the album that contained Walter Hartright's drawings. She hesitated for a moment, holding the little volume fondly in her hands-then lifted it to her lips and kissed it.

“Oh, Laura! Laura!” I said, not angrily, not reprovingly-with nothing but sorrow in my voice, and nothing but sorrow in my heart.

"It is the last time, Marian," she pleaded. "I am bidding it good-by forever."

She laid the book on the table and drew out the comb that fastened her hair. It fell, in its matchless beauty, over her back and shoulders, and dropped round her far below her waist. She separated one long, thin lock from the rest, cut it off, and pinned it carefully, in the form of a circle, on the first blank page of the album. The moment it was fastened she closed the volume hurriedly, and placed it in my hands.

her presence, or afterward when he had withdrawn from it. Deeply as he lamented the unfortunate attachment which had hindered the progress he might otherwise have made in her esteem and regard, he firmly believed that it had remained unacknowledged in the past, and that it would remain, under all changes of circumstances which it was possible to contemplate, unacknowledged in the future. This was his absolute conviction; and the strongest proof he could give of it was the assurance, which he now offered, that he felt no curiosity to know wheth er the attachment was of recent date or not, or who had been the object of it. His implicit confidence in Miss Fairlie made him satisfied with what she had thought fit to say to him, and he was honestly innocent of the slightest feeling of anxiety to hear more.

"You write to him, and he writes to you," He waited, after saying those words, and she said. "While I am alive, if he asks after looked at me. I was so conscious of my unme, always tell him I am well, and never say I reasonable prejudice against him-so conscious am unhappy. Don't distress him, Marian-for of an unworthy suspicion that he might be specmy sake, don't distress him. If I die first, prom-ulating on my impulsively answering the very ise you will give him this little book of his draw- questions which he had just described himself ings, with my hair in it. There can be no harm, as resolved not to ask-that I evaded all referwhen I am gone, in telling him that I put it ence to this part of the subject with something there with my own hands. And say-oh, Ma- like a feeling of confusion on my own part. At rian, say for me, then, what I can never say for the same time, I was resolved not to lose even the myself-say I loved him!" smallest opportunity of trying to plead Laura's cause; and I told him boldly that I regretted his generosity had not carried him one step farther, and induced him to withdraw from the engagement altogether.

She flung her arms round my neck, and whispered the last words in my ear with a passionate delight in uttering them which it almost broke my heart to hear. All the long restraint she had imposed on herself gave way in that first last outburst of tenderness. She broke from me with hysterical vehemence, and threw herself on the sofa in a paroxysm of sobs and tears that shook her from head to foot.

Here, again, he disarmed me by not attempting to defend himself. He would merely beg me to remember the difference there was between his allowing Miss Fairlie to give him up, which was a matter of submission only, and his I tried vainly to soothe her and reason with forcing himself to give up Miss Fairlie, which her: she was past being soothed, and past being was, in other words, asking him to be the suicide reasoned with. It was the sad, sudden end, for of his own hopes. Her conduct of the day beus two, of this memorable day. When the fit fore had so strengthened the unchangeable love had worn itself out she was too exhausted to and admiration of two long years, that all active speak. She slumbered toward the afternoon; contention against those feelings, on his part, and I put away the book of drawings so that was henceforth entirely out of his power. she might not see it when she woke. My face must think him weak, selfish, unfeeling toward was calm, whatever my heart might be, when the very woman whom he idolized, and he must she opened her eyes again and looked at me. bow to my opinion as resignedly as he could; We said no more to each other about the dis-only putting it to me, at the same time, whether tressing interview of the morning. Sir Percival's name was not mentioned, Walter Hartright was not alluded to again by either of us for the remainder of the day.

