with a terror too great for words. That old man's wrinkled face was not one to be forgotten in fifteen years.

CHAPTER XXIX.

PHILIP GOES FISHING.

PHILIP had perceived, with the rest, the strange apparition which for a moment darkened the door of the inn; but, being tired with travel, it had not power to long delay the slumber which soon brought rest and pleasant dreams. When next morning he awoke the sun was shining, and his breakfast had waited an hour. In anwser to the landlady's inquisitive questions, he briefly answered he had come down for a few days* fishing, and presently he produced a telescopic fly-rod from his walking cane, and went out to the river side. All day long he lingered there, but his eyes went straying over the fields and the hill, to the dark ruin which stood frowning over the river; to a little churchyard, shadowed by dark trees, and an old ivy-covered tower half-hidden in the hollow of the hill.

It ought to have been a good day for anglers. All through it the autumn sun had shone with steady subdued light. A gentle breeze, just sufficient to rustle the alders and ripplethe clear waters of the Surf, had risen with the sun, and continued through the day. It fell a little in the afternoon, but revived in the evening, bringing with it grey, feathery clouds, which now and then veiled the sun in their soft fringes, or obscured it with their dense folds. It ought to have been a prosperous day for an angler, but ought does not always take place in matters piscatory more than in other mundane affairs, and in the evening Philip was returning to his lodgings at the Greyhound with an empty basket at his back.

With lazy steps he pursued the winding path by the river-side, whipping the water with his fly; your true angler never gives up while there is daylight left to see his line. There was a slight splash in the stream at last.

"Ah!" said Philip, "that was a trout rose then, but he only put his tail to his nose, and waddled off. I'll try you once again with a brighter fly, my friend, and if that failsI'll say there are no fish in the river worth the catching.

That old sour grapes philosophy is not such a bad thing after all. I've a great mind to adopt it for good. Back to Italy again, the old library, the old language, the old contented faces, the sunny sky and sunny earth, the old seat in the orchestra to earn me bread and wine. It were better surely than living here in purse-proud England. Suppose I gain these lands-I have no doubt they are mine-could I be happy here amongst these stupid foggyfaced people? No, there is but one face in the world that could have made this land endurable, and that I shall never see again."

A sudden jerk of his line cut short his soliloquy.

"Whiss," went the well-adjusted winch, away went the fish up the stream.

"As you please, my fine fellow, you will hardly escape this time; however fast you run your fate is determined as certainly as my own."

There is no excitement in the world so engrossing as that of the patient angler, who, after waiting hours, or days, feels at length the wily denizen of the flood tugging at his slender line, only a thread, or a single hair to hold him. Slacken it an instant or draw it one ounce too tight, and the prize is lost.

Philip had no eyes for anything but his delicate task. He was fond of flowers, but he did not heed the beautiful garden that slanted down to the river side, from a picturesque old mansion, whose vine-clad walls rose on the higher ground, between the avenues of graceful poplar trees that sentinelled it on either side. We think he was fond of pretty facescertainly of one pretty face, and it was watching him there in the dim twilight, from the garden over the river, and he did not see it. The friendly wind, fluttering and curving the graceful gossamer folds of her dress and toying, like a lover's fingers, in her long auburn tresses, that strayed in maiden liberty over her shoulders, invited his attention; but the angler never looked up from his line. Warily humouring his captive, he followed the bend of the river till he stood immediately opposite the lady. Then, when the fish began to grow tired, and turned on his side, he wound in his line, and with one dexterous sweep of the net he completed his victory, and

the monarch of the stream lay fitfully flapping his glittering sides in the long dank grass.

As Philip knelt over his prize, a stronger gust swept over the water, and the fluttering dress attracted his attention. Then his heart gave a great bound, that sent the blood blushing to his very temples, as he leapt up and bowed to Emily Aldair.

The fair spectator, now that she found herself observed, returned both his blush and his greeting, and gathered up her dress to retire. But fortune was for once propitious, and sent Zephyr in such blustering haste that Emily was compelled to let go her hold on her broad garden hat, in order to confine more decorously the rebellious raiment.

In an instant the light chapeau de poil was off, and whirling down the rapid stream. There was a loud splash, and looking back, Emily beheld the gallant angler battling stoutly with the stream for the possession of the fugitive hat. A feeling of horror seized her as she beheld him swept away by the swift current. She stood stunned and trembling, and could hardly utter the cry that shaped itself on her lips.

