"Hoot! so fair and lie? O lissom lass, mind ye!" and he laid what he held, in her hand.

It was a piece of silver, as it is sometimes found in mines, crystallized in a slender stem and some singular inflorescence that in shape resembled a violet or the plant called heart's-ease. As she looked at it, he snatched her hand, twisted the supple stem round her finger: "God give ye good-den," said he, and vanished.

A deadly pallor had overspread Sir Rohan's face; he had dropped Miriam's hand, and standing apart, was surveying her with fierce, fixed eyes. The dreadful thought crossed him, if it were indeed his Ghost; the words faltered on his lips, but he strode away quickly without speaking, and led them to the foot of the ladders. Soon the white glare of the opening blinded them, and in a few moments the fresh breath of the upper world illustrated the horrors of the atmosphere below, and with the cool winds blowing in and out the open windows of the coach, they were rapidly proceeding homeward.

11

VI.

Fanchon.

HE next day being Sunday, St. Denys inquired

THE

if there were any practicable church in the neighborhood; and soon, under Redruth's guidance, departed with Miriam to find it, leaving Sir Rohan to his primitive desolation.

Instantly, a loneliness utterly new overcame him. These people, who had not been with him half a week, and one of whom he had known but three days, became suddenly as indispensable to him as the air he breathed. The unusual stir about the house, proceeding from the kitchen and its occupants, only reminded him of the silence around himself; and unused to control any emotion, except in its exhibition, he allowed the little annoyance to vex him unbearably, while he paced the long drawing-room and execrated the murmuring air that his rapid step set in motion about

him like another presence. A scarf of Miriam's, a tiny silken thing, lay across a chair; he took it up tenderly, as if it were a part of herself, for so full of life did she seem to him that he fancied her imparting her vitality to all around her. 'But I am myself half dead," he murmured. A glove of hers had been dropped at the door, and scattered violets from the bunch he had plucked for her at sunrise marked her path across the lawn. "It is a generous prodigality that distinguishes her," he thought. "Her heart is so large as to receive every creature with kindness, and she looks at all men with equal eyes." Sir Rohan was on dangerous ground; so he rolled the scarf and glove together without lingering over their delicate perfume, placed them by themselves, and went up to grind colors. The clock struck the quarter before two as he lifted the curtain of his painting, and simultaneously feet and voices echoed through the hall, and Miriam, searching drawing and dining-room, called aloud, "Sir Rohan! Sir Rohan! Do you know what day it is? Do you work on Sundays?"

Sir Rohan dropped the curtain, despite the faint and revengeful look that gathered over the face beneath, and joined his guests like one ashamed.

"What a queer little church!" said Miriam, as they sat at lunch. "It stands so lonely on that long slope, and buttressed by those great cliffs, with only three little lonely graves and the sea before it, that I believed Uther Pendragon to have said his prayers there; but nobody since. I said so to papa, going in, and a quick voice from noone-knew-where replied, 'I apprehend the gentleman you refer to did not accustom himself to that amusement.' One might have known who spoke, but I could n't see him, till half through the service, in the great pew opposite, there were his evil eyes staring us out of countenance, at least if Marc Arundel's eyes could do so much." "Miriam, you don't mean to say—" cried St. Denys, dropping his fork.

"Precisely that, papa. He bowed with the condescension of a Prince Cardinal."

"You did n't return it in service, Miriam ?"

"O no! we were past the creed. So I was oblivious of all the Arundels since the flood, till leaving; when I put as much graciousness and as many smiles as could be crowded into a nod, and gave it him."

"You are a coquette! But I didn't see him."

"O dear, no, papa! Your eyes were blinded by your prayer-book."

"And where were yours?"

"O, mine are like those bugs, that see all ways at once. What a superb altar-cloth that was!amaranth velvet, powdered with silver fleurs de lis; we must have one like it, at the Castle. Did any ladies of your family make it, Sir Rohan?"

"No, indeed! There have been no ladies in my family, you know, for many years; that little church flourishes under the Arundelian dynasty."

"I should n't wonder if Marc worked it himself," said Miriam. "It would be very fit employment; he has such a finikin faculty of mending, picking up, patching, — surely he knows the scandal of every family in the kingdom, papa! I think he'd like to make flourishes in gold thread."

"You are growing vituperative, young lady," said St. Denys. "But there is one fortunate thing about this rencontre. He does not know where we are."

"O, papa, that's too soothing a medicament; he saw Redruth with us!" she replied, pulling