9th.-Finding that she was composed and like herself this morning, I returned to the painful subject of yesterday, for the sole purpose of imploring her to let me speak to Sir Percival and Mr. Fairlie, more plainly and strongly than she could speak to either of them herself, about this lamentable marriage. She interposed, gently but firmly, in the middle of my remonstrances. "I left yesterday to decide," she said; "and yesterday has decided. It is too late to go back." Sir Percival spoke to me this afternoon, feelingly and unreservedly, about what had passed in Laura's room. He assured me that the unparalleled trust she had placed in him had awakened such an answering conviction of her innocence and integrity in his mind that he was guiltless of having felt even a moment's unworthy jealousy, either at the time when he was in

her future as a single woman, pining under an unhappily placed attachment which she could never acknowledge, could be said to promise her a much brighter prospect than her future as the wife of a man who worshiped the very ground she walked on? In the last case there was hope from time, however slight it might be in the first case, on her own showing, there was no hope at all.

I answered him-more because my tongue is a woman's, and must answer, than because I had any thing convincing to say. It was only too plain that the course Laura had adopted the day before had offered him the advantage if he chose to take it-and that he had chosen to take it. I felt this at the time, and I feel it just as strongly now, while I write these lines, in my own room. The one hope left is, that his motives really spring, as he says they do, from the irresistible strength of his attachment to Laura.

Before I close my diary for to-night, I must record that I wrote to-day, in poor Hartright's interests, to two of my mother's old friends in

choice but to tell him what she had said.

London-both men of influence and position. | at breakfast about Laura, which left me no If they can do any thing for him, I am quite sure they will. Except Laura, I never was more anxious about any one than I am now about Walter. All that has happened since he left us has only increased my strong regard and sympathy for him. I hope I am doing right in trying to help him to employment abroad-I hope, most earnestly and anxiously, that it will end well.

While we were talking she herself came down and joined us. She was just as unnaturally composed in Sir Percival's presence as she had been in mine. When breakfast was over he had an opportunity of saying a few words to her privately, in a recess of one of the windows. They were not more than two or three minutes together; and, on their separating, she left the room with Mrs. Vesey, while Sir Percival came 10th.-Sir Percival had an interview with Mr. to me. He said he had entreated her to favor Fairlie, and I was sent for to join them.

I found Mr. Fairlie greatly relieved at the prospect of the "family worry" (as he was pleased to describe his niece's marriage) being settled at last. So far I did not feel called on to say any thing to him about my own opinion; but when he proceeded, in his most aggravatingly languid manner, to suggest that the time for the marriage had better be settled next, in accordance with Sir Percival's wishes, I enjoyed the satisfaction of assailing Mr. Fairlie's nerves with as strong a protest against hurrying Laura's decision as I could put into words. Sir Percival immediately assured me that he felt the force of my objection, and begged me to believe that the proposal had not been made in consequence of any interference on his part. Mr. Fairlie leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, said we both of us did honor to human nature, and then repeated his suggestion, as coolly as if neither Sir Percival nor I had said a word in opposition to it. It ended in my flatly declining to mention the subject to Laura, unless she first approached it of her own accord. I left the room at once after making that declaration. Sir Percival looked seriously embarrassed and distressed. Mr. Fairlie stretched out his lazy legs on his velvet footstool, and said: "Dear Marian! how I envy you your robust nervous system! Don't bang the door!"

On going to Laura's room I found that she had asked for me, and that Mrs. Vesey had informed her that I was with Mr. Fairlie. She inquired at once what I had been wanted for; and I told her all that had passed, without attempting to conceal the vexation and annoyance that I really felt. Her answer surprised and distressed me inexpressibly; it was the very last reply that I should have expected her to make. "My uncle is right," she said. "I have caused trouble and anxiety enough to you, and to all about me. Let me cause no more, Marian-let Sir Percival decide."

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I remonstrated warmly; but nothing that I could say moved her.

"I am held to my engagement," she replied; "I have broken with my old life. The evil day will not come the less surely because I put it off. No, Marian! once again, my uncle is right. I have caused trouble enough and anxiety enough, and I will cause no more."

