CHAPTER VIII.

GOOD NIGHT, GOOD REST. AH ! NEITHER BE MY SHARE.'

MAURICE CLISSOLD sat for some time, smoking and musing by the hearth-sat till the light faded outside the diamond-paned windows, and the shadows deepened within the room. He might have sat on longer had he not been surprised by the opening of a door in that angle of the hall which was sacred to age and infirmity in the person of old Mrs. Trevanard.

It was the door of her room which had opened. 'Have they come back yet?' asked her feeble old voice.

'No, ma'am,' answered Maurice, not yet. Can I do anything for you?'

'No, sir.

Mr.'

It's the strange gentleman, Mr.

'Clissold. Yes, ma'am. Won't you come to your

old place by the fire?'

'No; I've my fire in here, thank you kindly. But the place seems lonesome when they're away. I'm not much of a one to talk myself, but I like to hear voices. The hours seem so long without them. You can come in, if you please, sir. My room is kept pretty tidy, I believe; I should fret if I thought it wasn't.'

The old woman was standing on the threshold of the door opening between the two rooms.

bad risen to offer her assistance.

Maurice

'Come in and sit down a bit,' she said, pleased at having found some one to talk to, for it was a notorious fact at Borcel End that old Mrs. Trevanard always had a great deal more to say for herself when her daughter-in-law was out of the way than she had in the somewhat freezing presence of that admirable housewife.

Maurice complied, and entered the room which he had observed through the half-glass door, a comfortable homely room enough, in the light of an excellent fire. Old Mrs. Trevanard required a great deal of warmth.

She went back to her arm-chair, and motioned

her visitor to a seat on the other side of the hearth.

'It's very kind of you to be troubled with an old woman like me,' she mumbled.

'I dare say you could tell me plenty of interesting stories about Borcel End if you were inclined, Mrs. Trevanard,' said Maurice.

Ah, there's few houses without a history; few

women of my age that haven't seen a good deal of family troubles and family secrets.

The best thing

an old woman can do is to hold her tongue.

That's

what my daughter-in-law's always telling me. “Least said, soonest mended."'

'Ah,' thought Maurice, 'the dowager has been warned against being over-communicative.'

Contemplating the room more at his leisure now than he had done from outside, he perceived a picture hanging over the chimney-piece which he had not noticed before. It was a commonplace portrait enough, by some provincial limner's hand, the portrait of a young woman in a gipsy hat and flowered damask gown-a picture that was perhaps a century old.

Is that picture over the chimney a portrait of one of your son's family, ma'am?' asked Maurice.

'Yes. That's my husband's mother, Justina Trevanard.'

Justina. The name startled him-so uncommon a name—and to find it here in the Trevanard family.

'That's a curious name,' he said, 'and one which recalls a person I met under peculiar circumstances. Have you had many Justinas in the Trevanard family since that day?'

'No, there was never anybody christened after her.'

'I met your granddaughter in the garden the other night, Mrs. Trevanard,' said Maurice, determined to find out whether this blind woman was a friend to Muriel, and I was grieved to see her in so sad a condition.'

'Muriel. Yes, poor girl, it's very sad-sad for all of us,' answered the old woman, with a sigh, 'saddest of all for her father. He was so proud of that girl -spared no money to make her a lady, and now

he can't bear to see her. It wounds him too deep to see such a wreck. Yet he won't have her away from the house. He likes to know that she's near him, and as well cared for as she can be-in her state.'

'It must have been a great sorrow that so changed her?'

'It was more sorrow than she could bear, poor child; though others have borne harder things.'

'She was crossed in love, her brother told me.' 'Yes, yes-crossed in love, that was it. The young man that she loved died young, and she was told of it suddenly. The shock turned her brain. She had a fever, and every one thought she was going to die. She got the better of the illness, but her senses never came back to her. She's quite harmless, as you've seen, I dare say; but she has her fancies, and one is to think that the young man she was fond of is still alive, and that he'll keep his promise and come back to her.'

Maurice told Mrs. Trevanard of his first night at Borcel End, and the intrusion which had shortened his slumbers.