such utter disbelief as yours is catching, I think. It is pleasant to feel sure that some natural, every-day reason can be found for everything. You think that is so, do you not ?"

I could see that he was flattered by her appeal to his judgment.

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If you were in the habit of sifting evidence, you would come to that same conclusion, I am sure," he said, gently; nerves-optical delusion."

"Oh! but that is worse," Lelgarde said, "to think that the-the terror is part of ourselves, in our own brain. Is not the thought unbearable ?"

"Only that science can remedy it," he answered, in a tone rather in contrast to her excited cadences; "no need to break one's heart over a ghost, if you hold, as I do, that quinine or camomile tea has the power of laying it."

"Is Athelstanes haunted, Miss Atheling?" asked Mrs. Kennedy, striking in, indiscreetly, as I thought. "It looks as if it ought to be."

"If it is," I said, brusquely, I am afraid, for the subject was one I hated to hear Lelgarde engaged on, "we will hope the ghosts will keep to themselves; in such a large house, it is a shame if they cannot be peaceable."

'Just so, but with a certain air as if he were saying, 'Don't mind being a fool, because I prefer you so.' He plays with his subject, and will never meet a woman on equal ground-no, I do not appreciate Mr. Seymour Kennedy."

"He is strong and clear-headed, and pleasant to listen to, though," said my sister with a sigh, and I looked at her closely.

"You look better, my pet," was the result of my study. Indeed, her cheek looked rounder, her eyes had their own soft brightness, she was eating a comfortable breakfast, and pouring out the tea with a steady hand, good symptoms, all of which I had missed of late.

"Oh, yes," she responded, cheerily, I have had such a good night."

"Do you ever have bad ones?" I asked, struck by the implied admission.

"If I do," she answered, gaily, “I suppose it is for want of the quinine or the camomile tea, which are to put every thing to rights for us," and, carolling like a bird, she sprang up from the table, and put her arm through mine for our daily visit to the poultry-yard. One of Miss Etheldreda's few human weaknesses had been for fowls, and Lelgarde was inclined to follow in her footsteps, so that a long after-breakfast lounge to see them fed had become an institution. When the barley was all devoured, we turned homewards, and Lelgarde, suddenly remembering that she wished to speak to Mrs. Bracebridge, turned to the back door, the nearest way to her room. Angry voices sounded from the passage, and in the dread of plunging into a domestic row, which I suppose all wise mistresses share, Lelgarde stopped short in the porch, with a look at me, half ludicrous, half dismayed.

"I desire that not another word may be said on the subject in this house," said Mrs. Bracebridge's voice in solemn indignation;

a pack of nonsense, or a heap of lies, Betsy Jane; I give you your choice which name you like to call 'em by."

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And what was Ellen doing out of her room at that time of night ?" retorted the dame. "Been down to fetch her prayerbook, had she? A likely story. And much good her prayer-book is to her, or to you either, if it don't teach you better than to give the house a bad name in this way." "I never give the house a bad name, ma'am." Another sniff. "But if I was to die for it, we did see a white figure walking up the stairs along the gallery; and what's more, it did seem as though it comed from Miss Hilda's room.'

"And it did seem to die away, like, just by that corner where Miss Atheling do sleep, and that's the truth; but law, I never thought no harm by mentioning of it," said another voice, lachrymose likewise.

""Twas not I; 'twas James as said that about the white lady walking, when the head of the family were going to die."

"What! James saw it too, did he ?" asked Mrs. Bracebridge, sharply, not to say ferociously.

"Lord forgive you, Mrs. Bracebridge, for saying such a thing. How do I know about what James should see?"

“Well, well, mind your work, and don't get chattering with the men; and I'll warrant you won't see no more white ladies; we don't want 'em here, nor no black gentlemen neither; and just remember this, you Betsy Jane and Ellen; if I hear any more of it, it's a month's warning to both of you, do you see?”

Steps, sniffs, and scoldings died away along the passage, and I turned laughing to meet Lelgarde's eyes; she had sunk quietly down on the stone seat in the porch, and fainted dead away.

CHAPTER VI.

Ir was long before Mrs. Bracebridge and I succeeded in restoring Lelgarde to consciousness; and it was a relief to me when the doctor, to whom I sent at once, took his place at her bedside. He asked a few questions, prescribed a sedative, recommended her to keep quiet, and assured us that there was no cause for uneasiness; but when he and I were alone, he asked me if she had been undergoing any strain on her spirits, or if her nerves had received any shock. And when I told him the history of her illness long ago, he said there was the more need for care now.

"Not that I can detect anything seriously amiss, but she is in a highly nervous state, and requires constant cheerful society, pleasant occupation, exercise without fatigue;" and with a few directions as to her diet he went away.

