made the face wan, the hair grey, who had broken the already sufficiently stricken heart, and had sent him to his grave before his time. "It is my fault," he spoke in his emotion. "But for me, Thomas, you might have been with us, at any rate another year or two. The trouble has told upon you."

"Yes, it has told upon me," Thomas quietly answered. There was nothing else that he could answer.

"Don't think of it, Thomas," was the imploring prayer. cannot be helped now.'

"It

"No, it cannot be helped," Thomas rejoined. But he did not add that, even now, it was disturbing his death-bed. "George," he said, taking his brother's hands, "but that it seems so great an improbability, I would ask you to repay to our poor neighbours and friends what they have lost, should it ever be in your power. Who knows but you may be rich some time? You are young and capable, and the world is before you. If so, think of them: it is my last request to you."

"It would be my own wish to do it," gravely answered George. "But do not think of it, Thomas; do not let it trouble you."

"It does not trouble me much now. The thought of the wrong inflicted on them is ever present to me, but I am content to leave that, and all else, in the care of the all-potent, ever-merciful God. He can recompense better than I could, even had I my energies and life left to me.'

There was a pause. George loosed his brother's hands and took the seat on the bench, where Margery had sat; the very seat where he had once sat with his two sticks, in his weakness, years before, when the stranger, Mr. Appleby, came up and inquired for Mr. Verrall. Why or wherefore it should have come, George could not tell, but that day flashed over his memory now. Oh, the bitter remembrance! He had been a lightsome man then, without care, free from that depressing incubus that must, or that ought to, weigh down the soulcruel wrong inflicted on his fellow-toilers in the great journey of life. And now? He had brought the evil of poverty upon himself, the taint of disgrace upon his name; he had driven his sisters from their home; had sent that fair and proud inheritance of the Godolphins, Ashlydyat, into the barter market; and had hastened the passage of his brother to the grave. Ay! dash your bright hair from your brow as you will, George Godolphin!-pass your cambric handkerchief over your heated face!-you cannot dash away the remembrance. You have done all this, and the consciousness is very present to you

now.

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Thomas Godolphin interrupted his reflections, bending towards George his wasted features. George, what are your prospects ?" "I have tried to get into something or other in London, but my trying has been useless. All the places that are worth having are so snapped up. I have been offered something in Calcutta, and I think I shall accept it. If I find that Maria has no objection to go out, I shall: I came down to-day to talk it over with her."

"Is it through Lord Averil ?"

"Yes.

He wrote to me yesterday morning before he went to

church with Cecil. I got the letter by the evening mail, and came off this morning."

"And what is the appointment? Is it in the civil service ?"

"Nothing so grand-in sound, at any rate. It's only mercantile. The situation is at an indigo merchant's, or planter's; I am not sure which. But it's a good appointment; one that a gentleman may accept; and the pay is liberal. Lord Averil urges it upon me-these merchants, they are brothers, are friends of his. If I decline it, he will try for a civil appointment for me, but to obtain one might take a considerable time: and there might be other difficulties."

"Yes," said Thomas, shortly. "By what little I can judge, this appears to me to be eligible, just what will suit you."

"I think so. If I accept it, I shall have to start with the new year. I saw the agents of this house in town this morning, and they tell me it is quite a first class appointment for a mercantile one. hope Maria will not dislike to go."

I

They sat there conversing until the sun had set. George pointed out to his brother's notice that the air was getting cold, but Thomas only smiled in answer: it was not the night air, hot or cold, that could any longer affect Thomas Godolphin. But he said that he might as well go in, and took George's arm to help his feeble steps.

"Is no one at home ?" inquired George, finding the usual sittingroom empty.

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"They are at Lady Godolphin's," replied Thomas, alluding to his sisters. Bessy goes there for good next week, and certain arrangements have to be made, so they walked over this afternoon just before you came up.”

George sat down. The finding his sisters absent was a relief: since the unhappy explosion, George had always felt as a guilty schoolboy in the presence of Janet. He remained a short while, and then rose to depart. "I'll come up and see you in the morning, Thomas." Was there any prevision of what the night would bring forth on the mind of Thomas Godolphin? It might be. He entwined in his the

hands held out to him.

