CHAPTER II.

MARCIA'S FESTIVAL.

THE widow arrived at the Abbey a day or two after the picnic on Lemley Hills, and once more Sir Jasper was gratified by the sight of that superb matron. She was looking her best, and seemed in very high spirits. The open carriage that had brought her from Roxborough station had passed the deserted Hermitage, and at sight of the closed shutters Mrs. Harding had leaned forward to speak to the servant sitting next the coachman.

"Has Mr.-Mr.-Pauncefort left Scarsdale ?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am."

"For good?"

"I believe so, ma'am."

The warm carnation of the widow's cheeks

deepened, and a bright flash of triumph illumined her eyes with a more vivid light than that which she imparted to them by the application of belladonna.

"The bolder game is always wisest," she thought. "I was half inclined to write and ask Marcia if he was still here; but that would have looked bad, and Miss Denison is very artful. Those quiet people always are artful.”

She awakened from this reverie to find herself at the foot of the broad stone stairs leading to the terrace, where Sir Jasper and his daughter awaited her coming; and in the next moment she was embracing her darling Marcia with more than ordinary effusion.

"And looking so well too, you sweet pet," she murmured fondly; "and dear Sir Jasper looks younger than ever. Ah, if you would only tell me your secret! I really should like to know how you manage it," she added archly, shaking the plumes in her dazzling bonnet coquettishly as she addressed the Baronet.

He liked it. Alas for human weakness! He

knew that she was false and hollow, the most cindery and bitter of all the fruits that ever flourished on the shores of falsehood's Dead Sea; he knew that she would have bartered her soul for any of the sordid prizes earth has to give; he knew the shallow mysteries of her mind and soul almost as fully as if he had known every secret of her life; and yet he liked her for the sake of her colour and brightness, the gaudy beauty of her face, the harmonious lines of her figure. He liked her as we like a gorgeous tropical bird, which we caress cautiously with an uncertain hand, knowing that at any moment its cruel beak may close on the fingers that are fondling it.

From the hour of the widow's arrival Marcia resigned her place as her father's companion. There are daughters who will bring to bear the patient diplomacy of a female Talleyrand against such an interloper as Mrs. Harding; but Miss Denison was quite incapable of protecting her position by any thing in the way of artifice. As she had been content to stand aside forgotten and neglected in her childhood, while her father's love

was given to a brighter rival, so was she contented to resign him now if he pleased to bestow the shallower sentiments of his empty heart upon this bold handsome stranger. For his own sake she regretted his predilection for the widow, and was prepared to expostulate with him openly on his folly if she could find the occasion for so doing without overstepping the limits of her duty as his daughter. For herself-ah, how completely all interests and affections of hers were submerged in the tide of her life's one passion! She could think of a separation from her father without a pang-she could resign herself to a lonely, desolate future without a tear. All minor sorrows were absorbed in the one mighty grief of her life, as all minor affections were merged in the one great love.

And she could feel all this, and yet endure her existence and take her place at the breakfasttable every morning, and attend to her simple domestic duties, never once letting the urn overflow the table-cloth, or putting a grain of

super

fluous sugar in her father's tea. Surely there

is something heroic in the quiet endurance of these drawing-room martyrs, who cover their stigmata with cambric and lace, and smile conventional smiles, and talk conventional talk while the wounds are still bleeding.

How many mornings Marcia Denison had discussed the aspect of the sky and the contents of the post-bag with the same polite interest in her father's conversation, while her mind was filled with the memory of some cruel dream in which she had seen him-ill, or wounded, or dying, or in danger—while an unseen influence had held her spell-bound and powerless to help him! And now that the widow had returned, poor Marcia had to endure the slow torture of a lively companion, and the prying gaze of eyes that had graduated in every school where worldly wisdom is to be learned.

"She may worm herself into my father's confidence and trade upon the weakest attributes of his character; but she shall never read my secrets or insult my sorrow by her mock sympathy," thought Miss Denison, after resist