The inmates of the mansion enclosed in its old court-yard had long ceased to attract the observation of their neighbours.  Sometimes Sarah called at the butcher’s, but she exchanged smiles or greetings with few; and the baker rang the rusty bell twice a-week, which was answered by their only servant.  When Mr. Bond first took possession of the manor-house, he hired five domestics, and everybody said they could not do with so few; and there were two men to look after the gardens; but after his daughter’s elopement and his wife’s death, three were discharged, and he let the lands and gardens; and then another went, and Sarah felt the loneliness so great, that she made the remaining one sleep in her own room.  The house had been frequently attacked; once, in a fit of despair, her brother-in-law had forced his way in the night to the old man’s side, and but for her prompt interference, murder would have been done.  No wonder, then, that her shattered nerves trembled as she watched the shortening candle, and heard the raving of the wind, saw the spectral shadows the broken plumes that ornamented the canopy of the bed cast upon the fantastic walls, felt that his hour was at hand, and feared that “he would die and make no sign;” still, while those waving fantasies passing to and fro through her active but weakened mind, made her tremble in every limb, and ooze at every pore; and though unable to read on steadily, her eyes continued fixed upon the book which her hand grasped, with the same feeling that made those of old cling to the altar of their God for sanctuary.  Suddenly her father called—­and she started as from a dream—­“Sarah!”

She hastened to his side; “Dear father, what do you want?”

“Child, the room is dark; and you had so much light just now.  All is dark.  Where are you?  But it was better, after all, to put out the light; wilful waste makes”—­

Before the miser had concluded his proverb, the light of his existence was extinguished for ever!

CHAPTER II.

Several weeks elapsed before Sarah Bond recovered sufficiently from the shock, ay, and genuine grief, occasioned by her father’s death, so as to investigate her affairs; the hardness and the tyranny she had borne for so many years had become habitual, and her own will was absolutely paralysed by inaction.  Jacob Bond had always treated his daughter as if she were a baby, and it was some time before she could collect herself sufficiently to calculate upon her future plans.  She had no friends; and the sister to whom, despite her father’s cruel words, her heart clung so fondly, was far from her, she knew not where.  The mourning for herself and her servant was ordered from a neighbouring shop, with a carelessness as to expense which made people say that Sarah was of habits different from her father.

The rector and curate of the parish both called, but she shrunk from strangers.  The very first act, however, of her liberty, was to take a pew at church, a whole pew, to herself, which she ordered to be curtained all round.  Some said this indicated pride, some said ostentation; but it was simply shyness.  And soon after she placed in the aisle a white marble tablet, “To the memory of Jacob Bond, who died in the seventy-eighth year of his age, deeply lamented by his sorrowing daughter.”