h;

room and pray, before starting for the church and she never came down again. When they went to seek her, my lady, she was not to be found, and never has been found till this day.

"They searched the country through, away beyond the Dart, and looked somewhat in the house; but who dreamed of her hiding herself there? Perhaps she meant to come out o' nights for food, knowing her white raiment would startle whoso saw her; though I can't think what she meant to do with herself. They did n't do their work thoroughly, Miss Miriam; one should not half break a spirit, it's labor lost.

"But young Dame Fanchon never came out again, for up there just now I found, slipped down the crack of the closet threshold, beyond reach of her little fingers, this key. She had locked herself in at the sudden freak, and dropping the key, it must have fallen there, leaving her with nothing but despair; since, if she made any efforts, the door resisted them, and there was no one to hear her cries in that far corner, had she raised her voice, if, after all, she did not choose that starvation to the other fate, and by losing the key put succor beyond her reach.

"I remember now hearing that servants, sleeping in that room, died of strange fevers or wasted away; but how it came to be guessed where she was, I never knew, though no one could tell exactly in which room she had secreted herself. But you know, Miss Miriam, murder will out. That is why Sir Rohan called Fanchon!"

"And why must you look to it?"

"Why! O, I suppose because I am a fosterbrother, though God knows there is no service too great for me to render him! Bring his house. to dust? I would die before I would do him an

"You are a very good man, Mr. Redruth," she said. "I don't believe you ever would harm Sir Rohan. I don't know how you can. Poor Fanchon! Do you suppose it was her ghost I saw in the greenhouse to-day?"

"A ghost in the daytime! Come, Miss Miriam, that's silly."

"Then sunshine and blue sky are silly. I don't believe, now, that they ever come in the night." 66 You saw a ghost?" he asked, with a singularly perturbed air.

"Why, Mr. Kedruth, you must n't laugh at me. I don't know,-yes. Was it hers?"

"Hers?—No, not her ghost,

not hers."

"Whose was it, then?" she said, rising. "How absurd I am! What would papa say? Well, I can't help it. Poor Fanchon!"

VII.

TESTIMONY.

A

FEW more days vanished like the others, when one morning Miriam said,

"Do you know, Sir Rohan, this is our anniversary? We have been here just a week, we have known each other just a week. At least it would be, if seven days made a year."

"I presume you would think me very uncourteous to say that it seems to me a year."

"Indeed I should."

"I have just begun to live; and to the little child days, you remember, are ages. I am perplexed to know why it should seem so long a time," he returned. "Possibly, because so full of happiness that it will take me a year to recall it."

"I don't know, sir. I should think you might always have your life as pleasant."

"You have found this time pleasant, then?"

"O yes indeed. All time is, to me. could help being happy where papa is."

No one

"Do you suppose happiness independent of him would be possible?"

66

"O, I hope not. I wonder, almost, how you lived before he came."

"It is not all papa, Miss Miriam," he said, quickly; but a glance at those innocent brown eyes silenced anything like compliment, and presently St. Denys entered.

"It is odd that we see nothing of Arundel," said he, after the morning salutations.

"I shouldn't be surprised," Miriam answered, "if he came to-day, it is so fine. We were talking yesterday of visiting one more celebrity, while here, Sir Rohan. Can't we go at once? Which shall it be, Trevethy stone or Tyntagel?"

"You can have both, Miss Miriam. Why not?" "It will take so long –

"And when I go to Kent you shall show me every hop-field in the comity, I shall be in no hurry."

"But when we are there, will you ever come to Kent?"

"It is my turn to ask now,-'Do you really want me?" "