father, and the very sight of her gives him pain, but now he has come to a sudden resolution about her education; he has determined to renew his friendship with Lady Helen Carr, to whom he says he has always clung in his heart, and to ask her to befriend his poor wild grandchild, and undertake to train her into what she ought to be. She will have a high position to fill in the world, poor child, if she lives, for she will be one of the richest heiresses in England. It is a very different thing owning Morfa now, from what it was in my father's time; the mines on the estate which he ruined himself in working, yield Mr. Lester an immense income now, and are becoming more valuable every year."

"Will Lady Helen have Rosamond to live with her, then?" I asked.

"She has invited her to pay her a visit now, and Mr. Lester hopes that Lady Helen will in future stay often at Morfa; she is a widow with only one grown up son, and not very rich, so she can do as she likes. How little I thought, when I used to hear your father praising young Carr's cleverness, and holding him up as an example to Hilary, that he was Lady Helen's son! I wonder whether he really is so clever?"

"Shall you ever see Lady Helen again, do you think?"

"Yes; I have promised Mr. Lester to call on Rosamond while she is in London: it will be a great effort to me, but I suppose it is right to make it. It is time that all past coldness and unkindness should be forgotten, and I might possibly be of use to poor Algernon's child. Lady Helen has had a son of her own to be sure, but yet I can't fancy her being very clever in the management of young people, or very kind."

"Mamma, I hope you will take us with you when you go to call; how wonderful it is that all these Morfa people should be just coming about us now!"

"It agitates me very much, for I don't know what may come of it. Now that my uncle has really come forward himself to seek a reconciliation, I don't think your father will feel it his duty to set himself against his desire to be useful to the boys, perhaps after all Hilary may-but stay, I promised your father that he should be the first to mention it. Hilary is to have his choice, and I have promised not to influence him. You must be very careful not to give him any hint till your father has spoken, Janet."

"You have not told me anything yet, mamma," I answered, hoping earnestly to draw her on.

"Have I not? Ah that is fortunate; that is a great relief to my mind; but still you can be as careful as if I had told you."

CHAPTER VII.

"At length, Iduna, looking more narrowly at them, saw, when they turned their backs to her, that they were hollow behind : they were, in truth, Ellewomen, who have no hearts."

Norse Legend.

THE next morning, after breakfast, my father summoned Hilary and Charlie to follow him into his study, as he had something of importance to speak to them about. My father's study was a dark den at the back of the house, chiefly used as a repository for the books, which my much-enduring mother hunted out of the other rooms when the tables were so cumbered with them, that she was moved to take a strong measure to secure a place for her workbasket. The one dusty window looked out on a blank wall, and there was no fire-place; if it had been more habitable, my father would, I fear, have retired to it as soon as ever he entered the house, as

regularly as a snail into its shell. As it was, he contrived to spend an hour or so there on most days, and we young ones regarded the place with a dim religious kind of awe, for in very early times our father had been used to take us there on great occasions, when we had been very good or very naughty. The stubbornest fit of wilfulness never survived a silent tête-à-tête with my father in that room. I remember trying in vain to keep up feelings of resentment or childish pride, while my father's serious face, partly turned from me, and a dim light, and a something in the look of the ponderous dusty tomes that lined the walls and usurped the floor, were filling me with a sense of my own insignificance. I must not forget to mention, however, as the most effectual instrument of my subjugation, a large ostrich egg that hung suspended by a long string from the ceiling near the window; we none of ust ever knew how it came there. From the time of my first visit to the study, I had confused and terrible ideas about that egg; I thought it had something to do with the roc's egg in the Arabian Nights, and as it hung with the accumulated dust of several years on its upper surface, swaying gently backwards and forwards when my father's steps shook the room, I