drils into the crevices, and tossed their tempting garniture within. Midway of the room, and in the broad beam of yellow sunshine that thus fell through, sat the female figure of his dream. Garments of dark purple wrapped and swept around her, the masses of her purple black hair were looped heavily in their hateful weight, her eyes were larger and more hollow by reason of their purple rims; she sat half bent forward, her white hands, still sparkling with that single ring, clasped across her knee, and a dead despair settling slowly like a pall above her. If there were any other in that room, gloomy in spite of its sunshine, Sir Rohan's dream obstinately refused to recognize him. It seemed a weary age that, fascinated by the mute tragedy, he recalled and gazed upon its action; but while he gazed, the thick palpitations of his heart so shook and disordered him that the air wavered and trembled around him, bright specks danced in the shadows, a mist crept between him and herself, the room opened and spread its dark sides indefinitely into duskiness, the rush of great waters was in his ears, and when he recovered his vision he saw only long black hair sweeping headlong down the current, a

ghastly face whose eyes, hard as pebbles in a brook, reflected no light as they sunk beneath the hurrying stream, a white arm clinging round a floating branch, a hand gleaming with the ring of curious device, obscurely, as it washed downward through the roar and eddy of this river of the North. How it seemed only the low canal, hundreds of miles away, flowing on to meet its bridge, while the voice of the ripples, setting in black angry swirls round the single pier, seemed to repeat the words with a harsh sudden cadence; nor why, when with a dreadful start it all vanished, and he knew only the Ghost, his own Ghost, standing before him and singing from the score, loud and clear, while her hard eyes transfixed him.

Wait! cried the night and wind and storm,

Wait, till I come to thee!

Sir Rohan never wondered, but with a groan grew faint and dizzy in his sleep, and suffered this dreamy sense to reel away from him. What a shiver seized him then! what a noise was in his brain! how thunderously his weary heart beat forward on its way! with what a fierce quaking he sprung into the centre of the room, nor felt

relief at finding it a dream! The sun had hardly declined a degree, the noon was not less sultry, no softer shade enveloped any object; he had whirled through the great eddy of his youth, he had ploughed and reaped the seed whose fruit he was never to exhaust, and he had slept ten minutes.

Doggedly he examined his pencils, ground more oil into his browns, and again feverishly busied himself over what was now his solace. Glancing upward, he noticed with a thrill of horror that the eyes of the picture for it was no landscape -emitted such a green, hard glare as had lately pierced him. Indeed, he had painted them gray. Without pausing to regret the care he had bestowed on their finish, the artist raised his brush with one stroke to obliterate them, when he reflected that such procedure would utterly ruin any chance of obtaining succeeding transparency and brilliance, besides fouling the delicacy of touch which his after work should wear. Perhaps scraping would answer as well. But the paletteknife and even sharper instruments were of no avail, for he remembered what powerful siccatives had been employed, and the impenetrable varnish of sandarach and poppy-oil with which, in order

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to preserve the primal freshness and bloom of the tints, he had early overlaid this portion of his work. Neither acid nor alkali weakened the unendurable stare; and still throbbing from his dream, perplexed and baffled, he felt as if reason would desert him did he fail in effacing its chance. Had the Ghost almost left him free, that he should perpetuate her eyes upon his canvas? Exasperated, he seized a vial of inflammable oil, intending by its means to burn off the obnoxious surface, thus endangering the blossom of many years' labor, when the lazily ascending smoke of a distant lime-kiln caught his eye and suggested a new remedy. He hesitated a moment, half fearing to leave those eyes alone, and then, laughing at himself, went out quickly and closed the door.

Intent on his moody thoughts, and regardless of the heat, he walked swiftly forward, meeting in his way but one face,- and that a handsome one, flashing on him from a travelling-chariot that lumbered along the rarely frequented highway, till he reached his destination; when having obtained a small quantity of lime, and wasting no words on the burners, he betook himself homeward. It was a half-hour's rapid

walk; on one side, across some sterile fields, the sea running in long, low lines up a yellow beach, and filling the air with an unbroken drowsy drone. But the sea did not attract Sir Rohan's regard; indeed, lest its advancing wash should throw some rejected secret from its bosom, he turned his eyes on the other hand, where, across the neglected lands and luxuriant woods of his own estate, rose the chimney-stacks of the lonely house. No living thing, it seemed to him, ever crossed his path; he suspected that the grass ceased growing in his footsteps, yet did not marvel why beneath the fervors of the noon, the Ghost, alone unwearied, refused to join the universal spell of rest and hush. At last, re-entering at a postern door, he again sought his work.

Having slaked and mixed the lime with a strong mineral alkali, he plastered it upon the part to be destroyed, not heeding a faint rap on the door, and turned to other details yet unfinished. But till success in this was assured, he found it impossible to proceed, and threw down his implements in anger. It would then be many hours ere he could resume his task, and,