Esther would have been likely enough to come true. As it was, her sister had good cause to rue the day when she married him. 'He's a ne'er-do-well,' so Miss Morton had told her, with him standing by, 'and he'll get tired of you before the first year's out;' and so he did. Well, at least she had done her duty by her sister's orphan child, and that no one could deny! And with this consolatory reflection, she turned back to the long low red-brick house only redeemed from ugliness by the projecting eaves, and the quaint little bell-turret surmounting the red-tiled roof. A comfortable pleasant house it was in her eyes, and homelike, moreover; for her father and grandfather had lived and died in it before her. She lingered on her way for yet another moment, to fasten back a long trailing branch of honeysuckle that had drooped across one of the latticed windows, and to gather a bunch of autumn roses if she had a fondness for anything, it was for her carefully-tended flowers-and then she betook herself to the arm-chair, to indulge in her evening's solace, the painstaking perusal of the county newspaper. Cold-hearted and sharp-tempered though she was, she had still-as who has not ?— some redeeming points. She tried to act up to her lights such as they were. She was honest and careful in all money matters, paying her way scrupulously and dealing fairly by her little scholars and their parents. She would do a duty, even an unpleasant one, when she fully recognised that it was a duty; but her standard was low and worldly, and her very virtues were near akin to vices. Her thrift had grown into avarice, her caution and prudence into cunning; and such sympathy and kindliness as might have been in her once, perhaps, had rusted through long disuse. Her joyless single life, her narrow interests, and the struggle to support respectably herself and the child whom both her pride and conscience forbade her to discard -all had combined to sour and harden a naturally selfish character. Hers was no cheerful home for the young girl who shared it with her, and who often hungered vaguely for something beyond the daily food, the lodging, clothing, and teaching, which made up the sum-total of her aunt's benefits. Youth, health, and a buoyant spirit had hitherto stood Freda in good stead, however; and had carried her through the wearisome daily drudgery, to which there seemed no visible end. CHAPTER II. 'I care for nobody, no, not I, HE clock in the old square church tower, up above on the hill-side, chimed out eight as Freda halted, almost breathless, before the green door of a white cottage hardly a stone's throw from the shelving beach. It was the last house in the village, and beyond it rose the low grey cliffs, crest after crest; while just behind lay a wooded glen, through which, in stormy weather, the brook or linn, as they called it in those parts, dashed with an unceasing roar and tumult. But the water was low just now after the long drought; and amid the pleasant babbling that it made there reached Freda's ear, as she stood waiting outside, a slight sound from within, as of some one reading or talking very softly. No answer coming to her knock, she lifted the latch and entered. The voice did not cease even then ; but the owner of it, a bronzed lad of eighteen or thereabouts clad in a sailor's knitted jersey and high boots held up his finger hastily to keep her silent, and then signed towards the great leather chair opposite, where a whitehaired old woman sat peacefully dozing. Gradually he lowered his tones, carefully laid aside the large family Bible out of which he had been reading, and noiselessly crossing the room to the still open door, made Freda pass out again before him, and closed it behind them both. There,' he said triumphantly, when they had moved a few paces away, 'that's what I call well managed.' ་ 'Is she ill?' asked Freda, rather puzzled at his mysterious precautions. 'Not to say ill, but she had no rest last |