tioned, answered, wondered-understanding nothing. The poor child stood terrified, looking from one to another, and Crump was crossing the room to her, when a voice fell on his ear, that made him turn, with an involuntary quake, to the door.

"I knew he was here! I said so, Mrs. Darby! and if this is the way one's to be treated, after slaving and toiling eleven years for him and his children, as I've done-I think it's hard; it is so. Here be the first day as he's home to me for seven weeks, and him no sooner set foot inside th' place, than he's away off to a pack o' folk, as is naught to him—I know Mr. Crump, I beant blind-folk as is too proud to speak to wives, they suld be to husbands-and now here you be after all"-and Mrs. Crump, who had, in the fulness of her motherly heart, been sacrificing to the presiding genius of the occasion, at the bar, burst into tears, and proceeded to enlighten her audience as to what she had

gone through for that man ;" while her irritated and indignant husband endeavoured, for some time in vain, to lead her from the room.

This with some difficulty he effected, and then, at considerable risk to his own personal safety, returned to look for little Rose. But the child was nowhere to be seen; all his inquiries were vain; no one had noticed her; they imagined her to have followed her father, and Crump hoped it might be so.

Not all his eloquence, and the account of Mrs. Steyne's dangerous state, could prevail on his prejudiced and ignorant spouse to agree to his returning; and poor Crump, who possessed none of the qualifications of a Rarey, submitted, with as ill a grace as he dared, to the detention.

So inauspiciously concluded the festivities at "The Crichton," that night.

Crichton père cursed his ill-luck; that "what with their whims, and their illness, and their confounded interference, the women played the very devil with everything." Crichton, the new-born, dreaming, babbling, kicked defiance at Fate, ever immutably, remorselessly, knitting up her web, of whitest, blackest, and many-stained threads, alike.

CHAPTER FOURTEENTH.

CC NEVER MORE."

"All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow,
All the aching of heart, the restless unsatisfied longing,
All the dull deep pain, and constant anguish of patience.”
LONGFELLOW.

"The grave itself is but a covered bridge,

Leading from light to light, thro' a brief darkness."

LONGFELLOW. "DYING!-dying!"-these words seemed in the echo of his flying feet, as the man dashed down the hill and across the silent lanes, and over the moss-covered road, where the rising moon began to glimmer through the trees o'erhead. He must see her, must speak to her, hear her voice, once more! and then, then, he would tell her all he would do; he would promise, comfort, hold her back from death-she should not die! -no, no; he could see all now; how foolish he had been, and had neglected her-but all could be made. right yet; he could see a way; oh! twenty ways-a hundred!-they might be so happy!-they would be, too!-he would tell her-oh! she would not die. All this busy at his heart-still flying on, and the following echo still, "Dying, dying!"

He stopped a moment at the gate, and looked up. All so peaceful and beautiful-how could death be there? The casement of her window open; it would not be, surely if she were dying-something white fluttered out softly-the curtain dallying with the

faint breeze on the grass lay some collars of his she had put to bleach a while since-it could not all look like this, unchanged and quiet, and she dying! No, no!

At the door he threw off his worn boots. Perhaps she slept, he might disturb her.

In three noiseless bounds he was in the room. All so still;-only a faint breathing. She slept, then; on tiptoe he approached the bed.

A little face was raised, and cried-" Father! she doesn't speak her cheeks are so cold!

He put the boy aside-he stooped-he gazed into her face-clutched the hand that lay upon the quilt.

Cold, unanswering,—for the first time in all his life -it rested in his; then dropped passively, as the man fell on his knees with a terrible cry.

"O God! have mercy on me! dead!-my wife! -my wife!"

Crushed all hope-past all chance of atonement— gone for ever the patient, forbearing friend and helpmate.

Before him, one by one, in fearful distinctness, rose her trials and privations, the griefs she had endured, and how patiently she had borne with him-how simple her pleasures-how little made her happinesshow easily he might have secured it,-all came flooding up in that minute, as by a sudden flash revealed to him.

Those pricked fingers, those shrivelled hands would toil no more; go where he might, the faithful feet would never again follow him—the earnest eyes, that shone but for him, were quenched for ever!

What should he do !-how could she know!-God

help him! send her back! He prayed, as in all his life he had never done, that, but for an instant, she might come back, to ask her forgiveness-to look but on her living face once more. Ah, he should go mad! he raved; and the now quiet face seemed to mock him, in its repose.

“What did she say, boy ?" he cried. "Did she ask for me? Tell me, quick! What did she say?

Half-choked with tears, Philip repeated his mother's last words.

"Poor George!' that's me! yes, yes, she thought of me; and Rose, Rose, where's Rose? where's my Rose? my darling ?"

Then, for the first time, Philip was aroused to the fact that his sister had not returned, and, unable to learn anything of his distracted father-he thinking Crump had most probably taken her home-late as it now was, set off, to make sure; no trouble of his own could make him indifferent to her safety.

Poor David, doing his best to deafen himself to the full tide of a curtain lecture, was aroused by the voice of Philip, at the door, asking for his sister.

There comes a time when the most oppressed will eventually throw off the yoke; and to David Crump that moment had arrived when he listened to the boy's piteous tale of his mother's death, his sister's disappearance, and his father's demented grief.

Hastily scrambling into his clothes, the good man literally and figuratively threw off his yoke, in the shape of Sarah's brawny arms, and in a few minutes was accompanying the lad to "The Crichton," bestowing on himself no small share of blame for having so easily, in his own difficulty, lost sight of little Rose.