"SIR, the gentlemen are coming down."

"Indeed! I suppose, then, it's all over. Poor old Nancy! she will be a dreadful loss to me.' And the speaker looked up with a sigh from a volume of Greek plays, which he had been reading with evident relish.

The room in which this brief colloquy took place was a handsome and lofty, but not very spacious apartment, pannelled in oak and lined with book-cases; a massive oak table, quaintly carved, was drawn near the large old-fashioned grate, where a fire of mixed coal and wood burned brightly. Everything in the room bespoke comfort and luxury, but of the ornamental element there was not a single vestige. The original oak chair had been discarded to make way for deepcushioned loungers, and in one of these sat the master of the house, Sir Edward Ashly, his book now closed, plunged in what is commonly called "a brown study."

The servant-girl, with the uncertainty that betrayed a novice to the ways of the house, moved and replaced a tray containing wine-glasses, decanters, and biscuits, that she, a minute before, deposited on the centre table; she then busied herself in re-arranging the folds of the window curtains, glanced inquisitively from one side of the room to the other, from the huge lamp burning on the centre table, to the smaller pair on the chimney-piece, and apparently gaining no inspiration by the inspection, inquired hesitatingly:

"Anything more, sir ?"

"No," said the master, shortly; "you may go."

As he spoke, the heavy curtains that hung before the door were raised, and two gentlemen entered the room. The foremost of them looked very grave; he was a tall man with silvery hair, and his white cravat pronounced him a clergyman.

"I am glad you sent for me," he said; "the poor woman, so Dr. Nichol tells me, grew calm directly she heard I was coming, and although greatly agitated at first, her end was peace."

"She is dead, then?"

"Dead, and no mistake," observed the gentleman who had not yet spoken, rubbing his hands cheerfully, and approaching the blaze. "I never allow the parson to be summoned till all hope is over; the sight of one is two suggestive to a nervous patient. But," he added more seriously, "when I feel my efforts to be hopeless, I make way for the disciple of a better Physician."

"Poor old Nancy !" said Sir Edward, regretfully. "Well, if skill could have saved her, I am sure yours would. And now draw nearer the fire; you will require a glass of wine before venturing into the frosty air."

"You see I did not wait for an invitation," remarked the clergyman, who was already seated, "I consider myself one of the privileged few who may venture with impunity into the lion's den."

"It would be strange if you could not, Fugent," answered Sir Edward, "for, of course, by the lion you mean me. A chat over old collegedays sometimes does good even to a hermit."

66

"And what a hermit you have become !" was Mr. Nugent's reply ; it seems impossible to understand why

a man who has lived all his life in continental courts should return home merely to shut himself up."

"For that very reason you ought to understand it," answered his friend. "When I first left England, many years ago, I required the whirl of action and continual change of scene; but I was ambassador in Spain long enough to wish heartily I had never accepted the post, independent of my earlier diplomatic experiences in Turkey and Russia. Such responsibilities give a surfeit of society, I assure you, and render repose inexpressibly desirable and grateful."

"Well," here interposed the doctor, "I candidly confess that your perfect seclusion is a mystery to me; no dervish could worship solitude with more pertinacity. Of course, personally, it makes the exception in my favour the more flattering; but can you wonder at the indignation of the county when a man in in your position, Sir Edward Ashly, of Ashly Hall, indulges in such unorthodox tastes ?"

"That indignation has long ago died out," auswered Sir Edward, good-humouredly; "the world is, fortunately, very willing to forget those who forget it; my return and retirement were the conventional nine days' wonder, nothing more. Besides, I am not without companions," he added, pointing to the book-cases round the room.

"And these have been your only companions ever since you came back to England ?" the doctor said, interrogatively, his eyes following the direction indicated; "why, that must be nearly four years.'

"Just four years."

"And that during all that time you have had no other servant to wait upon you but the poor old woman lying above ?"

"No other."

"More of your eccentricity," cried Mr. Nugent. "Not only you restrict your household to one sole at

tendant, but you choose for the post the ugliest and most repulsive sample of womanhood I ever beheld. I am now merely speaking of appearances, for I remember how well and faithfully she served you, and have often remarked with astonishment her wonderful quietness and rapidity while waiting on us at table; but how could you have ever brought yourself to look at her?" There were

"Habit, I suppose.

two other servants in the house besides old Nancy; but you never saw them, for she constituted herself my special attendant, gliding about noiselessly, and keeping the others, with their creaking shoes, always in the lower regions. It was such comfort. The house might have been managed by invisible fairies, so punctually and silently everything was done."

"How much you will miss her !" said Mr. Nugent.

"More than I can tell you. When I first returned from abroad, my present head groom, who was then my valet, chose her for me from among the few that presented themselves; for there were not many willing to take service in a great, lonely country house, deserted except in one wing, without any prospect of company or variety. He chose her for the qualities which would have deterred you, and which made her so inestimable to me, her excessive ugliness, her insurmountable taciturnity, and her activity, remarkable in so old a woman; and he certainly chose well. The poor creature fell into my ways silently and at once; her seamed and scarred face was an ever-present assurance of the impossibility of lovers and interlopers; her grim determination and surliness, a guarantee of her empire below stairs; and, to give you an idea of the really unprecedented value of old Nancy, I do not remember having once exchanged as many as six words with her during the four years that she

was my exclusive and constant attendant."

