claimed. "In books you accept everything; the wildest, most unheard-of incidents. But when the possibilities of real life are described, you shrug your shoulders. I am sorry I gave the rein to my imagination."

"For my Henriette !"

The room was full of the odor of the fir branches, which always, no matter how old we may be, recalls the memories of childhood, but the apartment was empty. Where were the children? and

66

Suppose it should be so," I continued; "suppose a combination of circumstances and accidents should have saved your wife-upon my honor, I believe you would be less able to bear the shock of joy than that of sorrow. Don't be vexed, you have not been man enough to consider every pro and con of possibility. You have not the courage of hope."

"Torture me no more!" exclaimed Bromsel.

"But, my dear fellow, I think it is my duty to torture you," I replied. "You ought not-must not let all hope disappear. You must hope; and -I'll claim poetic license-are you a man who could bear the sight of one risen from the dead? Not in a month, a fortnight, perhaps—"

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Bromsel bitterly. Would it were this hour, this moment. I don't believe in ghosts. My Henriette"-his voice trembled "I would not fear if she had risen from the dead."

"I believe you," I answered. "No, no, no!"

This reiterated "No" sounded to me like the voice of firm conviction.

"If it were possible? If any accident were possible that would take the place of a miracle! O God, my happiness would be so great that I should kneel before it, like the devotee at an altar !"

His voice had grown calmer. I uttered a sigh

of relief.

"The children will fall asleep," I said, glancing at my watch. "It's already eight o'clock, and the little ones' impatience seems to have exhausted itself. Come, let us light the candles on the Christmas-tree.

We rose. The room where the tree was placed adjoined the sitting-room. We opened the door. The candles on the tree were already burning; the table containing the children's presents stood before us with the glittering tree at one end. Directly in front lay a costly set of furs Bromsel had bought for his wife a few weeks before. A note was attached, on which were the words:

Tears gushed from Bromsel's eyes as he saw the gift intended for his wife and read the label written by his own hand. He had forgotten that he had prepared this torture for himself on Christmas Eve.

Suddenly the branches of the Christmas-tree seemed to rustle. No! Yes! The boughs trembled, the lights flickered, and Gretchen appeared from behind the tree, saying:

"You'll have the best Christmas present, papa." And behind Gretchen, out from the shadow cast by the Christmas tree, came Curt and Eugene, and between them-Henriette !

A shriek echoed on the air, and Bromsel was clasped in his wife's arms. Restraint was no longer possible. The children had recited the small parts taught them in the nursery by “Uncle Schmidt" and now were frolicking around the Christmas-tree, snatching at their gifts. Uncle Schmidt had also emerged from behind the tree and held out his hand to me.

Noise and shouts from the children; two men cordially pressing each other's hands and seeming to say, "We have managed all right." For the reader has doubtless already guessed that the "messenger from the hotel," to whom the servant called me, was no other than Uncle Schmidt, who had met Henriette in Hamburg. The husband and wife remained clasped in a silent embrace for several minutes.

This was the picture under the fir-tree. Uncle Schmidt came forward and said to Bromsel:

"Your friend has prepared you, I see. Everything happened just as he told you. But now, children, I'm almost starved. I hope you've left something for me to eat. I forgot to bring you any presents, but you see heaven led me to one gift, and you must all be satisfied with that."

A happier Christmas Eve was never celebrated anywhere on earth than in my friend Bromsel's house in B, in the year 186-.

Just ten years later, on Christmas Eve, I myself sat alone, weeping for a dead wife, who did not

return.

CHAPTER XXVI.-RANDULF.

When people began to stroll in to the very late breakfast at Danesdale Castle, not a lady was to be seen among them, save one intrepid damsel, equally renowned for her prowess in the chase, and her unwearying fleetness in the ball-room.

As she appeared in hat and habit, she was greeted with something like applause, which was renewed when she announced that she had every intention of sharing the day's run. Sir Gabriel, in his pink (for no ball would have caused him to be absent at the meet), gallantly placed her beside himself, and apologized for his daughter's absence.

"Philippa has no 'go' left in her after these stirs," he remarked, "and a day's hunting takes her a week to get over; but I'm glad to see that you are less delicate, my dear."

"We shall not have many ladies, I think," said she, smiling, and looking round upon the thinned ranks of the veterans.

