for the last week, one thinks, and thinks, and many things look so different from what they do when one is full of health and strength, and busied with all one's usual employments. I had some misgivings before, from what Lucy said in her last letter, and now this confirms my fears.

Nonsense! do you think your sister could so far forget her duty as to be led away by any young man, were he ever so captivating?"

"I don't know," said Harriet, in a querulous tone: "he was her first love;" and she whispered something in her husband's

ear.

-

Mary had listened in breathless curiosity, -"her aunt forgot her duty," what could they mean? "Her first love." And the precocious child pondered on, and remembered several little things which had perplexed her at the time, and which now

helped her to make a sort of romance

about her aunt.

"Did Mr. Augustus live at Rollston Court, that old place where we had the pic-nic?" enquired she, suddenly looking up.

"Yes child; why do you ask?" said Harriet.

"Because-because I remember it so well; I like the old house very much," said Mary, with an embarrassed air; and then she ran into her room and burst into tears.

Yet she scarcely knew why she cried, although she felt frightened about her aunt. She had considered her the most perfect being ever formed, and she dreaded more than anything else that Lucy should in any way fall short of the ideal she had

created.

There was an instinctive dread of sin, and admiration for goodness in Mary that was very unusual. It seemed her great

actuating principle, and the attraction she felt for Lucy was because she thought her so perfect.

Of late she had not prayed so much, because she had been in what she called a dark state. The misgiving she had gradually felt about her aunt's love for her, had engendered a sort of dull despondency. But now the anxiety was so keen, the fear so dreadful, that she threw herself on her knees, and prayed that her aunt might be kept from all harm-that she might never be disappointed in her.

"Perhaps I am selfish," said the young metaphysician, as she rose from her knees; "and that it is for my happiness that I have been praying, for I should be so miserable if—if―aunt forgot her duty."

And then she half smiled at her own vehemence, and reflected that she knew nothing of her danger, or why aunt Lucy was to fail:

it was all vague and indistinct.

Although

it seemed that there was a great danger im

pending over Lucy, yet what this precisely was, she could not divine.

CHAPTER VI.

THE LAST LETTER.

It was Christmas Eve, and Mr. Mandeville was sitting at his old fashioned black oak escritoire. The dark wainscoated walls of the large room, which was called the Master's Study, were only dimly lighted by the two candles which burned on the carved shelves

which projected from the table or rather armoire.

carved doors of it on

sets of drawers in the

1

antique writing

For the richly

each side, and the

recess of the middle,

reached up nearly to the ceiling.