wants no more. I'm like none of you young creatures, striving for change and new faces. I'm doing my duty. The Williamses always was known for it, and I'm content. Once I was young, and tripped upon the hills; now I'm old, and the fire is my garden. Will you husht, you child! The like of you is no judge. I please myself." "And did nothing ever happen to you?" asked Zaidee. "You always speak of other people. When you were young, did nothing ever come to you?" "Husht, I say," cried the old woman, pushing Zaidee aside, as she rose in great haste, and threw down her work. "You will be talking-you will be talking. Come and see those papers now." With her curiosity so much roused by this, that she had almost forgotten the prior interest that brought her here, Zaidee watched the old woman open one of the drawers in her table. There were a great many bundles of letters and papers in it, tied up in a very primitive way, and at the back one or two books, rich with tarnished gilding. Jane lifted a few of these yellow parcels out, and cleared a space for them upon the ornamentencumbered table. "Was it the old Squire's name? You child, you keep your fingers off my shells and my birds. If you don't do no harm, you shall come back again, and see them again. I'm not good at reading-my eyesight fails; but I don't mind you looking at them, if you are a good child. Hark, now, there is Miss Mary. You're not to meddle nothing but the letters, and stay till I come back, and don't let nobody in but me. Hark, now, how she calls me! It's nothing but Jane, Jane, from one day to another. Now I'm going-mind the fire, and don't meddle with nothing, and you can look at my papers till I come back.” So saying, Jane disappeared, shutting the door carefully behind her, and Zaidee was left in full possession of this sacred apartment, and all its treasures. A bird stirred in the elm before her, and the burning wood sank down with a little stir within the stove. These sounds, as they broke the stillness, oppressed Zaidee with returning awe. She drew the first pile towards her with a thrill of fear, expecting to see Grandfather Vivian's well-known handwriting at her first glance. But this faded handwriting is a woman's, and all these letters are about Rhys Llewellyn, and Evelyn Powis, and others of the house of Powisland. In other circumstances, these papers, full of family story, would have been very interesting to Zaidee, who had an unlimited appetite for story-telling; but her eagerness after the sole object of her search was quickened into excitement by terror and a superstitious awe. That bird in the elm-tree branches fascinated poor Zaidee, as her trembling fingers undid these fastenings; and the crackling of the wood, and the strange hushed sounds she seemed to hear about her, wound her up to nervous resolution, and oppress ed her with imaginative fear. God will not let you harm them any more," said Zaidee aloud. She thought Grandfather Vivian was watching while she examined this pile to which he had conducted her, to find the instrument of evil which he had hidden there. 66 CHAPTER XXVIII-GRANDFATHER VIVIAN. But pile after pile brought nothing to the nervous search of Zaidee. Household bills and memoranda of housekeeping, scribbled receipts of Welsh tradesmen, and rural recipes for cooking and for physic, were mingled with the letters of the house of Powis in an indiscriminate heap. The worthless and the valuable, family secrets and housekeeping instructions, preserved with equal fide lity, would have formed a strange medley to an eye less interested. Zaidee, who went over them at lightning speed, found no time for amusement. She threw down, one by one, these old correspondences-threw down some uncouth letters, signed Evan and Mary Williams, which were among the heap, and with eager curiosity searched further; but, amid all, there was nothing for her. Her anxiety gave way to disappointment. Grandfather Vivian, after all, had not been the old Squire of Evan Williams. Grandfather Vivian had not guided her to this strange hidingplace there was no spiritual influence mysteriously using her for its agent; but, in her high strain of excitement, Zaidee shed tears over her failure-she was disappointed-her expectations had been so sure. While these tears fell, against her will, on the papers where other tears had fallen before, Zaidee drew out the old book within the drawer. It was a quarto volume, in binding which had once been handsome; and though the gilding was blackened and the boards defaced, it still had the air of a book worn with use and not with neglect. She opened it and found it Greek, an occult language which always inspired Zaidee with the deepest respectfulness. Somewhat languidly she turned to the first page. Some large characters, written in an uneven oblique line across it, stumbling over the title and over a name, roused Zaidee once more. She read them with a double thrill of awe and mysterious excitement. She was not mistaken-her sense of invisible guidance seemed in a moment realised. The name, written long before this start