In his dream, a pale frightened face approached him slowly, and recoiling uttered a cry. The scream was horribly prolonged as the figure receded. He thought he recognised some one—dead or living he could not say—in the strange, Grecian face, fixed as marble, that with enormous eyes, had looked into his.

With this sound ringing in his ears he awoke. As is the case with other over-fatigued men, on whom, at length, slumber has seized, he was for a time in the attitude of wakefulness before his senses and his recollection were thoroughly aroused, and his dream quite dissipated. Another long shriek, and another, and another, he heard.

Charles recognised, he fancied, his wife’s voice. Scared, and wide awake, he ran from the room—to the foot of the stairs—up the stairs. A tread of feet he heard in the room, and the door violently shaken, and another long, agonized scream.

Over this roof and around it is the serenest and happiest night. The brilliant moon, the dark azure and wide field of stars make it a night for holy thoughts, and lovers’ vigils, so tender and beautiful. There is no moaning night-wind, not even a rustle in the thick ivy. The window gives no sound, except when the gray moth floating in its shadow taps softly on the pane. You can hear the leaf that drops of itself from the tree-top, and flits its way from bough to spray to the ground.

Even in that gentle night there move, however, symbols of guilt and danger. While the small birds, with head under wing, nestle in their leafy nooks, the white owl glides with noiseless wing, a murderous phantom, cutting the air. The demure cat creeps on and on softly as a gray shadow till its green eyes glare close on its prey. Nature, with her gentleness and cruelty, her sublimity and meanness, resembles that microcosm, the human heart, in which lodge so many contrarieties, and the shabby contends with the heroic, the diabolic with the angelic.

In this still night Alice’s heart was heavy. Who can account for those sudden, silent, but terrible changes in the spiritual vision which interpose as it were a thin coloured medium between ourselves and the realities that surround us—how all objects, retaining their outlines, lose their rosy glow and golden lights, and on a sudden fade into dismallest gray and green?

“Dulcibella, do you think he’s coming? Oh! Dulcibella, do you think he’ll come tonight?”

“He may, dear. Why shouldn’t he? Lie down, my child, and don’t be sitting up in your bed so. You’ll never go asleep while you’re listening and watching. Nothing but fidgets, and only the wider awake the longer you watch. Well I know it, and many a long hour I laid awake myself expectin’ and listenin’ for poor Crane a comin’ home with the cart from market, long ago. He had his failin’s—as who has not? poor Crane—but an honest man, and good-natured, and would not hurt a fly, and never a wry word out of his mouth, excepting maybe, one or two, which he never meant them, when he was in liquor, as who is there. Miss Ally, will not be sometimes? But he was a kind, handsome fellow, and sore was my heart when lie was taken,” and Dulcibella wiped her eyes. “Seven-and-twenty years agone last Stephen’s Day I buried him in Wyvern Churchyard, and I tried to keep the little business agoin’, but I couldn’t make it pay no how, and when it pleased God to take my little girl six years after, I gave all up and went to live at the vicarage. But as I was sayin’, miss, many a long hour I sat up a watchin’ for my poor Crane on his way home. He would sometimes stop a bit on the way, wi’ a friend or two, at the Cat and Fiddle—’twas the only thing I could ever say wasn’t quite as I could a’ liked in my poor Crane. And that’s how I came to serve your good mother, miss, and your poor father, the good vicar o’ Wyvern—there’s not been none like him since, not one—no, indeed.”

“You remember mamma very well?”

“Like yesterday, miss,” said old Dulcibella, who often answered that question. “Like yesterday, the pretty lady. She always looked so pleasant, too—a smiling face, like the light of the sun coming into a room.”

“I wonder, Dulcibella, there was no picture.”

“No picture. No miss. Well, ye see, Miss Ally, dear, them pictures, I’m told, costs a deal o’ money, and they were only beginnin’ you know, and many a little expense—and Wyvern Vicarage is a small livelihood at best, and ye must be managin’ if ye’d keep it—and good to the poor they was with all that, and gave what many a richer one wouldn’t, and never spared trouble for them; they counted nothin’ trouble for no one. They loved all, and lived to one another, not a wry word ever; what one liked t’other loved, and all in the light o’ God’s blessin’. I never seen such a couple, never; they doated on one another, and loved all, and they two was like one angel.”

“Lady Wyndale has a picture of poor mamma—very small—what they call a miniature. I think it quite beautiful. It was taken when she was not more than seventeen. Lady Wyndale, you know, was ever so much older than mamma.”

“Ay, so she was, ten year and more, I dare say,” answered Dulcibella.

“She is very fond of it—too fond to give it to me now; but she says, kind aunt, she has left it to me in her will. And oh! Dulcibella, I feel so lonely.”

“Lonely! why should you, darling, wi’ a fine handsome gentleman to your husband, that will be squire o’ Wyvern—think o’ that—squire o’ Wyvern, and that’s a greater man than many a lord in Parliament; and he’s good-natured, never a hard word or a skew look, always the same quiet way wi’ him. Hoot, miss! ye mustn’t be talkin’ that way. Think o’ the little baby that’s a comin’. Ye won’t know yourself for joy when ye see his face, please God, and I’m a longin’ to show him to ye.”

“You good old Dulcibella,” said the young lady, and her eyes filled with tears as she smiled. “But poor mamma died when I was born, and oh, Dulcibella, do you think I shall ever see the face of the poor little thing? Oh! wouldn’t it be sad! wouldn’t it be sad!”

“Ye’re not to be talkin’ that nonsense, darling; ’tis sinful, wi’ all that God has given you, a comfortable house over your head, and enough to eat, and good friends, and a fine, handsome husband that’s kind to you, and a blessed little child a comin’ to make every minute pleasant to all that’s in the house. Why, ’tis a sin to be frettin’ like that, and as for this thing or that thing, or being afeard, why, everyone’s afeard, if they’d let themselves, and not one in a thousand comes by any harm; and ’tis sinful, I tell ye, for ye know well ye’re in the hands o’ the good God that’s took care o’ ye till now, and took ye out o’ the little nursery o’ Wyvern Vicarage, when ye weren’t the length o’ my arm, and not a friend near but poor, foolish, old Dulcibella, that did not know where to turn. And your aunt, that only went out as poor as your darling mamma, brought home well again from t’other end of the world, and well to do, your own loving kith and kin, and good friends raised up on every side, and the old squire, Harry o’ Wyvern, although he be a bit angered for a while he’s another good friend, that will be sure to make it up, whatever it is came between him and Master Charles. Hot blood’s not the worst blood; better a blow in haste and a shake hands after than a smile at the lips and no goodwill wi’ it. I tell you, they’re not the worst, they hot-headed, hard-fisted, out-spoken folk; and I’ll never forget that day to him, when he brought you home that had no home, and me that was thinkin’ o’ nout but the workhouse. So do or say what he will, God bless him for that day, say I, for ’twas an angel’s part he did,” said old Dulcibella.

“So I feel, God knows; so I feel,” said Alice, “and I hope it may all be made up; I’m sure it will; and, oh! Dulcibella, I have been the cause of so much sorrow and bitterness!”

She stopped suddenly, her eyes full of tears; but she restrained them.

“That’s the wa............