could have inspired Gertrude with the aversion she gradually felt for Sir Douglas's half-sister, Alice Ross.

Alice had not offended the bride; on the contrary, she flattered her; she obviously endeavoured to please, to wind round her, to become necessary to her. She went beyond the mere yielding up gracefully the small delegated authority which for many years she had seemed to exercise, from being the only one of the family resident at the Castle.' She was not satisfied with dropping to the condition of friend and equal; she rather assumed that of poor relation and humble companion. She chose toleration, and repu

6

diated welcome. As to the near connexion between herself and Sir Douglas, she always alluded to it in a humble, half-mournful, apologetic manner, as if it were a fault, but not her fault; and yet a fault for which she was willing to make amends to the extent of her feeble powers. She behaved towards him as towards one who was to be admired, reverenced, wondered at; but to love him would be taking too great a liberty. Still, in her own subservient way she contrived to impress him with a notion of humble worship: and she lost no opportunity of increasing that impression even while she deprecated all evidences of its ruling spirit in her mind.

The very first evening they were all seated at the oaken table where books, and flowers, and carpet-work lay in crowded companionship: she softly gathered together, with a little trembling sigh a sort of select harvest from among the books; saying, with the slow Highland drawl peculiar to some Scotch voices :—

I should have moved these before; for I count them as my very own; but they have lain here so long! Of course I know nothing of military matters, even now; but I have made quite a collection of books about armour, and about forces in different countries, and fortifications of various kinds-and histories of battles! I have a pedlar's pack of them; Gustavus of Sweden, with no end of plates; and I have even got,—you will laugh,-I have even got a great big volume called the "Tactics of Elian; " showing all the modes of disposing armies in the Greek and Roman days.'

The Tactics of Elian! What upon earth are they?' said Gertrude, laughing.

'Well, I cannot explain it better than I have done,-in my simple way,'--drawled Alice. The book shows how they led armies into the field, and how they placed their troops. I have been so accustomed to think of a soldier's life in all ways' (and here she looked deprecatingly towards Sir Douglas), that no book about it seemed dull to me; and I found very curious things. Such cruel

66

if

things! Think of instructions how to take a fort in two several ways; one way you are obliged to consider the lives of your men (how many of them are killed, in fact); and another way if you can afford to expend men;" yes, that is the exact expression; I remember it; it shocked me to think of the calculation. A cruel life, but a brave life,'-and again she looked at her half-brother, who was smiling with an amused expression, as she slowly delivered her little oration.

And have you studied these military grammars, so that you could undertake these tasks?'

Yes, I think I could take a fort,' she answered, in a grave deliberate unconscious manner.

"And a bridge?'

'Yes-a bridge. And I could construct a pontoon,—and move troops across the marshes.' (Which she pronounced mairshes.)

What a pity you were not born a generation earlier, Alice, and that your abilities were not employed in the disastrous retreat from Walcheren!'

Well, I just forbode that you would laugh at me,'—she said, with the same placid drawl; and so I do not mind; and I'll carry away my books, and put them in the shelves of the Tower-room. I've never changed my room, you know: perhaps I should change it now? If Lady Ross thinks-when she goes over the castle '— and here she made one of her faces of humble deprecating inquiry, and paused.

Oh! dear no,' said Gertrude, eagerly: and Oh! no, no,' broke in Sir Douglas with equal warmth. You've lived there all your

life; I should be sorry indeed, if now—'

And I should be sorry,' said Gertrude, with a kindly smile, that my coming should have such a disagreeable result. I hope, unless the day should come when you would leave us and the Towerroom, for some very pleasant reason, that it will be home as it has always been.'

A glance sharper than at all agreed with the drawling quiet voice, shot from Alice's grey eyes; a glance of doubtful inquiry: and then she demurely replied :—

'It is not very probable, after so many years, that I should have the reason for leaving which you think so pleasant, Lady Ross.'

The bride was young and quick of feeling, and she looked down and blushed very red; for she did not know how to get over her little difficulty. She knew that when she spoke, with her sweet, cordial smile, of some very pleasant reason' for leaving, she meant

if Alice went away to be married, and she comprehended that her new sister-in-law had doubted whether she meant this speech in all sincerity since Alice was certainly what in common parlance is called, even when the party still retains claims to personal attraction, ' an old maid.'

Alice did retain claims to personal attraction: her well-shaped head, though its banded hair was of that disagreeable dry drab colour, which had not yet the advantage of our modern fashion of being dyed of a golden red,-surmounted a long, slender white throat; and a figure which, if somewhat too spare for artistic notions of beauty, was, as her maid expressed it, 'jimp and genteel.'