ling irregular line, was "Richard Vivian," and bore a far distant date. The additional writing-large and black, and unsteady, like the writing of a man whose eyes failed him, and who wrote thus in desperation, that he might be sure he had accomplished his purpose-came to the young investigator like words from heaven. "Frank Vivian, do justice to my son Percy," thus spoke this voice from the dead. The dreadful helpless penitence of this last outery of compunction was visible in every line. Stumbling across his own signature, and across the title of his favourite volume, the dying man, with eyes which could only dimly discern those black exaggerated letters, had left one record behind him, that he repented and that was all. The son he addressed, no longer remained to do justice to the other; the other was gone from his heirship and his lands. Into the mysterious gloom of the world invisible this fierce spirit itself had passed long years ago. Not remorse for one wrong, perhaps, but repentance of all had visited his forlorn dying; but no one knew the secrets of it-nothing remained to bid the judgment of this world reverse its decision but this last cryof despairing atonement. The child whom his evil caprice had endowed so sadly, read his latest words with eyes that shone through a mist of tears. Holding the volume fast, Zaidee looked round her into the still and solemn daylight of this lonely room. "Grandfather Vivian," said the girl, firmly, "if you are here, I did you wrong; and if you guided me here, I am glad; and it was God that suffered you to do it, for I will never do them harm; and I am my father's heir, and this is what he has left to me." She took the volume to her again, and put her innocent lips to that dark memorial of wrong and of repentance. The tears were choking at her heart, but something restrained them, and drove them back from her dry eyes. With a great effort she restored the papers to their place, put the precious book under her shawl, and went to her own room, gliding with steps as noiseless and rapid as a spirit; then she laid it under her pillow, and threw herself down upon her little bed. She was worn out with intense excitement, with terror and awe, and a superstitions sense of some invisible presence. When some one came to seek her, late in the day, after the early twi light had begun to fall, Zaidee's brown cheeks were bright with the flush of fever. She was lying very quiet, awake, looking into the shadows with eyes only too lustrous. They could not tell what had happened to the child, who scarcely could speak to them when they questioned her. Her tumult of thought was dying into unconsciousness-her excess of emotion fading into a long trance of waking sleep. They watched by her in great terror while those open eyes of hers gazed into the darkness and into the candle-light. Mrs. Burtonshaw, with eager kindness and a little liking for the office, changed her dress immediately, and, with a thick cap and a shawl, took her seat by Zaidee's bedside. Mary hung about the foot of the little bed in silent agony. All the while these bright eyes searched about through the little apartment. Even Sylvo Burtonshaw sat up down-stairs, and Mr. Cumberland fidgeted, halfdressed, about the door of his sleepingroom; and watchers were never more rejoiced at the saving calm of sleep in the crisis of disease, than were these when the fitful slumber of fever closed the eyes of Zaidee. The news was carried down stairs, and Mary was sent to bed. "She will be better tomorrow," said Aunt Burtonshaw, as she dismissed the unwilling girl. But Aunt Burtonshaw shook her head, and knew better, when she was left by the bedside of Zaidee, to watch through that long spring night. And Zaidee had a fever, and for weeks lay on that restless couch of hers, struggling for her young life. Mary, who would not be restrained from watching by her, and Aunt Burtonshaw, the kindest nurse in the world, gave sedulous attendance to the unconscious girl, who did not rave or exhaust herself in ordinary delirium, but only searched the vacant air with her brilliant eyes, and seemed perpetually looking for some one, though she recognised neither of her nurses. They had found the book under her pillow, and put it away without further thought. No one associated this old volume with Zaidee's illness; and even old Jane's inquiries for her lost treasure were fruitless in the excitement of the time. This whole whimsical house was concerned for Zaidee. Mr. Cumberland forgot to read his last importation of theories, and took to investigations of homoeopathy and hydropathy-of electricity and mesmerism. Mrs. Cumberland kept her room, and was ill by way of meeting the emergency. Sylvo, infinitely bored, set out for his college, to the relief of everybody. The house became very quiet, above stairs and below, and full of sick-nurses, of whom Mrs. Cumberland appropriated the lion's share. "If she should be worse if anything should happen," said Mrs. Burtonshaw, with tears in her eyes, as she bent over the bed of her young patient. "Poor dear, we