Here the door opened, just as breakfast was nearly over, and Sir Gabriel paused in astonishment in the midst of his meal.

"What, Ran? You!" he ejaculated, as his son entered equipped, he also, for riding to hounds. "The last thing I should have expected. If any one had asked me, I should have said you were safe in bed till lunch-time."

"You would have been wrong, it seems," replied Randulf, on whom the exertions of the previous evening appeared to have had worse effects than they had upon Miss Bird, the brightlooking girl who was going to ride.

Miss Bird was an heiress; the same pretty girl with whom Randulf had been walking about the ball-room the night before, when Aglionby had come to call Lizzie away.

Randulf himself looked pale, and almost haggard, and was listless and drawling beyond his

ing with joy every time his eyes met those of his "lad." He looked also more kindly than ever upon Miss Bird, who was a favorite of his, more especially when Randulf carried his cup of tea round the table and dropped into the vacant place by her side.

The meet took place at a certain park a couple of miles from Danesdale Castle, and soon after breakfast a procession of six-Miss Bird, Sir Gabriel, his son, and three other men who were of their party-set off for it. It was a still, cloudy day, with a gray sky and lowering clouds, which, however, were pretty high, for all the hill-tops were clear.

That was a long and memorable run in the annals of Danesdale fox-hunting-" a very devil of a fox!" as Sir Gabriel said, which led them a cruel and complicated chase over some of the roughest country in the district. Sir Gabriel, as will easily be understood, was a keen sportsman himself, and had been a little disappointed with Randulf's apparent indifference to fox or any other hunting. He had put it down to his long sojourn abroad with people who, according to Sir Gabriel's ideas, knew no more about hunting than a London street-Arab does, who has never stepped on anything but flags in his life. thing but flags in his life. He had always trusted. that the boy would mend of such outlandish indifference, and he certainly had no cause to complain of his lack of spirit to-day.

Sir Gabriel was lost in amazement. He could not understand the lad. Randulf's face-the pale face which he had brought with him into the breakfast-room-never flushed in the least: his eyebrows met in a straight line across his forehead. He seemed to look neither to right nor to left, but urged his horse relentlessly at every chance of a leap, big or little, but the uglier and bigger the better it seemed, till his father, watching him, began to feel less puzzled than indignant. A good day's run, Sir Gabriel would have argued, was a good day's run; but to drive your horse willfully and wantonly at fences which might have been piled by Satan himself, and at gaps constructed

apparently on the most hideous of man-and-horsetrap principles, went against all the baronet's tra ditions for all his life he had been very "merciful to his beast," holding his horse in almost as much respect as himself. He had always credited Randulf with the same feelings, and his conduct this day was bewildering, to say the least of it.

As Sir Gabriel and Miss Bird happened to be running almost neck and neck through a sloping field, -the chase nearly at an end, the fox in full view at last, with the hounds in mad eagerness at his heels,-suddenly a horseman flew past them, making straight for a most hideous-looking bit of fence, on the other side of which was the bed of a beck, full of loose stones, and in which the water, in this winter season, rushed along, both broad and deep.

All day long a feeling of uneasiness had possessed Sir Gabriel; this put the climax to it. Forgetting the glorious finish, now so near, he pulled his horse up short, crying:

"Good God! Is he mad?" Miss Bird also wondered if he were mad, but put her own horse, without stopping, at a more reasonable-looking gap, considerably to the left side of the fence Randulf was taking.

Two seconds of horrible suspense, and-yes, his horse landed lightly and safely at the other side. Sir Gabriel wiped the sweat from his brow, and caring nothing for the "finish" or anything else, rode limply on to where, not Randulf, but another, was presenting the brush to the amiable Miss Bird.

"What the devil do you mean, sir, by riding at a fence like that, and frightening me out of my senses ?" growled Sir Gabriel, at his son's elbow.

