Margaret looked anything but a little meekspirited thing at that moment. Her eyes shone and her colour deepened, but she said nothing on that subject. She repeated her message to Eleanor, that her mother would answer the note.

"She may save herself the trouble," said Eleanor; "it is answered already."

"Oh! Ellie," said Margaret, "what did you say?"

"Ah! what will you give to hear?" said her cousin; "but I don't intend to tell you. The steps I take will, for the future, be kept to myself. I shall have you laying traps to undermine me, if I put you up to my private plans. Let us go and put on our things, and see if there be any shade in the ruins. We can take take the Cornhill with us."

Llangavon Castle was a modern house, of moderate though comfortable dimensions, built in the grounds of a fine old ruin, that had been half-fortress, halfresidence of an ancient Welsh family now extinct. James Stuart, the grandfather of the wilful Eleanor, had purchased the property, which included the ruins, and had built the house.

James Stuart's only son was in the army, as a young man, and had fallen in the Crimean war, leaving a widow and two children, Augustus and Eleanor.

Augustus was in the Bengal rifle corps, and had not been home for some years. He had been en-

gaged to his cousin, Margaret Clevedon, his mother's only brother's child, ever since she was sixteen and he four-and-twenty, now five years ago.

Eleanor Stuart was many years younger than her brother; she had, as a child, been the darling of her father, and, before he left his home for active duty in the Crimea, he had made a will bequeathing property to the amount of three hundred per annum to be paid down to his pretty bright Eleanor on her twenty-first birthday. This was quite independent of what he left to his son, or the fortune which his widow would enjoy, and over which she was left absolute control.

Margaret Clevedon had lived with her aunt since her early childhood, when she lost both her parents. Her father had been a clergyman, and had but small property to leave his only child; nevertheless it was enough to place her above want, even if her aunt had not provided a home for her at Llangavon Castle, and educated her with her own daughter.

When Colonel Stuart's will was opened, after he had fallen at the storming of the Redan, and the widow found the provision that had been made for her daughter, irrespective of herself, she was not at all pleased. She thought a clause should have been. inserted with respect to Eleanor's marrying with her consent, or something of that kind; but though it was all long ago now when Eleanor was a nursery romp, Mrs. Stuart did not forget it. She always

resented it against her dead husband as an affront to herself, and in consequence was more hard in her bringing up of her child than she would otherwise have been. It may have been the very knowledge of his wife's cold severity of character that prompted Colonel Stuart to the act. Who can tell?

In the evening of the day on which we have introduced the cousins to our reader, the dinner-party at the Castle was a very solemn affair. Mrs. Stuart was, as she considered justly, offended with her daughter for wilfulness and impertinence; while Eleanor was sullen towards her mother hardly deigning to answer when spoken to by her, but noisy and flippant in her remarks to her cousin Margaret.

The three full courses and dessert were over at last; and after coffee had been served at the table the ladies retired to the drawing-room.

Soon after nine o'clock Eleanor complained of a headache, and, wishing her mother a cold "Good night," from the other end of the room in which she was sitting, retired to her own apartment.

It was the custom at Llangavon Castle for the bell to be rung for evening prayers as soon as the clock struck ten, when all the servants, headed by an ancient domestic, half-butler half-footman, entered the room. The appearance of the servants after the bell had rung was so instantaneous that it led one to the supposition that they were all waiting in the hall to

hear the clock strike and their summons to the drawing-room.

On the night in question there was a trifling delay, or rather lingering, of the procession from the hall; and Margaret distinctly heard the hurried arrival of some one from the back regions, and the soft muffled banging of a green-baize door which shut in the hall from the kitchen passages. Mrs. Stuart seemed to hear it too for she glanced rapidly over the assembled household, as she took from the hands of old James the large family Bible; but all were in their usual places, and wore demure and downcast countenances.

It was a still summer night, and the fair Margaret sat up some time reading in her room after she had retired for the night; then she closed her book with a long sigh, and passed out on to a small balcony which ran along that side of the house, and was accessible only from her own and her cousin's rooms. The balustrades of the balcony were thickly covered with clematis and roses, which perfumed the night air. These creepers had grown so thickly that the inside of the veranda was quite hidden from any one who might be in the garden.

Margaret looked out for a long time, thinking of her cousin asleep in the next room. She did not believe the headache was anything but ill-temper, so she was not anxious on that point; but she was vexed that her aunt was always so hard upon

Eleanor. She knew well that Mrs. Stuart was proud enough of her beautiful daughter in her heart, and loved her too, in her cold undemonstrative way; but she never showed any affection towards her, and expected as much blind obedience now she was grown up, as she did when Eleanor was still a child. Margaret acknowledged to herself that Eleanor did not behave rightly to her mother, that she was both proud and disobedient, and so she was constantly afraid that Eleanor would throw off all allegiance and openly defy her parent. This seemed all the more likely, as Mrs. Stuart had suddenly taken to forbid her daughter's going to a house in the neighbouring town at which she had hitherto occasionally visited.

Margaret Clevedon was a girl who had already gone through a good deal of trouble, in the early loss of her parents, and in her comparatively lonely position in life. She had a good many curious thoughts of her own, down deep in her heart, about life, its duties and responsibilities. Her mother had been a truly religious woman, and the early lessons taught by her had not been wholly forgotten, although Margaret had been but ten years old when she died. But though Margaret was thoughtfully inclined, yet at this time she did not know what it was to give herself to God, to have no will and way of her own, seeking to be guided by the hand of Him who cannot err.