She moved (as she spoke) with slow precision; and not without some degree of grace. The only positively disagreeable thing about her, was a certain watchfulness, which disturbed and fascinated you. Do what you would, Alice's eyes were on you. You felt them fixed on your shoulder; your forehead; the back of your head; your hands; your feet; the sheet of paper on which you were writing a letter; the title and outside cover of the book you were reading; the harmless list you were making out of your day's shopping; the anxious calculation of your year's income; and the little vague sketch you scribbled while your mind was occupied about other things.

I have spoken of her as the snake in this Paradise; but there was something essentially feline, also, in her whole manner; and indeed the cat is, among inferior animals, what the snake is among a lower order of creatures. The noiseless, cautious, circuitous mode in which she made her way across a room was cat-like; the dazed quiet of her eyes on common occasions, had the expression of a cat sitting in the sun; and the startling illumination of watchful attention in them at other times, recalled to our fancy the same creature catching sight of its prey. Even the low purring, and rubbing of pussy's soft fur against your side, seemed to find its analogy in her slow soft words of flattery: as the gentle approach, which neither required nor even accepted any returning caress, resembled the gliding to and fro on some familiar hearth of that unloving little domestic animal, whose cry is alien and weird to our ears, and its shape like a diminished tiger.

Above all, in her gravity and changelessness, she was cat-like.

The dog (our other household inmate) has his variety of moods, like his master. He is joyous, eager, sulky, angry, restless; conscious of our love or displeasure; capable of correction; able to learn; has his own preferences too; welcoming some of the habitual visitors to his master's house, growling at others,-he only knows

why. He loves the children of the house; he submits to have baby's awkward helpless fat fingers thrust in his eye, without resentment. He romps with the boys, and with his own species; affecting the fiercest onslaughts, and then mumbling with a mouth like velvet when the mimic war leaves him victor in the play! He is a creature made up of variety. But a cat is always the same. Equally on her guard with friend and foe-stealthy, indifferent, unsympathizing-as willing to gnaw the babe in its cradle as the rat in the barn; and gliding away to attend to her own private interests let what will be the event of the hour in the household circle of which she forms part. She is a daily mystery, and a nightly annoyance. In the midst of our tame city-life she is fera natura. We advertise our dogs as Lost, or stolen,' but we say of our cat that she has 'gone away.'

Even in going away she consults her own convenience; she does not stay, like the dog, because she is ours, and because we are there; but only so long as she is comfortable.

Alice Ross was comfortable at Glenrossie, and she wished to stay. She saw with curiosity and attention the conscious blush of the young wife, when she had alluded to the chance of her leaving the castle for a pleasant reason.' She herself was not the least embarrassed; she was merely watchful. She was guessing at her new relative's disposition. She finished reaping her little harvest of books, and said her maid would fetch them.

And when they are sorted, Lady Ross, and all on the shelves, you'll maybe look in to my lonely den, in the Tower-room, and have a gay good laugh at the fittings there; for the walls will match the books for soldiering. There are prints of most of the notable heroes of modern wars; and there's one, the best of all, that I spent a golden piece or two getting framed, and I'll leave you to guess who that will be.'

And the upward glance and grave smile were again directed to her tall half-brother, who had risen from his seat and was turning over the leaves of one of the military grammars' with some interest. He was rather touched too at the mention of the 'lonely den,' and he gave a little friendly tap to the pale cheek of his half-sister, saying gaily, 'Well, this hero will come and see your other heroes tomorrow; and so will Gertrude.'

The little tap on the cheek was more or less pleasant to Alice; but it woke no dimpling smile nor tender answering look.

I would like very much to show them all to Lady Ross,' she said, quietly.

For one wavering moment Gertrude seemed about to speak. She, too, was touched at the solitary picture of life in the lonely den; she thought of saying something kind to her new sister-in-law.

Call me Gertrude; do not call me "Lady Ross," was the sentence that rose to her young lips. But there was a brief space of chill silence, no one could say why; and the words remained unspoken.

His feckless mother's been in great distress about him, by what I hear.'

'Kenneth's better,' shortly answered Sir Douglas, as he bent again over a book of military plans; and his handsome brow visibly clouded over.

The illuminated pussy-cat eyes had diamonds in them for a second or two, as Alice listened. She looked first at Sir Douglas and then at Gertrude, who had followed up her husband's assurance with the words,

Oh! yes, better; so much better; quite well; only not strong yet.'

The words were nothing; only the manner, the hurried and embarrassed manner; and the blush, another blush deeper than the one which had betrayed her consciousness that Alice doubted over 'the pleasant reason' speech.

What had happened?

Had Kenneth done something extremely wrong and disgraceful? something the whole family were to be ashamed of, and shamed by, as soon as it was known?

Alice thought that quite possible. She knew a great deal of hard gossip about her young nephew, though she had steadily refused to have anything to do with his mothor, or to visit her, or admit her to the lonely den.'

That tabooed female might call herself Mrs. Ross Heaton of Torrieburn.'-or by any other name she pleased,-now she was