The latter looked round, with the same white, pallid face, and far-off eyes, which the father had already noticed, and which had filled him with vague and nameless alarm. Randulf passed his hand across his eyes, and said:

The laughter and jesting and joyous bustle of the finish were sounding all round them. No one took much notice of the two figures apart, apparently earnestly conversing. Neither Sir Gabriel nor Randulf was given to displaying his feelings openly in public, but Randulf knew, as well as if some one were constantly shouting it aloud from the house-tops, that his father worshiped him-that he was the light of his eyes and the joy of his life, and that to give him any real joy he would have sacrificed most things dear to him. And Sir Gabriel knew that his worship was not wasted upon any idol of clay or wood-that it fell gratefully into a heart which could appreciate and understand it. During the last month it had occasionally crossed his mind that Randulf was a little absent somewhat more listless and indifferent than usual; but the baronet had himself been unusually busy with magisterial and other concerns, and had scarcely had time to remark the subtle change. Of one thing he was now certain, that Randulf, as he saw him now, was a changed man from what he had been four-and-twenty hours ago. The poor old man felt hopelessly distressed. He knew not how to force the truth from a man who looked at him and said nothing ailed him, when it was patent to the meanest comprehension that, on the contrary, something very serious ailed him. He sat on his horse, looking wistfully into Randulf's face. The groups were dispersing. The young man, at last looking up, seemed to read what was passing in his father's mind, and said: Could we

"I have something to say to you. manage to ride home alone? How will Miss Bird do?"

Sir Gabriel's face brightened quickly. If Randulf had "something to say" to him, no doubt that communication would quickly put to rights all these shadowy disquietudes which troubled him.

"I'll arrange for Miss Bird to be escorted," he said; and, turning round, he requested the man who had already presented her with the brush, to see her safely to Danesdale Castle, as a matter of business obliged him and Randulf to ride home by Scar Foot.

The youth yielded a joyful assent, and went off rejoicing in charge of his "fair." Sir Gabriel and Randulf, with a general "Good-afternoon" to the rest of the party, turned their horses'

heads in a southerly direction.

Scar Foot was a little distance away, farther south, and then there were ten miles to ride to Danesdale Castle. They soon found themselves in a deep lane, beneath the gray and clouded afternoon sky of New Year's Day. Behind them, Addlebrough reared his bleak, blunt summit, and the other fells around looked sullen under the sullen sky. It was Randulf who had proposed the ride, but still he did not speak, till Sir Gabriel asked, in a voice which he strove to make indifferent: "What did you make of the dance last night, Randulf? Philippa informed me before she went to bed that it had been a success."

"A success, was it?" said Randulf indifferently. "I'm glad to hear it, I'm sure. I don't know anything about it."

Randulf remembered certain other rides he had taken along this road, and walks too, which he had had there. He glanced toward his father, and in that kindly face he read trouble and perturbation: he knew that that brave old head was filled with plans for his happiness, his welfarewith schemes for securing gladness to him long after those white hairs should be laid low. Yet it was long before he could summon up words in which to answer his father's last remark. At last he said:

"I know what you mean, sir: I wish I could gratify you, but you must not expect me to marry yet."

Deep disappointment fell like a cloud over Sir Gabriel's face, as he said:

"Boy, boy! was that what you brought me out

"Partly; not altogether. It was because I

for a man of that calibre to make! It shows what soft spots there are in the strongest heads."

Silence again for a short time, until Sir Gabriel, resolutely plunging into a serious topic, said: "Well, surely there were lots of nice girls there. Did none of them strike your fancy?"

"Surely I've seen most of them before." "Well, I'll tell you which girl I like the best of the lot. I wish you could see her in the light I should like, Randulf."

"And which is she?" asked Randulf, with a sudden appearance of animation and eagerness. "Evelyn Bird."

"Oh!" There was profound indifference in Randulf's tone. Sir Gabriel went on steadily:

"It is time, without any jesting, that you began to think about marrying. I've thought about it often lately. An only son is in a different position from-"

Randulf looked drearily around him. They were passing the back of Scar Foot just now, and the profoundest silence seemed to reign there. Slowly their horses mounted the slope of the road which was for Randulf, and for one or two others, haunted with the memories that do not die. The lake lay below them, looking dull and dismal the ice with which it had been covered turning rapidly to slush in the thaw-wind-its wall of naked fells uncheered by even a ray of sunshine.

He paused. "A clean breast of it?" Vague visions of dread floated through Sir Gabriel's mind-dreams of foreign adventuresses who entrapped innocent youths into marriages which were a curse and a clog to them all their days. Was his boy, of whom he was so proud, going to unfold some such history to him now? Randulf's next words somewhat relieved him:

"I know you wish me to marry, and I know the sort of girl you would like me to marry, but surely you would not have denied me some tether —some free choice of my own?"