She used to be pliability itself; but she was now inflexibly passive in her resignation-I might almost say in her despair. Dearly as I love her, I should have been less pained if she had been violently agitated; it was so shockingly unlike her natural character to see her as cold and insensible as I saw her now.

him by maintaining her privilege of fixing the time for the marriage at her own will and pleasure. In reply, she had merely expressed her acknowledgments, and had desired him to mention what his wishes were to Miss Halcombe.

I have no patience to write more. In this instance, as in every other, Sir Percival has carried his point, with the utmost possible credit to himself, in spite of every thing that I can say or do. His wishes are now what they were, of course, when he first came here; and Laura having resigned herself to the one inevitable sacrifice of the marriage, remains as coldly hopeless and enduring as ever. In parting with the little occupations and relics that reminded her of Hartright, she seems to have parted with all her tenderness and all her impressibility. It is only three o'clock in the afternoon while I write these lines, and Sir Percival has left us already, in the happy hurry of a bridegroom, to prepare for the bride's reception at his house in Hampshire. Unless some extraordinary event happens to prevent it, they will be married exactly at the time when he wished to be married before the end of the year. My very fingers burn as I write it!

12th. A sleepless night, through uneasiness about Laura. Toward the morning I came to a resolution to try what change of scene would do to rouse her. She can not surely remain in her present torpor of insensibility, if I take her away from Limmeridge, and surround her with the pleasant faces of old friends? After some consideration, I decided on writing to the Arnolds, in Yorkshire. They are simple, kindhearted, hospitable people, and she has known them from her childhood. When I had put the letter in the post-bag I told her what I had done. It would have been a relief to me if she had shown the spirit to resist and object. But no-she only said, "I will go any where with you, Marian. I dare say you are right—I dare say the change will do me good."

13th. I wrote to Mr. Gilmore, informing him that there was really a prospect of this miserable marriage taking place, and also mentioning my idea of trying what change of scene would do for Laura. I had no heart to go into particulars. Time enough for them when we get nearer to the end of the year.

14th. Three letters for me. The first, from the Arnolds, full of delight at the prospect of seeing Laura and me. The second, from one of the gentlemen to whom I wrote on Walter Hartright's behalf, informing me that he has 11th.—Sir Percival put some questions to me been fortunate enough to find an opportunity

of complying with my request. The third, from Walter himself, thanking me, poor fellow, in the warmest terms for giving him an opportunity of leaving his home, his country, and his friends. A private expedition to make excavations among the ruined cities of Central America is, it seems, about to sail from Liverpool. The draughtsman who had been already appointed to accompany it has lost heart, and withdrawn at the eleventh hour; and Walter is to fill his place. He is to be engaged for six months certain, from the time of the landing in Honduras, and for a year afterward, if the excavations are successful, and if the funds hold out. His letter ends with a promise to write me a farewell line, when they are all on board ship, and when the pilot leaves them. I can only hope and pray earnestly that he and I are both acting in this matter for the best.. It seems such a serious step for him to take that the mere contemplation of it startles me. And yet, in his unhappy position, how can I expect him, or wish him, to remain at home?

27th. My forebodings are realized. The marriage is fixed for the twenty-third of December.

The day after we left for Polesdean Lodge, Sir Percival wrote, it seems, to Mr. Fairlie, to say that the necessary repairs and alterations in his house in Hampshire would occupy a much longer time in completion than he had originally anticipated. The proper estimates were to be submitted to him as soon as possible; and it would greatly facilitate his entering into definite arrangements with the workpeople if he could be informed of the exact period at which the wedding ceremony might be expected to take place. He could then make all his calculations in reference to time, besides writing the necessary apologies to friends who had been engaged to visit him that winter, and who could not, of course, be received when the house was in the hands of the work

men.

To this letter Mr. Fairlie had replied by requesting Sir Percival himself to suggest a day for the marriage, subject to Miss Fairlie's approval, which her guardian willingly undertook to do his best to obtain. Sir Percival wrote back by the next post, and proposed (in accordance with his own views and wishes from the first) the latter part of December-perhaps the twenty-third or twenty-fourth, or any other day that the lady and her guardian might prefer. The lady not being at hand to speak for herself, her guardian had decided, in her absence, on the earliest day mentioned-the twenty-third of December-and had written to recall us to Limmeridge in consequence.