Sir Edward Ashly concluded his sentence in the slow and impressive tone always adopted when the culminating point of a eulogy is reached.

Dr. Nichol smiled. "Words are as silver, but silence is as gold,'" he quoted; "I always thought, for my part, that your old servant was a mute, until called in to attend her; and I am ashamed to say, although not a timid man, that her ghastly, fossilised face used to frighten me. It is painful to think how much we are influenced by looks," the doctor said; "and in cases like the present, how unjustly so. My dear Ashly, you will find it difficult to replace, this poor woman. Such qualities as those you esteem most are rare."

"I don't expect I shall ever replace her. Already that girl who emerged from the back premises when poor Nancy gave up work, (which she did not till the last moment,) has driven me to the verge of insanity, rushing about, bustling, fussing, and actually tormenting me for orders. Orders ! Why, Nancy never asked me for an order in her life. She did everything by intuition, and never left anything undone. Poor faithful old monster, I shall miss her steady, unobtrusive services, as I would the presence of an old friend."

"How long was she ill ?" asked the rector.

"Two days," the doctor said, replying for his host. "When I was first sent for, I saw there was no hope; the frame completely shattered and worn out; and I asked the poor woman if she would like to go home. She said she had no home."

"Poor thing!" observed Sir Edward; "I did not know that; but in any case, I think it a cruelty to send a servant away for getting sick, for getting sick, as if it were a crime. Yet this is often done. For my part, I gave

orders that poor Nancy should receive as much care as myself, in proof of which she was attended by my favourite doctor."

"You could not do less, even in a human point of view," answered. Mr. Nugent; "besides, this old. woman always struck me as a perfect Cerberus of trustworthiness and vigilance; and, from what you say, she must have exceeded all I gave her credit for."

"Four years of untiring service are a great test," Sir Edward said, with a groan. "I expect I shall soon learn, to my cost, how invaluable she has been to me." "By-the-bye, what was her name?" asked the doctor; we shall want it for the burial certificate."

"I don't know," moodily replied the host, whose thoughts were occu❤ pied with his difficulty in the matter of household reorganisation; "I never heard-I always called her Nancy."

"We can easily settle that question," said the rector, producing a roll of papers from his pocket; "the poor creature's mind was sorely ill at ease; and one of her last efforts was expended in drawing this packet from under her pillow, saying it would tell all about her."

With these words, Mr. Nugent handed the papers to Sir Edward, who began listlessly to unroll them; but no sooner had his eyes fallen on the first word, than, with a smothered sound, as if he had received a heavy blow, he clutched nervously at the table, and his face, from pale, became perfectly livid. With wild eagerness he perused the documents, and when the last had been read, he raised his head, revealing to his astonished companions a face so changed as to be almost unrecog nisable-ghastly, expressionless, and awful in its vacancy. Then, before either of his friends, paralysed by the suddenness of the attack, could utter a word, his grasp relaxed, the papers fluttered to the ground, and he fell back rigid and insensible.

Both gentlemen flew to his assistance, and endeavoured to restore him, but unsuccessfully. The servant-girl nearly took leave of her senses, when summoned by Dr. Nichol, at the sight of her master, motionless and apparently dead, and threatened to faint herself, when the doctor resorted to his lancet, all simple restoratives having failed. As the blood started, in obedience to the summons, the baronet moaned and opened his eyes.

"All right!" exclaimed the doctor, twisting a handkerchief round the incision; "in a very few moments Richard will be himself again.'

"Doctor, can you account for this?" whispered Mr. Nugent, whose curiosity rose as his fears -lessened. "Was it caused by those papers ?"

"Undoubtedly. Perhaps a date, or even a stray word, may have brought too vividly before him some forgotten circumstance. Certain it is, that the mind first, and then the body, gave way under a mental shock."

"The body-yes; but the mind ?” said the rector, in a horror-struck voice. "You don't mean to say-"

"Oh! only for the moment, of course," answered the doctor. "Look at him now! in five minutes he will be as well as if nothing had happened."

"Thank God!" ejaculated Mr. Nugent, greatly relieved.

By degrees Sir Edward's colour .returned. "Those papers?" were his first words.

"Oh, never mind the papers, Ashly," said the rector; "leave them to me, and I will see about everything. The fire was too hot for you, and you fainted."

"No, Nugent. You know, as well as Dr. Nichol, that it was not the fire. I saw in those papers a

"But," Sir Edward continued, "you ask me no questions, and I appreciate your delicacy, for you must have been startled and mystified; but there is now no reason why I should not enlighten you. The one great episode of my life has been revived to-night; the episode which made me a wanderer from youth to age from my native land.

The long-buried memories have been suddenly recalled to life; you shall hear them, if you like."

The faces of both gentlemen betrayed eager curiosity, but Mr. Nugent hesitated. "If the mere recollection has been too much for you, a long recital will surely do you harm," he said.

"No," answered Sir Edward, "it was the surprise that upset me; and moreover, brooding on such a past would be worse than relating it."

"True," said the doctor, nodding assent; "brooding would be worse." And his sanction settled the question.

"I really owe you an explanation of my strange emotion," their host then said, heaping additional logs on the fire from a handsome carved wood case that stood beside his chair, a relic of continental habits. "Draw near; and while we share the house between us and the dead upstairs, I will tell you what those papers recalled, and what they revealed."