to read it. It contained a copy of a marriage register between Duncan MacGilly and Eleanor Stuart in one of the city churches of Bristol. There was

also a scrap of paper on which it was requested that all Eleanor's boxes should be sent to a certain address in London as soon as possible.

This Margaret had done at once, Sarah finishing the packing, while Mr. Wynter undertook to write and tell Eleanor the sad effects her disobedient conduct had had on her mother, and the anxiety and fatigue of her cousin.

Margaret never opened any of her aunt's letters, with the exception of the one in Eleanor's handwriting the day but one after her departure.

The nursing was undertaken entirely by Margaret and the maid Josephine. After a few days had passed, there was evidently more consciousness in the invalid, and, although she did not yet speak, she understood all that was said to her.

One evening, about a fortnight after the attack first came on, Margaret was sitting in her aunt's room reading, when Mrs. Stuart distinctly pronounced her name. She went to the side of the bed directly, when the sick woman repeated her name and said, "Read to me."

Margaret took up her book. She had been reading the Epistle of St. James, so she slowly went over the first chapter again. She looked up several times to see if her aunt was pleased, and each time that

she did so, met her eyes clear and intelligent, evidently listening. After a while, she fell asleep. This was the first of what afterwards became daily readings, and, as Mrs. Stuart began to recover, Mr. Wynter often took Margaret's place, and read aloud.

It was a long, tedious recovery, but progress was now made every day towards convalescence. Margaret rubbed the poor benumbed limbs constantly, which helped them back to feeling again. Mrs. Stuart was very patient, but cold and reserved. She never once mentioned Eleanor's name, or inquired after her. The one letter that had been received from her was laid with all the other letters that had come, and after a time Mrs. Stuart had been able to look them over herself.

Of course, a great many people had called to inquire at the Castle, and many messages and offers of help were sent to Margaret. No one mentioned Miss Stuart's name, but her elopement was pretty well known in the neighbourhood.

CHAPTER IV.

ELIZA DAVIES.

"How many among us at this very hour,
Do forge a life-long trouble for ourselves
By taking true for false, or false for true."

Enid.

In the town of Llangavon there lived a woman of the name of Davies. She kept a small grocer's shop in a back street, and she had an only daughter, Eliza.

This girl was clever, self-confident, and bold. She had at one time been in the Church Sunday-school, which 'she left because her teacher had spoken to her about wearing flowers, and feathers, and long streamers of ribbon hanging down her back. Eliza was offended, and declared that she had as much right to dress as she chose as anyone else; and so she never went to that school again.

Her mother was a Baptist by profession, and it was said that although she wore black gowns and

plain white caps, she was no widow. It was also whispered that Eliza's father had never had anything to do with a grocer's shop, or any other branch of trade, but was somebody belonging to quite a different position in society, and that Mrs. Davies was no better than she should be," whatever the exact meaning of that phrase may be.

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Mrs. Davies was a white-faced woman, with a subdued manner, and had a deprecating way of speaking of herself. She generally kept her eyes cast down, but nevertheless she had a way of looking at you sideways, and the glance you then got of her eyes showed that she was not a fool by any means, and that, if you should by chance venture to suggest that she had given you a light pound of sugar, or had mixed too many sloe leaves with her tea, she could and would "give it you pretty considerably ". not the sugar, nor yet the tea, but something you would probably like even less than those adulterated groceries.

Eliza Davies was not in person the least like her dark-haired meek-voiced mother. She had bright red hair, pale grey eyes, and the fair complexion that usually goes with them, of which latter she took

some care.

Eliza had, too, a peculiar way of insinuating herself into the good graces of anyone she wished to please. She could make herself very pleasant, and seem quite harmless and sincere when she had a mind

to do so. She had been sent away from Llangavon to a boarding-school, much to the surprise and jealousy of several small tradesmen's wives, who could not afford to do the same for their own daughters, for which, however, they solaced themselves by nodding and whispering to each other, that no doubt Eliza's mother had ways and means at her command without opening her own purse, to pay the school bills.

After Eliza had learnt all she could at the boarding-school, she returned home to her mother, but she never helped in the shop, Oh dear, no; that was far beneath the elegant Eliza, with her befrizzled and chignoned hair and long ear-drops. However, she condescended to wait occasionally on her mother's lodger; for Mrs. Davies let her best parlour and bed-room.

When Eliza was about nineteen, her mother's parlour was occupied by a young man, who was reading with the Baptist minister before going into one of the Welsh colleges. He was seven or eight-and-twenty years of age, the son of a farmer. His name was Evans-David Evans. He was a stout, florid, heavy fellow, who had a pipe in his mouth from morning till night, and almost from night till morning, except when he removed it to take long draughts of fresh Welsh ale, which seemed to have no more effect upon him than if it had been so much water.

After some months' residence at Mrs. Davies's, it became apparent that Eliza's ways and wishes were