After explaining these particulars to me at a private interview yesterday, Mr. Fairlie suggested, in his most amiable manner, that I should open the necessary negotiations to-day. Feeling that resistance was useless, unless I could first obtain Laura's authority to make it, I consented to speak to her, but declared, at the same time, that I would on no consideration undertake to gain her consent to Sir Percival's wishes. Mr. Fairlie complimented me on my "excellent conscience," much as he would have complimented me, if we had been out walking, on my "excellent constitution," and seemed perfectly satisfied, so far, with having simply shifted one more family responsibility from his own shoulders to mine.

This morning I spoke to Laura as I had promised. The composure-I may almost say, the insensibility-which she has so strangely and so resolutely maintained ever since Sir Percival left us, was not proof against the shock of the news I had to tell her. She turned pale, and trembled violently.

"Not so soon!" she pleaded. "Oh, Marian, not so soon!"

The slightest hint she could give was enough for me. I rose to leave the room, and fight her battle for her at once with Mr. Fairlie. Just as my hand was on the door she caught fast hold of my dress, and stopped me.

"Let me go!" I said. "My tongue burns to tell your uncle that he and Sir Percival are not to have it all their own way."

She sighed bitterly, and still held my dress. "No!" she said, faintly. "Too late, Marian -too late!"

"Not a minute too late," I retorted. "The question of time is our question-and trust me, Laura, to take a woman's full advantage of it."

I unclasped her hand from my gown while I spoke; but she slipped both her arms round my waist at the same moment, and held me more effectually than ever.

"It will only involve us in more trouble and more confusion," she said. "It will set you and my uncle at variance, and bring Sir Percival here again with fresh causes of complaint-"

"So much the better!" I cried out, passionately. "Who cares for his causes of complaint? Are you to break your heart to set his mind at ease? No man under heaven deserves these sacrifices from us women. Men! They are the enemies of our innocence and our peace-they drag us away from our parents' love and our sisters' friendship-they take us body and soul to themselves, and fasten our helpless lives to theirs as they chain up a dog to his kennel. And what

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JUST AS MY HAND WAS ON THE DOOR SHE CAUGHT FAST HOLD OF MY DRESS, AND STOPPED ME."

does the best of them give us in return? Let me go, Laura-I'm mad when I think of it!"

The tears-miserable, weak women's tears of vexation and rage-started to my eyes. She smiled sadly, and put her handkerchief over my face, to hide for me the betrayal of my own weakness-the weakness of all others which she knew that I most despised.

"Oh, Marian!" she said. "You crying! Think what you would say to me if the places were changed, and if those tears were mine. All your love and courage and devotion will not alter what must happen, sooner or later. Let my uncle have his way. Let us have no more troubles and heart-burnings that any sacrifice of mine can prevent. Say you will live with me, Marian, when I am married-and say no more. But I did say more. I forced back the contemptible tears that were no relief to me, and that only distressed her; and reasoned and pleaded as calmly as I could. It was of no avail. She made me twice repeat the promise to live with her when she was married, and then suddenly asked a question which turned my sorrow and my sympathy for her into a new direction.

"While we were at Polesdean," she said, you had a letter, Marian-"

Her altered tone; the abrupt manner in which she looked away from me, and hid her face on my shoulder; the hesitation which silenced her before she had completed her question, all told me but too plainly to whom the half-expressed inquiry pointed.

"I thought, Laura, that you and I were never to refer to him again," I said, gently. "You had a letter from him?" she persisted. "Yes," I replied, "if you must know it." "Do you mean to write to him again ?"

I hesitated. I had been afraid to tell her of his absence from England, or of the manner in which my exertions to serve his new hopes and projects had connected me with his departure. What answer could I make? He was gone where no letters could follow with the chance of reaching him for months, perhaps for years, to come.