ture of baffled enmity and unmitigated woe. Neither was the Abigail's mistress happy; oh, no! I soon found that out; I soon perceived that my aunt derived not the slightest satisfaction from the gaieties and the frivolities in which she so largely participated. At times she seemed roused from her wonted passive sadness, and almost at home in the gay circle in which she moved; and then she became brilliant, and her wonderful powers of conversation were developed to the admiration of all, and to the profound astonishment of many who knew her only as the proud, reserved, and almost taciturn Mrs. Ryland. When she chose thus to exert herself, she possessed a wonderful power of fascination; her still beautiful face lost its cold, quiet, impenetrable expression; her dark eyes lighted up with a radiance and splendour that I have never observed in any other person; and, like a transient glow of red sunlight on fading woodlands at the close of a day of storm and gloom, came the bright flush to her pale, thin cheek.

But these moments of unbending were few and far between, and they were evanescent as the glories of sunset clouds; and when the brief, feverish excitement had subsided, it left her colder, sadder, and more silent than before. But she was willing that I should please myself with other society than hers; and very soon I had quite a number of friends and acquaintances, with whom I spent much of my time, while my aunt remained in the house, occupied with an interminable piece of embroidery,

or sat with her book and her parasol in some shel

seldom turning a page, drearily over the wide No, she was not happy

tered spot on the beach, and looking listlessly and waste of moaning waters. -her riches could not confer happiness: sometimes I thought and the thought grew, and was strengthened from day to day-that she was intensely miserable.

And for myself-after the first week of gaiety I grew exceedingly tired of sea-side dissipation; I actually found myself rising late, in order to make the long day shorter; and I was wearied to death with ringing the changes on bathing, dressing, promenading, reading third-rate novels, and chattering all kinds of silliness. Before the end of August I had made up my mind that a life of indolent pleasure-seeking and empty frivolities would make me happy. Again I was foiled; I must search farther, and in a different direction.

never

We lingered at Scarby till quite the end of September, and beautiful weather we had; but towards the close of the month the equinoctial gales set in, and swept the shore with unexampled fury. One Saturday afternoon in particular-I shall never forget it-we were driven in, my young companions and I, by a sudden storm of wind and rain that seemed to come from the cold, cheerless north-east. We were glad to find ourselves under cover, and to see a bright fire blazing in the long-disused grate, for the evening promised to be wet and tempestuous. As the weather did not improve, my friends went

home to their own lodgings, all close at hand, for
there seemed every prospect of a terrific hurricane
and a deluge of rain. My aunt sat by the fire,
sad and silent, more gloomy, I thought, than ever;
and I took my novel, and seated myself close to
the window, where I could watch the gathering of
the storm. It was with a mingled interest and
dread that I gazed on
the livid clouds slowly
rising from the sea-such clouds as I had never
seen before, leaden-coloured, and pale yellow, with
here and there strange wild rifts, with coppery
edges, and

"Ragged rims of thunder brooding low,
With shadow-streaks of rain."

Slowly, slowly came the threatening clouds. The waves beneath were black with a Stygian blackness, each one crested with a wreath of boiling, snowy foam-like the manes of wild white horses, as one of our poets describes it; and along the shore, on the cliffs and caves, and on the firbelted hills, there was a strange, unearthly light, as if all Nature had suddenly changed her vivid tints for Indian ink and pale sepia.

"There is an awful storm coming," I said to my aunt, who scarcely seemed to notice the increasing gloom; our drawing-room was so dark-and it was only a little past five-that I was obliged to close my book from sheer inability to see the clear, boldtyped lines.

She rose when I spoke, and came to the window. "Yes," she said, "there is every sign of tempest;

and I heard one of the fishermen say at noon, that the boats would not be able to go out with the evening tide, and-hark! I hear the thunder!"

I listened; but I could not tell whether it was the deep booming of the angry sea, or the hollow sound of the wind, or the actual thunder itself; but presently there came a flash, and then an undeniable peal, and, at the same moment, the mighty blast swept in with tenfold force and fury, and the great waves tossed themselves like living things, lashed to maddest rage, on the black jagged rocks of the coast. The uproar was terrific: faster and louder came the heavy-rolling thunder; higher foamed the inky waters with a roar that seemed to shake the solid earth; and the sound of that mighty wind was like nothing I had ever heard before, and like nothing I have heard since. And ever and anon came pale flashes from the rifts of spectral-like cloud, that now, torn in a hundred pieces, had assumed the wildest and most fantastic shapes.

From one of these wild rifts there shone forth a line of lurid ghastly light, and in its pale beam stood Mrs. Ryland, her dark hair and eyes, and her white, marble-like face, wearing, as it seemed to me, an almost unearthly expression. I shuddered, and felt quite frightened under that awful sky, and that stormy, inexpressibly-dreary gaze.

We watched till it grew quite dark, and then the curtains were drawn, and the candles lighted, and Mrs. Ryland went back to the fire, and sat down, more silent and gloomy than before. All the evening

G

she sat there, quite still, rarely speaking, her eyes wandering out into the darkness through a little side-window, where there was no blind, and her white hands solemnly clasped on her black dress. I thought, as I looked at her-so might the unhappy Lady Alice have looked, sitting, for stern penance, in the scene of her crimes.

I,

Once I found my way into the kitchen, and there were gathered the landlady and her maids, and some neighbours; and they were telling tales of former tempests, when houses had been blown down, and stacks of chimneys swept away, and ships cast upon. the rocky shore; and every now and then the maids ejaculated, "Poor souls at sea!" It is strange how terror and danger level all distinctions of rank. who had never spent three consecutive minutes in the kitchen before, was now glad to accept our landlady's invitation to sit down there, and form one of a frightened, anxious, excited group. More than once we heard the crash of tiles and the fall of masonry; and when the door was opened, the blast rushed in like a giant that would not be defied; and we thought it would be torn from its hinges before the servants could succeed in closing it again. I went back upstairs at last, taking for my consolation the landlady's assurance that the house would never stand till morning.

It did stand, however; and towards midnight the rain ceased and the wind fell; but no one in Scarby Sunday morning rose

slept very soundly, I fancy.

wild and lowering; but when breakfast was over I