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It was all very well to prescribe cheerful society, but where was it to be found? The neighbours were few; of those few a sprinkling only had been considered worthy to associate with the house of Atheling, and we had no friends whom we could summon from afar to fill our house and make it merry. But fortune favoured us to some extent, for Mr. Seymour Kennedy took to coming down to spend Sunday at the rectory, or rather part of Sunday, for he had to start by the evening mail, paying dearly, by two long night journeys, for his few hours of quiet and country air. 'Quiet and country air!" those were said to be the attractions; but I had my suspicions that the heiress of Athelstanes counted for something, too. He began to haunt the house on Sunday afternoons, and certainly brought with him a pleasant sense of life and stir, and communion with the outer world. But I did not, I could not, like him, and I was surprised to see that Lelgarde was evidently attracted by him. In the old London days | her enthusiasm had been an amusement to me, though I could not always go along || with it; the bright earnestness with which she and Harry Goldie would chatter about music and painting, used to make even the dingy November fogs seem cheery; and here was a man to whom enthusiasm was impossible, who spoke of most things with a covert sneer, and who patronised where Lelgarde was wont to reverence. But she did like him; his coming brightened her up wonderfully, and when he had been absent longer than usual she drooped visibly.

It was a wild afternoon towards the end of March; since dawn, a cold blast blowing from the moors had been making the trees crack and groan, and every window and chimney-pot set up its own peculiar shriek or rattle.

The rain beat desperately against the window, and came fizzing down on the logs in the wide grate; it was a day to make one shiver, and pity any one who had to be out of doors. Lelgarde evidently felt the depressing influence of the weather: she was languid, and yet restless, and seemed unable to settle to anything.

"What weather! what a night it will

be!" I said, by way of saying something, after a long silence.

Lelgarde, who was lying all her length along on a couch, sprang up and hurried to the window.

“What a night indeed!" she repeated, dreamily; "will it ever stop raining? And there goes the wind again, oh !"

"Don't stand and watch it; come to the fire," I said. And she came, leaning against the mantelpiece for a moment. Then, muttering something that I did not hear, she left the room.

It was about an hour later that the door stealthily opened, and admitted Mrs. Bracebridge with an anxious countenance. "Oh, Miss Smith, I beg your pardon, ma'am; I hoped my mistress might be come in." "She has not been out."

'Oh, I beg your pardon, ma'am, she went out nearly an hour ago, which I could hardly believe my eyes as 'twas she; but John, who is just come in for the postbag, he met her, ma'am, on the road into Trembleton. Surely she is never going in there such a day as this."

I was aghast. What could the child be thinking of? Almost unable to believe that she had done so wild a thing, I hurried up to her room, but it was empty, and Mrs. Bracebridge pointed to her little indoor slippers lying on the floor, her apron on the bed. There could be no doubt that she had gone out.

"Well, we must do our best to prevent her catching cold," I said, stirring up the fire. "It is a pity she has run the risk, for she has not been looking well for some time."

“No, indeed, ma'am," said Mrs. Bracebridge. And then, dropping her voice, she added, with some hesitation :

"I beg your pardon, ma'am, but I hope nobody has gone and worritted my mistress. I hope none of the servants has been carrying their ridiculous fancies to her."

"You mean this fancy about the house being haunted," I said, smiling; for some words had passed between Mrs. Bracebridge and me on the subject before. "She certainly once heard some talk about it the day she fainted; but she has never alluded to it since. Why do you ask?"

"Well, ma'am," continued the old woman, in the same mysteriously low tone, "I must confess that there is a deal of talk going on, and 'tis not in my power to stop it. The maids, they will have it, that night after night, more nights than not, there is

a white figure to be seen, gliding like, between my mistress's room and poor Miss Hilda's.

"In old houses like this there is generally some such fancy. I suppose there is a tradition about some white lady, is there not ?"

"So they begin to try to make me believe now, ma'am. All I can say is, I never heard tell of her before; and as to Miss Hilda's ghost, it is a shame to say so, poor lady, and most disrespectful too. But there is something strange. I do begin to believe that."

"Have you seen the white figure yourself, Mrs. Bracebridge ?"

"Well, ma'am, I cannot altogether deny that I have; but as I were only just passing along the upper gallery, 'twere but a glimpse like that I caught."

The old body had evidently made off at the first symptom of the ghost; and probably all the maids had done the same, for on inquiry, I found nobody could give a clear account of it, only that it was dressed in true ghost fashion-all in white.

"Have you missed anything ?" I asked, with scepticism worthy of Mr. Seymour Kennedy. "No? Then depend upon it somebody is playing a foolish trick. Better take no notice, and then it will be no fun for them to go on with it."

There was a step on the stairs, and Lelgarde opened the door, springing back with one of her violent nervous starts on seeing that her room was occupied. She looked ghastly, her colourless face rendered more disconsolate by the loosened hair which the rain had plastered against it, her cloak dripping, her hat a dreary mass of drenched plumage.

I wasted no words, but, with Mrs. Bracebridge's help, I got her out of her wet things into her dressing-gown, put her into an arm-chair close by the fire, and plied her with hot tea, and then, when the housekeeper was gone, I asked her severely what she meant by it.

"Don't, Joan," she answered, pettishly, turning her head away. "I only walked into Trembleton to get something I wanted."

"As if you had no grooms about the place; as if the boy were not going to the post-office. Lelgarde, you deserve to be well whipped and sent to bed."

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Whip me if you like," she said, with a languid smile, "but for pity's sake don't put me to bed. I hate my bed; I hate