pletely that before she left the Priory, she rode the black mare. Laura was rapidly gaining health and strength both of mind and body during her stay in the country. Her conquest of the pony had emboldened her; and, for the first time in her life, she felt a delightful confidence that she could do everything she tried, provided she persevered. One day when Lilla was sitting with Phanor on her lap, Laura thought she could make a pretty picture of them, and tried to draw the little girl and her dog; but in vain, it would not do: the face looked all on one side; the legs were crooked, and the dog like nothing at all; in fact never was a more complete failure. Laura blushed and tore it up, but, instead of being discouraged, as she would have been only a few weeks before, she tried again, but still without success, though her second attempt was better than the first: then Lilla was tired of sitting, so Laura could not try any more. Oh, how much she now wished to

be able to draw well! She no longer felt that she cared for nothing; she now wished to do everything; and determined to apply herself most earnestly when she went back to school, and the time for going was now fast approaching; for alas! the holidays were nearly at an end.

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CHAPTER VI.

A DEATH.

WHEN Laura went back to school, they were all quite astonished at her altered appearance; she was no longer the pale thin girl, with languid eyes, which seemed to take no interest in anything: her eyes now beamed with health and intelligence, and a beautiful colour was on her cheeks; nor was the difference in her habits less striking she no longer found practising irksome, and instead of always doing less than her duty on those occasions, she was now always willing to do more; and she improved with a rapidity which greatly astonished her music-master, for he had long given her up as a hopeless pupil. The same thing happened in drawing, and at last in every

thing; so from being the most backward girl in the school, Laura rose to be considered quite a little prodigy in her way. All this made Laura feel much happier, and her parents saw a great change in her letters when she wrote home. Two more years passed on in this way, Laura going regularly home with Julia and considering the Priory at last quite like her real home. At last the time came when they were both to leave school. It was getting near Christmas: Laura's parents were coming over in the Spring to remain in England, and, in the mean time, both girls looked forward with the greatest pleasure to spending their Christmas at the Priory, and enjoying all the festivities of the season, which they knew were so fully kept up there.

One day, however, when they were sitting together indulging in such thoughts, Julia received a letter from home informing her of Lilla's severe illness. She was at best but a delicate child,

and having caught a cold it had settled on her lungs, and she was pronounced to be in a rapid decline. This was a very very great grief to both, for Laura now felt quite as a sister towards her. So all the prospects of pleasure, which Laura and Julia had expected from the holidays, were gone; but still they looked forward to them most anxiously, wishing to see as much of Lilla as they possibly could. Their journey home this time was most different from all the others. It was bitterly cold, and the snow was on the ground. When they arrived at the station and proceeded in the carriage, all looked so dreary and wretched that it well accorded with their feelings; they had scarcely the heart to speak at all; but both looked quietly out of the window. The hills were all covered with snow, and glistened intensely in the beams of the moon which had just risen, and every now and then came a light breeze which shook the snow off the trees, and let it