tant table, fortunately did not hear what he said. "H-hush!" said Miss Cherry, "we must not make the child vain;" but, to tell the truth, her lively imagination immediately leaped at a rivalship between the brothers. "I suppose we must consider her fate sealed, though she is not so frank about it as I could wish," she added, in an under-tone.
"Here are your crewels, Aunt Cherry; and here is the book, Edward. What were you talking about?" said Cara, coming back into the warm circle of the light.
"Nothing, my darling—about the art-needlework, and Edward thinks it very pretty; but I am not sure that I don't prefer the Berlin wool. After all, to work borders to dusters seems scarcely worth while, does it? Oh yes, my dear, I know it is for a chair; but it looks just like a duster. Now we used to work on silk and satin—much better worth it."
"Aunt Cherry, you always talk most when some one is beginning to read."
"Do I, dear?" said Miss Cherry, in a wondering, injured tone. "Well, then I shall be silent. I do not think I am much given to be talkative. Have I got everything?—then, my dear boy, please go on."
It was a pretty scene. The rich warm centre of the fire, the moon-lamps on either table, filled the soft atmosphere with light. Miss Cherry, in her grey gown, which was of glistening silk, full of soft reflections, in the evening, sat on one side, with her crewels in her lap, giving points of subdued color, and her face full in the light, very intent over the work, which sometimes puzzled her a little. Cara and Edward had the other table between them; he with his book before him, placed so that he could see her when he raised his eyes; she with the muslin she was hemming falling about her pretty hands—a fair white creature, with a rose light shed upon her from the fire. The rest of the room was less light, enshrining this spot of brightness, but giving forth chance gleams in every corner from mirrors which threw them forth dimly, from china and old Venetian glass, which caught the light, and sent flickers of color about the walls. Mr. Beresford, who, deprived of his usual rest, was wandering about, an âme en peine, looked in for a moment at the door, and paused to look at them, and then disappeared again. He never spent a moment longer than he could help in that haunted room; but to-night, perhaps, in his restlessness, might have found it a relief to take his natural place there, had he not been checked by the quiet home-like aspect of this pretty group, which seemed complete. It did not look like any chance combination, but seemed so harmonious, so natural to the place, as if it had always been there, and always must possess the warm fireside, that he was incapable of disturbing them. Better to bear the new life alone. This genial party—what had he to do with it, disturbing it by his past, by the ghosts that would come with him? He shut the door noiselessly, and went back again, down to his gloomy library. Poor Annie's room, in which everything spoke of her—how the loss of her had changed all the world to him, and driven him away forever from the soft delight of that household centre! Strangely enough, the failure of the refuge which friendship had made for him, renewed all his regrets tenfold for his wife whom he had lost. He seemed almost to lose her again, and the bitterness of the first hours came back upon him as he sat alone, having nowhere to go to. Life was hard on him, and fate.
The party in the drawing-room had not perceived this ghost looking in upon them: they went on tranquilly; Miss Cherry puckering her soft old forehead over her art design, and the firelight throwing its warm ruddiness over Cara's white dress. Barring the troubles incident upon art-needlework, the two ladies were giving their whole minds to the lily maid of Astolat and her love-tragedy. But the reader was not so much absorbed in "Elaine." Another current of thought kept flowing through his mind underneath the poetry. He wondered whether this would be his ot through his life, to sit in the light of the warmth which was for his brother, and be the tame spectator of the love which was his brother's, and make up for the absence of the gay truant who even for that love's sake would not give up his own pleasures. Edward felt that there would be a certain happiness touched with bitterness even in this lot; but how strange that this, which he would have given his life for, should fall to Oswald's share, who would give so little for it, and not to him. These thoughts ran through lis mind like a cold undercurrent below the warm sunlit surface of the visible stream; but they did not show, and indeed they did not much disturb Edward's happiness of the moment, but gave it a kind of poignant thrill of feeling, which made it more dear. He knew (he thought) that Oswald was the favored and chosen, but as yet he had not been told of it, and the