"God bless you, George! God bless you, and keep you always!" And a lump, not at all familiar to George Godolphin's throat, rose in it as he went out from the presence of his brother.

II.

FOR THE LAST TIME; VERY FAINT.

Ir was one of those charmingly clear nights that bring a sensation of pleasure to the senses, Daylight could not be said to have quite faded, but the moon was up, its rays shining brighter and brighter with every departing moment of day. As George passed Lady Godolphin's Folly, Janet was coming from it.

He could not avoid her. I don't say he wished to do it, but he could not if he had wished it. They stood talking together for some time; on Thomas's state; on this Calcutta prospect of George's, for Janet had heard something of it from Lord Averil, and she questioned him

closely; on other subjects. It was growing quite night when Janet made a movement homewards, and George could do no less than attend her.

"I thought Bessy was with you," he remarked, as they walked along.

"She is remaining an hour or two longer with Lady Godolphin; but it was time I came home to Thomas. When do you say you must sail, George ?"

"The_beginning of the year. My salary will commence with the first of January, and I ought to be off that day. I don't know whether that will give Maria sufficient time for preparation."

"Sufficient time!" repeated Miss Godolphin. "Will she be wanting to take out a ship's cargo? I should think she might be ready in a tithe of it. Shall you take the child ?"

"Oh yes," he hastily answered; "I could not go without the child. And I am sure Maria would not consent to be separated from her. I hope Maria will not object to going on her own score."

"Nonsense!" returned Janet. "She will have the sense to see that it is a remarkable piece of good fortune, far better than you had any right to expect. Let me recommend you to put by half the salary, George. It is a very handsome one, and you may do it if you will. Take a lesson from the past.'

"Yes," replied George, with a twitch of conscience. "I wonder if the climate will try Maria ?"

"I judge that the change will be good for her in all ways," said Janet, emphatically. "Depend upon it she will only be too thankful to turn her back on Prior's Ash. She'll not get strong as long as she stops in it, or so long as your prospects are uncertain, doing nothing as you are now. I can't make out, for my part, how you live."

"You might easily guess that I have been helped a little, Janet." "By one that I would not be helped by if I were starving," severely rejoined Janet. "You allude, I presume, to Mr. Verrall ?"

George did allude to Mr. Verrall; but he avoided a direct answer. "All that I borrow I shall return," he said, "as soon as it is in my power to do so. It is not much: and it is given and received as a loan only. What do you think of Thomas ?" he asked, willing to change the subject.

"I think- Janet stopped. Her voice died away into an awestruck whisper, and finally ceased. They had taken the path home round by the ash-trees. The Dark Plain lay stretched before them, clear and shadowy (but that must seem a contradiction) in the moonlight. In the brightest night the gorse-bushes, with their shade, gave the place a shadowy weird-like appearance, but never had the moonlight on the plain been clearer, whiter, brighter than it was now. And the Shadow?

The ominous Shadow of Ashlydyat lay there: the Shadow which had clung to the fortunes of the Godolphins, as tradition said, in past ages; which had certainly followed the present race. But the dark blackness that had characterised it was unobservable now: the Shadow was undoubtedly there, but had eyes been looking on it, less accustomed to its form than were Miss Godolphin's, they might have failed

to make out distinctly its outlines. It was of a light, faint hue; more as the shadow of the Shadow, if I may so express it.

"George! do you notice ?" she breathed."

"I see it," he answered.

"But do you notice its peculiarity-its faint appearance? I should say-I should say that it is indeed going from us; that it must be about the last time it will follow the Godolphins. With the wresting from them of Ashlydyat the curse was to spend itself."

She had sat down on the bench underneath the ash-trees, and was speaking in a low, dreamy tone: but George heard every word, and the topic was not particularly palatable to him. He could not but remember that it was he and no other who had been the cause of the wresting from them of Ashlydyat.

"Your brother will not be here long," murmured Janet. the warning for the last chief of the Godolphins."

"That's

"Oh, Janet! I wish you were not so superstitious! Of course we know-it is patent to us all-that Thomas cannot last long: a few days, a few hours even, may close his life. Why should you connect with him that wretched Shadow ?"

"I know what I know, and I have seen what I have seen," was the reply of Janet, spoken slowly; nay, solemnly. "It is no wonder that you wish to ignore it, to affect to disbelieve in it: but you can do neither the one nor the other, George Godolphin."