"Bless the lad! Of course not. Every Englishman chooses his own wife, and with the example before me of old John, and the results of his severity”

"Just so," said Randulf, with rather a wan smile. "I've had something on my mind for a good while now. I wanted to marry too. My only doubt was, what you would say to the girl I wanted to have, and I fully meant to talk it all over with you, and tell you all about it, before I did anything." Randulf raised his eyes full to his father's anxious face. "I wanted to marry Delphine Conisbrough." "Good Lord!" broke involuntarily from Sir Gabriel.

"You don't know her much, I think. I was not going to do anything rashly. For though I love her,-better than my life,-I knew that who

ever I married, you must have a great deal to say in the matter-as it is right you should. I in tended to get you to see her, to learn to know her a little better, before you said anything one way or another. You would have consented to my wish-most certainly you would have consented. I heard what you said about her last night, to her sister-about some men's heads being turned by her beauty. Ah, it's not only her beauty-it is everything. But if it were only that, you cannot deny that she surpassed all the women there, in looks ?"

He turned to his father with a sort of challenge in his voice and eyes.

"Well, who wants to deny it?" said Sir Gabriel. I own I was enchanted with her, and, as you say, not only with her beauty. But you must remember, my boy, that you have to think not only— "I know, I know," said Randulf, with a little laugh, not of the gayest description. "I had to think that if she had been one of this abominable old Aglionby's heiresses it would have been the most suitable thing in the world. But she just missed it—and of course a miss is as good as a mile. She was not so worthy of a wealthy young Admirable Crichton like me, in her poverty, as she might have been with the money and the acres. Bah!" He set his teeth, choking back a kind of sob of indignant passion at the picture his own fancy had conjured up, so that Sir Gabriel became very grave, realizing that it was more than a mere flirtation or a passing fancy. "I tell you she would have honored any man by becoming his wife. But that's not to the point. I had duties toward you toward the best father a fellow ever had-and I knew it, and was resolved to have it out with you.'

"And suppose I had refused ?”

"But you would have seen her, as I wished ?" "Naturally. But I might still have refused, finally. What did you propose to do in that case ?"

"I wish you wouldn't ask me. I didn't propose to do anything-only I felt that if she would be my wife, my wife she should be, against all the world."

"Well ?" said Sir Gabriel, with a sigh; "and what next?"

"The next is, that last night I lost my head the moment I saw her. From the instant she came into the room, I knew nothing, except that

she was there. It was not of my own will that I left her side for an instant. She sent me away many times, and told me to attend to what she called my duties. Well-there's no good in describing it all. I don't know what I may have done or said, or looked like; a man doesn't know, when he's off his head like that. But she took the alarm, and asked me to take her back to Mrs. Malleson. She got up, and wanted to go out of the room. We were alone in my study

"The deuce you were!" said Sir Gabriel, in displeasure.

I had no

"Yes, I know it was all wrong. business to take her there. I had no business to do anything that I did. I can't exactly remember what I had said, but I saw her turn red and white, and then she started up, and said, 'You must not say those things to me. Take me to Mrs. Malleson, please, Mr. Danesdale.' I begged her to wait a moment. She said no, if I would not take her she would go alone. I said she should not go yet, and I set my back against the door, and told her she should not leave that room till she had promised to be my wife."

"Well ?" was all his father said, but he watched askance his son's face.

He could not understand it all. Randulf did not tell his tale by any means joyously. His words came from between his clenched teeth; his brow wore a dark frown, and his nostrils quivered now and then.

"If I had done wrong," Randulf went on, "I got my punishment pretty quickly, for she sat down again and looked at me, and said as composedly as possible, 'No, that can never be.' I had expected a different answer-yes, by ———— I had!" he said passionately. "I could have sworn from a thousand signs that she loved me, and she is no silly prude-pure-minded women never are prudes. And it was not coquetry. She could not coquette a man in such a case. I felt as if she had shot me when she said that. There was a scene. I don't deny it. I forgot you-I forgot everything except that I loved her. I couldn't take her answer-I would not. I begged her to tell me why she could not be my wife. First she made some objections about you; she said I had done wrong to ask her in that way. What would Sir Gabriel say? She reminded me that I was an only son"-he laughed again. "I put all that aside. I told her it was no question of fathers