from the grass, and from the heathery heights of the mountains was borne, ever and anon, the wild beck of the feeding grouse. And still Helen slept, and very fair she looked, her face almost child-like in its calm repose, her cheeks all flushed with sleep, and a tear-drop still gleaming on the long dark eyelashes which now rested so calmly on them. Suddenly a bell clanged through the house, Helen awoke with a start, sat up, and gazed in the bewilderment of that strange state between sleeping and waking, around the room. The fresh air, and the sweet fragrance of the monthly-roses seemed by degrees to dispel from her remembrance the passionate grief of the evening before. She was still contemplating, with a pleasure she could scarcely understand, the snug little chamber, which was to be her own particular abode in this new home, when she was completely aroused by a knock at the door, followed by the entrance of Jessie.

"Oh, Miss Carrock, please, Madam has sent me to see if you are ready. She has had prayers, and is waiting breakfast for you and the young gentleman. Oh, miss!" (seeing Helen still in bed,) "an' are ye not up yet? Dear heart! what will Madam say? and she so particular! I ca'd ye an hour since. But do, miss, let me help you to dress, and we winna mak' her bide lang afore ye're ready. I hae roused the young master, but he wadna get up, so I e'en came to you."

These words electrified Helen, for she stood in wholesome awe of the stately old grandmother of whom she had heard so little, and that not much in favour of her gentleness; so springing out of bed, she allowed Jessie to help her with her toilet, which was soon finished, and then hastening into Ronald's room, she found that he too was nearly ready.

I say, Helen," were his words to his sister as they went down stairs, "I suppose her majesty will be in a fine bate at being kept waiting, but I can tell her she might have waited till Doomsday if it hadn't been for you. It was only to save you breaking your heart over my disgrace, that I got up when I did. Why, I say" (catching sight of a cuckoo-clock in the hall, which was just beginning its "wood-notes wild") "it's only nine o'clock yet! Don't I call it a shame to drag a fellow out of bed at this time in the morning after such a long journey? Now Helen, look out, we are about to enter the royal presence of her highmightiness Queen Elizabeth !"

They entered the library, and Helen, in spite of her uneasiness,

could scarcely suppress a smile on seeing Mrs. Carrock, seated at the head of her breakfast-table, in stern guardianship over the cups and saucers, coffee, and bread-and-butter, and looking no bad personification of the stately queen, to whom saucy Ronald had just compared her.

"Do not let this happen again," was her greeting to her grandchildren; "I expect to see you both down to prayers every morning at eight o'clock, breakfast is at half-past. I cannot have the whole house disarranged that you may lie in bed. Next time you are late, pray do not expect me to wait for you. Now sit down."

Ronald stole a glance at Helen as they took their places, which nearly made her laugh in spite of herself; but fortunately she smothered it in a long draught of new milk, and was able to listen with a grave face while Mrs. Carrock gave them a long lecture on the rules of her house, which lasted during the whole of breakfast time, and ended by her saying,

"I shall give you a paper, Helen, with regulations for the division of your time, which I beg you will strictly adhere to. As for you, Ronald, I have made arrangements with Dr. Randall, head master of the Langford Grammar School, where your father and many of your ancestors were educated, for receiving you into his school during the time you reside with me, previous to your going back to sea. And now, children," she concluded, rising as she spoke, "go at once to your rooms and unpack, and mind that everything is always neat there. You, Helen, must make your own bed every morning; Ronald being a boy, I do not require it of him."

Helen coloured on hearing this order, for it was what she had never been accustomed to, and a foolish pride made her very unwilling to obey. Ronald raised his eyebrows significantly, and as soon as Mrs. Carrock was out of the room burst out with,

'I say, what a shame! Why should my sister be made to do a servant's work? 'Ronald, being a boy, is excused.' Indeed, her majesty needn't have troubled to say so. Catch me making my bed, I say! And so I've to go to old Randall's school. Fancy being taught by that old fellow father used to tell us so much about! Shut up, Helen, I won't have you lecturing me too, it's lucky I'm going to sea next year. All right. You may unpack my clothes and welcome, I shall go out a bit."

So saying he ran into the hall, snatched up his cap, and left the

house, shutting the door with a bang, which reached Mrs. M'Nab's ears, and caused her to exclaim,

"Drat them bairns, what for canna they shut a door saftly, instead o' clashing it to in sich an awesome way? Eh whow, sich a life!"