"Beware of the rocks, there are broken rocks in the water."

The noise of the torrent in his ears drowned her voice. Another vigorous stroke, and he had gained the hat, and waved it, dripping at arm's length, above the water. The next instant he had struck against a great boulder that protruded just above the stream, but invisible now in the twilight and the dark shadow of the trees. He sank, but rose again and struck out wildly for the bank. But he was stunned by the blow, and the rapid stream bore him helplessly away. Again he struck like a drifting vessel against the rock, and sank.

Emily ran along the bank, screaming for aid, but the dark head of the swimmer rose above the water no more.

CHAPTER XXX.

PEARL AT THE GREYHOUND.

IN the most comfortable apartment of the Greyhound, nestling in the recess of its bay window that overlooked the

HERCHE

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landscape, sat a lady with her chin resting thoughtfully on her hand, as she peered out into the dim twilight that was fast deepening into darkness.

Hour after hour she sat in the bay window of the Greyhound, waiting Philip's return, musing now with her face buried in her delicate hands, and now upraised in sweet tran quillity, as she gazed on the changing glories of the evening sky.

Slowly the dim landscape faded away, and from the broad grey horizon the gold faded away, and the stars came peeping through. Then the moon rose above the distant hills, and the landscape was once more visible, but blurred and indistinct with its own shadows, save where the river wound like a glittering serpent among the overhanging alders and osier beds. The wind had fallen and the clouds had disappeared, and the sky was as placid as Pearl's broad white brow, as she lingered patiently, waiting for Philip's return.

The hours sped on. The steeple clock chimed nine. The lights in the cottage windows went out one by one. All the world slept, except in a distant window where a light had shone all the evening, and was grown conspicuous now by its solitude.

"Ah!" she sighed, "how far that little taper throws its light! So shines a good deed in a naughty world."

The words brought tears to her eyes, for they reminded her of happier days, when it was her greatest pleasure to sit in the sunshine in a little garden, or beside a cottage fire, and read Shakespeare to dear old half blind Hubert, whom, until nearly now, she had believed to be her grandfather, and had loved with all the ardour of her yearning young heart. But he had left her in search of the secret wealth which he said was waiting in the Indies for him to claim. And he promised to return soon and make her a lady. Poor, dear, darling, old man-a lady-like Emily Aldair, with some Abraham Moss to woo and perhaps wed her—for her money. Oh that he had stayed in that humble, happy cottage home, or returned ere yet the ruddy bloom of innocent girlhood had vanished from her cheeks. Then, ah then! what might have been, and now

Unable to bear the prospect that memory conjured up, Pearl hid her face in her hands, and cried as only a lonely

woman can.

Surely nature never meant a face so lovely for grief and tears! Alas! methinks the most beautiful faces in the world are those that smile above a broken heart. Some of the ancients buried their loved ones in gardens, and we make gardens of their graves, and nature laughs into buds and blossoms above the dead. The sea rolls its sparkling waves over the dead, and the fairy face that makes he world rich with its beauty or happy with its smiles has too often, like the earth and the ocean, all unseen to us, the sacred memory of dead hopes and loves sepulchred in the silent depths below.

Meanwhile Philip, slowly waking as from a troubled dream, found himself surrounded by strange faces in a strange room, wrapped up in a blanket, and reclining on a soft luxurious couch.

"I thought I was drowned-where am I?" he asked.

"No fault of yours you were not drowned," replied a great fat man, who was energetically rubbing his feet with flannel; then, turning to the several curious faces watching him, the fat man growled

"Now, then, you jackanapes, be off about your business; he is all right now."

They were gone in a twinkling-he was evidently a man of some authority in the place.

"A parcel of fools," continued the fat man, rubbing violently with his flannels-"a parcel of nincompoops, to bring you here, just as if we had not bother enough without filling the house with wet clothes and half drowned men. Humph!"

Then, abandoning the feet, which were by this time in a pleasant glow, he addressed himself to Philip's hands, and soon restored their circulation. After that he poured a glass. of wine down his patient's throat, and smoothed his blanket, and turned him gently on his side, grumbling all the while,

to his heart's content.

“Thank you, sir, I am quite recovered now," said Philip. "O, you are, are you?-quite time, too, your clothes must