the lawyer, "requires any explanation respecting it I shall be glad to furnish it."

At this suggestion a female figure in the deepest mourning, who had kept herself in the background, came forward and said—

"I thought, Mr. Sharpness, my dear, dear cousin had made a will of a more recent date. Not that I am personally interested in it."

"It is true, Miss Melvill," responded Mr. Sharpness, "that his lordship, a few weeks. before his death instructed me to attend him with a view of his making some alteration in his former will, and a draft was submitted to his lordship in which you were personally interested; but circumstances to which I need not revert occurred, and the draft by his lordship's strict injunctions was committed to the flames."

"But surely that draft showing his lordship's intentions ought to be valid."

"Not in law, Miss Melvill. Moreover, in the last interview I had with Lord Hovingham, in which I felt it my duty to make

certain revelations respecting a bal masque, his lordship, with his own hand, duly attested by two witnesses, wrote the following declaration:

"The draft of a recent will was destroyed by my special orders to Mr. Sharpness, and the former document appointing Lady Hovingham executrix and residuary legatee, and the codicil appointing Mr. Sharpness executor with a legacy of five hundred pounds, must be received as my last will and testament.

At this Miss Melvill muttered that her guardian would see justice done her.

Mortified pride, disappointed ambition, and conscious guilt struck at once their ice bolts to her soul, benumbed her faculties. Pale and trembling she sat with her eyes fixed, her tongue mute. She heard not the

voice of Mr. Sharpness as he quietly remarked that he should be happy to show the will and codicil to any that felt themselves aggrieved. Miss Melvill then retired, and shortly afterwards left the house. Even when alone her conscience was so seared that it did not smite her. There was no sign of repentance. There was a feeling of pain caused by detection rather than from guilt; there was more shame than sorrow, and more rage than shame.

CHAPTER XIX.

Done to death by slanderous tongues,
Was the Hero that here lies:

Death in guerdon of her wrongs,
Gives her fame which never dies.

Back wounding calumny,

The whitest virtue strikes.

SHAKESPEARE.

THE next morning Margaret's looks showed how little she could bear a violent emotion. The death of her husband, the reading of the will; her reconciliation to him, her restoration to what she valued most, her own fair fame, all tended to increase the symptoms which had so much alarmed those dear to her. They fondly hoped that a favourable change would follow the comparative happiness she now enjoyed in being again in her own home, and if anything could have

cheered her drooping spirits, it was the affection and respect shown to her by the neighbouring gentry, the tenants on the estate, and the villagers, everyone of whom looked upon her as the Lady Bountiful of the parish.

Among those who most sympathised with her sorrows was an old woman in a cottage near the Lodge; there was an honest sincerity and true feeling in all she said, which, to adopt a somewhat hackneyed phrase, “ did equal credit to her heart and head." "There was not in the whole county such a lady," said old Mrs. Shaw. "She scarcely ever misses a day without visiting the poor; often have I seen her trudging through the Lodge, the snow or rain beating down upon her, with soup and wine for the poor, and which her pampered footmen were too proud to carry."

Margaret's heart sunk as she found herself a widow in a mansion which once contained all that she held dear. In vain she tried to suppress the current of her thoughts, the