George gave no answering argument. It may be that he felt he had forfeited the right to argue with Janet. She again broke the silence.

"I have watched and watched; but never once, since the day that those horrible misfortunes fell, has that Shadow appeared. I thought it had gone for good; I thought that our ruin, that the passing of Ashlydyat into the possession of strangers, was the working out of the curse. But it seems it has come again; for the last, final time, as I believe. And it is but in accordance with the past, that the type of the curse should come to shadow forth the death of the last Godolphin.”

"You are complimentary to me, Janet," cried George, good humouredly. "When poor Thomas shall have gone, I shall be here still, the last of the Godolphins."

"You!" returned Janet, and her tone of scornful contempt, unconscious as she might herself be of it, brought a sting to George's mind, a flush to his brow. "You might be worthy of the name of Godolphin once, laddie, but that's over. The last true Godolphin dies out with Thomas."

"How long are you going to sit here ?" asked George, after a time, as she gave no signs of moving.

"You need not wait," returned Janet. "I am at home now, as may be said. Don't stay, George: I would rather you did not: your wife must be expecting you."

Glad enough to be released, George went on his way, and Janet sat on, alone. With that Shadow before her-though no longer a dark one-it was impossible but that her reflections should be turned back on the unhappy past. She lost herself in a maze of perplexity-as all must do, whose thoughts roam to things "beyond their ken." Why

should this fate have overtaken the Godolphin family-the precise fate predicted for it ages ago? Why should that strange and never-to-beaccounted-for Shadow appear on the eve of evil? Could they not have gone from their fate ?-not have escaped it by any means? It seemed but a trifling thing to do for George Godolphin, to keep in the right path, instead of lapsing to the wrong one: it seemed a more trifling thing still for Sir George Godolphin to do-to quit his inheritance, Ashlydyat, for the Folly, yet upon that pivot events seemed to have turned. As it had been foretold (so ran the prediction) ages before: When the chief of Ashlydyat should quit Ashlydyat, the ruin of the Godolphins would be near. And it had proved so. "Eh me!" wailed out Janet, in her sore anguish, "we are blaming George for it all, but perhaps the lad could not go against the fate. Who knows?"

Who knew, indeed! Let us look back to some of the ruin we have witnessed; and marvel, as Janet Godolphin did, whether those whom we blame as its cause, could have " gone against their fate." There are mysteries in this world which we cannot solve: we may lose ourselves as we will in their depths-we may cast ridicule to them, or pass them over with a light laugh of irony-we may talk, in our poor inflated wisdom, of their being amenable to common laws, to be accounted for by ordinary rules of science, but we can never solve them; never fathom them, until Time shall be no more.

A great deal of this story, The Shadow of Ashlydyat, is a perfectly true one; it is but the recital of a drama of real life. And the superstition that encompasses it? ten thousand inquisitive tongues will ask. Yes, and the superstition. There are things, as I have just said, which can neither be explained nor accounted for: they are marvels, mysteries, and so they must remain. Many a family has its supernatural skeleton, religiously believed in; many a house has its one dread corner which has never been fully unclosed to the bright light of day. Say what men will to the contrary, there is a tendency in the human mind to allow the in-creeping of superstition. We cannot shut our eyes to things that occur within their view, although we may be, and always shall be, utterly unable to explain them; what they are, where they spring from, why they come. If I were to tell you that I believe there are such things as omens, warnings, which come to us-though seldom are they sufficiently marked at the time to be attended to-I should be set down as a visionary day-dreamer. I am nothing of the sort: I have my share of plain common sense, I pass my time in working, not in dreaming: I never had the gratification of seeing a ghost yet, and I wish I was as sure of a thousand pounds cadeau coming to me this moment, as I am that I never shall see one; I have not been taken into favour by the spirits, have never been promoted to so much as half a message from them-and never expect to be. But some curious incidents have forced themselves on my life's experience, causing me to echo as a question the assertion of the Prince of Denmark-Are there more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy ?

Janet Godolphin rose with a deep sigh and her weight of care. She kept her head turned to the Shadow until she had passed from its view, and then continued her way to the house, murmuring, "It's but