are all strangers to her she is far from her own friends." "and she loves us-I know she does. She has no friends." Aunt Burtonshaw shook her head, and raised her hand to silence her indiscreet assistant. "You must never get excited in a sick-room. Go and lie down, my darling," said Aunt Burtonshaw. Mary, who would have been shocked at the idea of lying down, had she known that the crisis of this strange illness was approaching, was reluctantly persuaded, and went. Her good aunt sat down once more at the bedside of the young exile. "Poor dear!" said Aunt Burtonshaw. She thought this solitary child, far from all who loved her, was about to die. But Zaidee did not die. Her young elastic life, almost worn out by the struggle, was not yet conquered. The morning brought sleep to these bright open eyes, and when she woke again, it was to look with recognition and intelligence upon her watchers, and to bear the twilight and the lighted candles without any of those wistful investigations which her eyes had made in her fever. The German doctor pronounced her out of danger-it was the signal for a great increase of Mrs. Cumberland's malady; and Mr. Cumberland, down stairs, was very busy getting a hydropathic apparatus in readiness for Zaidee, and waiting for the English mail which should bring him a multum in parvo-a dwarf medicine-chest, rich in globules, and warranted to cure all Ulm of all the diseases under heaven. A larger consignment in shape of a galvanic machine was also on its way, to aid in the recovery of the patient. It was the especial character of Mr. Cumberland's genius, that he combined into one halfa-dozen nostrums, and piled one infallibility on the top of another, making, out of other people's systems, a system of his own. With all these murderous preparations in progress, it was well for Zaidee that Aunt Burtonshaw barricaded her folding-doors, and held the amateur physician at bay; and that health, once returning, came at a rapid pace, and needed little assistance. "A touch of electricity will set her up again. Wait till I get her down stairs," said Mr. Cumberland, as he carried off his wet "Nothing will happen, Aunt Bur- blankets from the inexorable defender tonshaw," cried Mary vehemently; of Zaidee's room. But even Mr. Cum. berland, though foiled in his endeavours for her recovery, had a warm heart to the invalid, whose illness had cost him some anxiety. Mrs. Cumberland kissed her pale cheek when she was able to leave her room, and Mary rejoiced over her like a recovered treasure. Poor little Zaidee, in her orphan solitude, had fallen among friends. CHAPTER XXIX.-RECOVERY. As Zaidee came to health-one might almost say, came to life again -the events which preceded her illness came slowly to her recollection, one by one. Making a timid and eager search, through her room, she found the book, in which that solemn message was, laid carefully aside in a drawer; and Zaidee remembered how it was the tumult of desires and imaginations, occasioned by her discovery of it-the question whether, armed with this, she might go home again— whether Philip and Aunt Vivian would hold it of enough authority to annul that other unhappy document, which, combined with her visionary dread and awe, had been too much for the young mind, overtasked and solitary. As she considered this momentous subject now, in the calm of her weakness, Zaidee decided that this was not sufficient warrant; and though she longed exceedingly that they should see these last words of the old Squire, she could think of no possible way of sending the book to them without a betrayal of her secret. She was here beyond reach of their search, and their search hitherto had been unsuccessful, and she shrank within herself, even in her safe solitude, at the idea of being found and carried home the heiress of the Grange. She never would supplant Philip, and here she was as safe as if she had died. But now a great compunction for Grandfather Vivian took possession of the child. She had done him wrong-they had all done him wrong, He was no longer "that wicked old man," though Sophy still would call him so; and Zaidee was humbly repentant of her own error. All the solitary time of her convalescenceevery half-hour in which her watchful attendants could be persuaded to leave her alone-her meditations were busy upon her own uncharitable judgment; and many letters, written and destroyed in a returning panic-im possible letters, which should convey this intelligence without giving a clue to her hiding-place, were written in secret. If those longing thoughts could travel to them!