for any reply, she walked quickly towards the town-quickly, and with one hand pressed tightly on her brow, and a dull heavy beating at her heart which made her breathe with difficulty. What was the matter? What were her thoughts? They were far, far away, with the mother whom she had never known on earth; for it was the anniversary of her death-the vigil of the Annunciation. "If she had lived she would have loved me," she thought; "and now there is no one, nothing. I would give anything to have even a dog that loved me, that would lie at my feet and lick my hand, and be grateful if T spoke to it. And yet, after all, what matter? Who is worth loving? What is the use of it? What does intellect want with affection? No, no; knowledge is power, and power is strength, and strength is life-the only life worth living for. Who wants to feel? Who wants to love, if they had but strength to tread it down and be independent of it? What a fool I am to wish for what I despise! I should like just to try the experiment, though. I wonder if I could make that child love me;-perhaps I should end by loving it. Well, no matter; I may as well love that as a dog or a horse. Suppose I offer to adopt it and take it to England with me? I daresay the old fisherman would be pleased enough; but that Padre Giuseppe is a great bore; I wish he were at the bottom of the sea." With which highly charitable desire she ended her train of thought, having reached the door of her lodging. CHAPTER II. For not a soul inhabits this wide earth, F. W. FABER. WAS Edith's home, then, a dreary one ? We will turn back and look at it. Sir Charles Sydney was the last descendant of a family which traced its ancestors up to one of the proud Norman barons who came over with Duke William to trample upon the rights and liberties of our good forefathers. Proud of his ancient lineage, and, perhaps with some excuse, proud of an escutcheon which had never seen a "bar sinister," Sir Charles Sydney lived with almost princely magnificence in his ancestral hall. It was a noble old house, and contained much that would have been invaluable to any deeply religious or highly intellectual mind; but all this was wasted on Sir Charles Sydney. He cared nothing for the ruined chapel where his ancestors, with all their faults (and Norman barons were certainly not over-scrupulous), had been wont to assist daily at the Holy Sacrifice, and commonly spoke of it as "an old Popish hole;" he cared nothing for the magnificent library, stored with many of the most valuable books in the world. What were they to him? he was neither a scholar nor a theolo gian; he cared neither for science nor revelation; he did not even care for art, and some of the masterpieces of the glorious old Italian painters hung unnoticed on his walls, except indeed that, knowing their supposed worth, he was proud of possessing them. What were "the wild thought of Tintoret," the refined intellect of Da Vinci, the inspired glory of Raffaelle, and, most of all, the pure and spiritual conception of Fra Angelico, "that most holy monk of Fiesole," to a man whose whole interest was centred in his horses and hounds, and whose chief boast was that he possessed the finest hunters and the purest breed of dogs in the kingdom? And yet Sir Charles had qualities which rendered him a popular man in his neighbourhood. The fact of his being rich of course went far in itself to make him so for mammon-worship is England's idolatry-but he was also what the world commonly calls generous, that is to say, he was hospitable, gave large dinner-parties, and kept open house during the hunting and shooting seasons; moreover, he gave large sums to all the local charities, and never allowed any appeal for money to be made to him in vain. Whatever faults he had, certainly stinginess was not one of them; he was far too proud to be mean. With his own servants and workpeople too he was popular; for he gave them higher wages than anyone else in the county, and always paid them regularly; but he considered this the utmost extent of his duty towards them. What business was it of his whether a man spent his money at the alehouse or took it home to his wife? whether he sent his children to school or suffered them to grow up with no religion, and worse than heathen morals? whether he went to church or whether he didn't? That was the parson's affair, not his. 66 Mr. Bruce had once ventured to remonstrate with him about a groom whose disorderly habits gave great scandal in the village; but Sir Charles had only replied very courteously (for he prided himself on being a perfect gentleman), My dear sir, it really is no concern of mine. I am very sorry; the man is too good a servant for me to part with him ; I really cannot interfere in these matters. Preach as many sermons as you like against drunkenness or any other vice, but pray don't ask me to do it." Mr. Bruce was no favourite of Sir Charles Sydney's. Stern and uncompromising in character, he had no sympathy with the easy laissezfaire temperament of the baronet; and though Sir Charles could not help respecting him as a man of high principle, his manner of carrying out his principles was peculiarly distasteful to him. For instance, Mr. Bruce had established daily service, and the sound of the church-bells broke in unpleasantly upon his breakfast and dinner; it was a great deal "too much of a good thing" to be forcibly reminded twice a day of the existence of God. Then, again, though at Mr. Bruce's request he had removed certain red curtains which surrounded his pew as if it had been a four-post bed, he by no means liked the consequent publicity which prevented him from going comfortably to sleep during the service, and obliged him at all events to hear occasionally a few plain-spoken truths, by no means either flattering or palatable to him. Of course, if Sir Charles had merely consulted his own inclination he would have absented himself from church altogether; but that would not have been quite respectable, and Sir Charles Sydney worshipped respectability, and worshipped it with considerable devotion too; for he submitted habitually to much that was exceedingly irksome to him in order to keep up a fair character in the world. A naturally refined taste made everything low or vulgar simply odious to him; but neither irreligion nor self-indulgence are vulgar, and Sir Charles took infinite trouble to keep strictly within the bounds of 66 respectability" in his conduct. Consequently he went to church every Sunday, and even on Christmas-day and Good Friday, and insisted on his servants doing the same; and sometimes invited the rector to dinner, on which occasions he always talked in a most exemplary manner about the necessity of proper instruction in schools, or abused Catholics (it was about the time of the Emancipation Bill) with a zeal which, to judge from Mr. Bruce's cold politeness in reply, was not particularly gratifying to him. At length an event happened which threw the whole village of Fernley into excitement-Sir Charles Sydney was married. Not, of course, that this was anything wonderful or unexpected in itself; but his choice of a wife was the very last that could have been imagined. Lady Sydney was neither a fashionable beauty, a person of high rank, nor a modern "Die Vernon," but the |