masses, like the hair I once saw in the picture of a dead man. I remember a woman's shriek dying away in a low, wailing moan, and then a heavy fall on the floor. After that night my life was a blank, for how long I do not know. There was confusion in the house, but the people about me spoke in suppressed, stifled voices, and my brother and I were never permitted to leave our nursery. He had not seen what I had seen, but we both grew silent and grave during those dreary days. We had no heart for play. We crouched side by side in mute gloom, with our hands locked together. Only in the evenings, when Harry

had

gone to bed, did I venture to look through the closely-drawn blinds. Then I used to watch the traffic, and listen to the laughter in the brilliantly lighted streets of the French capital, to count the endless succession of lamps which faded away dim and more dimly in the distance, till the last in that long vista only gleamed with the faint lustre of a twinkling star. The next event was the arrival of my uncle, who hurried from England as soon as he heard of his brother's death.

He had loved my mother. Such was the story that I heard in after-years. He should have married her, I believe; but she was young, careless, and impressible; and when my father came home from the war, gay and gallant, with the flush of well-earned glory on his brow (he had fought among the foremost at Waterloo), the girl's heart throbbed fast in answer to the whispers of her brilliant hero, and she fled with him from the stern, grave lover whom she had honoured more than she had loved. My uncle Rupert was my father's only brother-his only surviving brother I mean, for a band of young playmates had grown up together. How the sons had died, all in the prime of their manhood, more than one, alas! stamped with the brand of crime or of shame, I need not tell here. One of them had left an orphan, a boy some years older than myself, whom my uncle had adopted, as he adopted us, when we were left alone and friendless. The only prosperous member of the family was a sister, now the wife of an English baronet of long descent. I had never seen Lady Mortimer. Sir Cour

tenay was the English ambassador in an Italian city. They had children about my own age, but I hardly knew them even by name. Indeed at the time of which I write I knew nothing of our family affairs; but I mention these facts and names here because, if I ever finish these pages, I must speak of them again in connection with my future history.

My uncle was a stern, solemn man, gaunt and inflexible in person, sparing in speech. He took very little notice of us children. I remember it striking me at the time that he did not like us. He came to our nursery after his interview with our mother. He laid his lips on my forehead. I feel that icy kiss still, if indeed I can call it a kiss, for it was no more than a passionless pressure.

"Do you know me ?" he asked.

"You are my uncle Rupert," was my reply. Who told you that ?"

"Nobody," I answered, proud of the opportunity of displaying my natural sagacity. "You are like the picture that mamma keeps in her drawer.".

He started, his lips twitched, his brow

flushed and contracted as with a sudden pain. He spoke no more to me at that time. I felt a curious attraction towards him, in spite of his sternness. I was not a bold child, but in his presence I was quite fearless and unrestrained. My brother cried when his uncle addressed him. Harry was a year older than I, and I thought him childish.

Mamma sent for me after my uncle had left the house. She was unwell, and had lain down on the bed. I knew that she had been crying; for her eyelashes were wet, and there were purple rings round the hollows on her wasted cheeks. She looked very pale and pretty, her beautiful fair hair (oh! I remember my father twisting those golden curls round his fingers) falling in rings on the white wrapper she wore.

"Did your uncle kiss you, Alice ?" she asked.

"Yes, mamma-he gave me a sort of kiss." "When he goes back to England, you and Harry shall go with him. We have often talked about England; and I am sure you will like to go, won't you?"

"If

you.

you go, mamma, but I wont go without

"You will like to go, and I am sure you will be a good girl, and try to make your uncle love you very much," my mother returned, with a faint sigh, not heeding my remark.

I was not a clever child, but all my life I have been gifted with what I can call by no more correct name than intuitive perceptions. I mean that in cases where I had no power to reason, a sort of instinct has often guided me; and I find that I have rarely been at fault in the conclusions to which it has led me. I knew what was passing in my mother's mind. I knew that she sighed because she was going to leave her orphan children to the mercy of strangers-I knew that she was dying, and I felt as if I had known it a long time.

"You are younger than Harry," she went on, "but little girls should always be wiser and more thoughtful than their brothers, and you must be his little mamma in England-will you promise me ?"

66

Yes, mamma."

Something rose in my