-if those halfarticulate words, which broke from her lips in secret, could but reach the ears they were addressed to! But Zaidee recollected herself, and took her resolution again to her heart. Better that they should never hear from her, best that they thought her gone out of the world for ever; and Zaidee's simple mind supposed no changes in the home circle. She thought of the young Squire ruling his paternal acres, and all the household prosperous and happy as of old. The image in her mind had suffered no clouding out of the dim horizon of her own fate. She looked back upon them, and the sky was ever smiling. It was the comfort of her life. When Zaideo was well again, Jane Williams came one morning with a startling knock to her chamber door. Jane came armed with law and justice -a self-appointed magistrate, legislating in her own behalf-and demanded her book back again. Zaidee was fortunately alone. "Yes, child, you deceived me," said Jane. "I did trust you—yes, I did-and left my room and all I have to you. In my country, for sure, you might leave an open door and gold untold; but here I'd not have anybody turn over my belongings. Look you here, child, I put you in charge of it, and I went to Miss Mary. Well, then, I come back-and my door is open, and my fire be burning, and them papers, that's worth money, swept in like dust; and when I do look close, my book is gone. father's book it was. It belonged to the old Squire. You tell me just why you runned away." My "I was ill, Jane," said Zaideo humbly. Zaidee had turned the key already in the drawer which held the stolen book. "Was it 'cause of being ill you took the book, you child?" cried Jane. "Yes, sure, I heard you was ill; and this and another said, she'll die. If you'd have died, what would you have done then with a book was not your own?" "Did they think I would die?" asked Zaidee. It gave her a strange solemnity of feeling. She had been near this great event, and knew it not. "It's waste time talking," said the peremptory Jane. "Will you let me have my book? Husht, then I'm not hard on you, child; it isn't no pleasure to you now-it's in a heathen tongue-it may be not a good book, for aught I know. You listen to me. I have got a pretty book all stories and tales. I'll teach you to read it-I will, if you are good-and give me back that old thing that's no pleasure to you." Will you let me keep it, Jane?" pleaded Zaidee. "I like to look at it, and I have pleasure in it. May I have it a little? When you ask it again I will give it you.” The little old woman looked at Zaidee's pale face with compassion. "You poor child, you want to be at home and the wind on your cheeks," said Mrs. Williams; "but if you do have a fancy in your head, as they be all fancies in this house, will I baulk you, you little one? No, sure, the Williamses was always known for tender hearts. You take good care of it, then, and when you're well you may come back again, and I'll tell you of Rhys Llewellyn and his pretty lady, and how it was Miss Evelyn runned away." "How did she run away?" said Zaidee eagerly. She was suddenly struck with the expression, and in her innocence immediately leaped to the conclusion that the running away was like her own. "There was a rich gentleman, and there was a poor gentleman," said the ready narrator. "Sir Watkin and my lady, they would have the one, and Miss Evelyn, poor soul, she would have the other-you don't know nothing about such things, you child-and they fell upon a plan. I don't mind telling it, you be cer tain, unless some one does want to hear." Jane was clear-sighted, and saw that her young listener, finding the story not like her own, had flagged in her attention. But it was only for a moment, and Zaidee listened with great edification to the story of an elopement, in which Jane Williams herself had been art and part. But the current of her own thoughts, more interesting than any story, ran through the whole. "Frank Vivian, do justice to my son Percy "—these words rang into her heart like a trumpet; and Zaidee's mind made visionary addresses to Grandfather Vivian, telling him that she was her father's heir, and that she would never do them harm. Philip's chivalrous pride in his right as head of the house to protect her title to his own inheritance was repeated in the girlish flush of resolution with which she protested to herself that she was her father's heir, and that this was the inheritance Grandfather Vivian had left her. Now that she had time to think of it, in spite of the disappointment in her first hope of going home, this last discovery was a great support to Zaidee. was no longer totally alone in her exile and self-banishment. It seemed to her that now a little company had interest in her flight; that the old Squire's will had guided her unawares; that her father's honour would have been compromised had she done otherwise. She never could have found this had she remained at home. She must have done them wrong without remedy, and never known that Grandfather Vivian wished, at last, to restore them to their right. Her young imagination, calmed as it was by her long illness, was so strong still that it elevated her into the position of representing both Frank Vivian and his father. She had done what they would have done, but were not permitted. She was the heir of this injunction, and she had obeyed it; and high within her, forlorn and generous, rose Zaidee's heart. She When she was alone she took this book and laid it with her father's bible. She read the family name in both of them with a strange pride |