wretched than herself, had she not seen the form of Edward Lynne glide like a spectre from beneath the old elm-tree, and stand before the window.  Rose retreated, but still observed him; the moon was shining on the window, so he must have seen the form, without, perhaps, being able to distinguish whose it was.  Rose watched him until his silent death-like presence oppressed her heart and brain, and she closed her eyes to shut out what had become too painful to look upon.  When she looked again, all was sleeping in the moonlight as before; but he was gone.  At the same moment Helen turned restlessly on her pillow, and sobbed and muttered to herself.  Rose felt that pillow wet with tears.  “Helen!” she exclaimed; “Helen, dear Helen! awake!  Awake, Helen!” Her cousin, at length aroused, flung her arms around her neck; and the proud lip which she had left curled with the consciousness of beauty and power, quivered and paled, while she sank awake and weeping on Rose’s bosom.

CHAPTER IV.

Never had the bells of Abbeyweld, within the memory of living man—­within the memory of old Mrs. Myles herself, and she was the oldest living woman in the parish—­rung so merry a peal as on the morning that Helen Marsh was married to the handsome and Honourable Mr. Ivers.  He was young as well as handsome—­honourable both by name and nature—­rich in possession and expectancy.  On his part it was purely and entirely what is called a “love match”—­one of the strangest of all strange things perpetrated by a young man of rank and fashion.  His wealth and position in society enabled him to select for himself; and he did so, of course, to the disappointment of as many, or perhaps a greater number of mothers than daughters, inasmuch as it is the former whose speculations are the deepest laid and most dangerous in arts matrimonial.

Every body was astonished.  Mrs. Howard—­Helen’s “kind friend”—­Mrs. Howard, little short of distracted for three weeks at the very least, did nothing but exclaim, “Who would have thought it!” “Who, indeed!” was the reply, in various tones of sympathy, envy, and surprise.  Poor Mrs. Howard, to the day of her death, never suffered another portionless beauty to enter her doors while even the shadow of an eldest son rested on its threshold.  Mrs. Myles was of course in an ecstacy of delight; her prophecy was fulfilled.  Helen, her Helen, was the honourable wife of a doubly honourable man.  What triumphant glances did she cast over the railings of the communion-table at Mr. Stokes—­with what an air she marched down the aisle—­how patronising and condescending was her manner to those neighbours whom she considered her inferiors—­how bitterly did she lament that the Honourable Mr. Ivers would not have any one to breakfast with them but Mr. Stokes—­and how surpassingly, though silently, angry was she with Mr. Stokes for not glorying with her when the bride and bridegroom drove off in their “own carriage,” leaving her in a state of prideful excitement, and Rose Dillon in a flood of tears.