no repining word, betrayed the breaking heart within.  She recognised with a full and grateful heart the blessings still surrounding her, and struggled long and painfully to be content; but that fond yearning would not be stilled, that deep love no effort could dispel.  Still there were times when those who had never known her in former years would have pronounced her well, quite well in health; and Emmeline would smile when such remarks reached her, and wonder if her parents were so deceived.  Sometimes she thought they were, for the name of Arthur Myrvin was no longer suppressed before her.  She heard of him, of his devotion to his pupil, of the undeviating integrity and steadiness which characterised him, and promised fair to lead Lord Louis in the same bright paths; she had heard of Arthur’s devoted care of his pupil during a long and dangerous illness, that he, under Divine goodness, had been the instrument of saving the youth’s life, and restoring him to health; and if she permitted no sign to betray the deep, absorbing interest she felt, if her parents imagined he was forgotten, they knew not the throbbings of her heart.

She was conversing this morning with Mrs. Cameron, who had learned to love Emmeline dearly; from being very often at Oakwood, she and her daughters were looked on by all Mr. Hamilton’s children as part of the family.

“Is not Flora delighted at the idea of again seeing her brother?” Emmeline asked, in answer to Mrs. Cameron’s information that Walter was returning with his regiment to England, and in a very few weeks would be once more an inmate of her home.  She answered cheerfully in the affirmative, and Emmeline again inquired—­“Was Captain Cameron at all acquainted with Cecil Grahame?  Did he know the cause of his having been so disgracefully cashiered?”

“Their regiments were quartered in such different parts of Ireland,” replied Mrs. Cameron, “that I believe they only met on one occasion, and then Walter was glad to withdraw from the society of the dissolute young men by whom Lieutenant Grahame was always surrounded.  The cause of his disgrace appears enveloped in mystery.  Walter certainly alluded to it, but so vaguely, that I did not like to ask further particulars.  I dreaded the effect it would have on Mr. Grahame, but little imagined poor Lady Helen would have sunk beneath it.”

“I believe few know how she doted on that boy.  It was misguided, but still it was love that caused her to ruin him as she did in his childhood.  From the hour he was expelled from Cambridge, she never held up her head; it was so cruelly ungrateful of him to set off for Ireland without once seeking her; and this last stroke was too much for her to bear.  She still hoped, despite her better judgment, that he would in the end distinguish himself, and she could not meet the disappointment.”

“Did she long survive the intelligence?”

“Scarcely four-and-twenty hours.  Mr. Grahame, feeling unable to command himself, requested mamma and Lilla to impart to her the distressing information, which they did most tenderly; but their caution was entirely fruitless.  Her constant inquiry was relative to his present situation, and when she heard that he had not been seen since he was cashiered, she sunk into a state of insensibility from which she never recovered.”