Helen went up stairs, and was soon absorbed in her unpacking. Though not fond of household work, and given to a heedless way of throwing down her things when anything more interesting came in the way, Helen was not by any means what you would call an untidy girl, and on occasions like the present, when, as Ronald would have said, she was in an orderly humour, she took a pride in having everything nice. Even her grandmother's exquisite sense of order could not have been shocked at the way in which the piles of linen were arranged, each set by itself, in a deep drawer, though Helen's fancy of strewing handfuls of pink rose leaves over the whole, might not have pleased her equally well, for the stern old lady had no patience with anything which savoured of poetry or romance, with which qualities Helen was, unfortunately for her chance of finding favour in Mrs. Carrock's eyes, deeply imbued. The linen thus satisfactorily disposed of, Helen's by no means extensive stock of dresses was neatly arranged in another drawer or hung up in a little cupboard in the wall. A delicate green and white muslin, and an apple-blossom pink, apparently quite new, brought a sigh from their owner, and caused her to glance sadly at her black dress, but she put them quickly away, and hastened to unlock the last of her boxes, a strong deal one, which contained what was of far more value in Helen's eyes than all the apparel in the universeher precious books. With what fond anxiety did she gaze at their well-known bindings, in order to satisfy herself that they had not come to grief during the rough tossing about, which the case containing them had experienced at the hands of railway porters and cabmen. I am afraid much time was wasted whilst our heroine, on her knees before the box, re-read little favourite bits from Sir Walter Scott's poems, whose stirring numbers had so often called up the crimson to the cheek of this, his enthusiastic young admirer, and made her breath come fast. Charge, Chester, charge! on Stanley, on!" murmured Helen to herself as she closed the precious volume and laid it tenderly on a shelf above the chest of drawers. Next followed a well-read copy of The Monastery," a tale which was a great favourite with her, from the mysterious, unaccounted-for spirits which haunt its pages, and which had a strange fascination for her vivid imagination.

66

"The

Abbot," with its sad, touching story of the beautiful, ill-fated queen, who had always been Helen's favourite female character in history, came next; then a volume of Tennyson's poems, so enchanting in their musical pathos and delicately-painted imagery; Shakespeare's grand, world-famed plays; a tiny purple copy of Keble's "Christian Year;" Miss Yonge's beautiful, unrivalled "Heir of Redclyffe," over which Helen had shed many a secret tear; a few German and French books, left her by a little companion, who had died young; Hans Andersen's "Fairy Tales," the delight of her childhood; Dr. Hook's "Meditations for Every Day;" and last, though more precious than all, her mother's Bible, with all its pencil-marks, and pages stained with tears, dropped in hours of pain and loneliness, over the words that had brought comfort.

These treasured volumes having been arranged to her satisfaction, two desks were next brought forth from the box-one had been her mother's, and contained so many private papers and old letters, that Helen had not yet felt courage to unlock the repository of what seemed to her the secret thoughts and sacred inner life of her dearly-loved mother. Reverently she placed the brass-clamped ebony box on a shelf of her cupboard, and turned to her own old desk, which had been her father's present, as a reward for the first letter in large round-hand which he had received from his little daughter. It held treasures which she would not for the world have had touched by any hand but her own. Old verses addressed to "The Queen of Night," "The Morning Star," &c., and lines written in a scrawling, childish hand on the death of a pet bird; rhymes, whose unequal metre Helen had become ashamed of, and only treasured as fond memorials of the days "when I could do no better," as she often said to herself. Then there was a tragedy on the death of Charles I., for whose memory she entertained a devotion much like that of "Guy" in her favourite "Heir of Redclyffe." Besides these, there were several poems of a later date, which really showed signs of a wild, untutored genius here and there, like rough, uncut diamonds, buried in a mass of worthless rubbish.

From a heap of papers covered with unfinished scraps of this sort, Helen disinterred a little red book with "My Diary" in old English characters inscribed on the fly-leaf. Seizing a pen, she made a long entry, resting the book on her knee, and writing very fast. This consumed at least a quarter of an hour, and before she had finished, the

cuckoo-clock in the hall chimed twelve. "Oh, dear," thought Helen, jumping up hurriedly, and putting away her desk in the closet-" so late already; I must be quick, for we dine at one, I believe;" and on she went with her work. Her Church Service, her work-box, and countless little odds and ends, came out of that by no means large case, in which it is a wonder how she got them all packed. Then was brought to light another possession of her mother's, which she had not yet trusted herself to unlock-a splendid sandal-wood Indian dressingcase, inlaid with ivory and silver, Wilfred Carrock's wedding-gift to his bride. This Helen placed on the top of her chest of drawers, and dived again into her box. This time it was a small portrait in oils, which she took out. It represented the head of a very lovely girl, whose long fair hair-several shades lighter than Helen's, but of the same sunny hue-flowed away from her face, as if blown back by the wind; she had sweet blue forget-me-not eyes, a delicately chiselled nose and chin, and a tiny rose-bud of a mouth. Yet in spite of the difference in feature, any one would have known that she was related to Helen, for she had the selfsame expression. Taking out a miniature, which was attached to a black velvet round her throat, Helen looked earnestly at the two. They were both portraits of the same person, but oh, how different! In the miniature, the lovely blooming girl had grown into a worn, delicate woman, beautiful still, but only as a drooping flower is to a fresh opening bud. The merry blue eyes had grown sweet and sad, the brilliant complexion had faded to an almost transparent whiteness, the lovely flowing tresses were bound up, and thickly streaked with grey, and every feature showed traces of illness and sorrow. Yes, "bonnie Helen Scott" had been too tender to bear the anxious lot of a sailor's wife. The lonely life which she had been compelled to lead during the long unavoidable absences of the husband who idolised her, and whom she loved with a devotion almost too intense and clinging-the hours of agony which she had gone through, whenever a storm shook her sea-side home-had been too much for her, and had killed her by slow degrees.

Helen's eyes filled as she gazed, and a mist came between her and the portraits. ‘Oh, mamma, mamma!" she whispered, in the wistful tone of the evening before, but she did not give way this time, and choking back her tears, she replaced the miniature in her bosom, and hung up the portrait where it was screened from view by her bedcurtain. Hardly was this accomplished when a loud, imperative knock