listened for a moment, and then lifted the wooden latch, and looked in. The watcher by the bedside arose, and went to her. Susan would have been glad to see Peggy's face once more, but was far too weak to turn, so she lay and listened.

"How is she?" whispered one trembling aged voice.

other.

"Better,' replied the "She's been awake, and had a cup of tea. She'll do, now."

"Has she asked after him?" "Hush! No; she has not spoken a word."

"Poor lass! poor lass!"
The door was shut.

A weak feel ing of sorrow and self-pity came over Susan. What was wrong? Whom had she loved? And dawning, dawning, slowly, rose the sun of her former life, and all particulars were made distinct to her. She felt that some sorrow was coming to her, and cried over it before she knew what it was, or had strength enough to ask. In the dead of nightand she had never slept again-she softly called to the watcher, and asked:

"Who?"

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Who, what?" replied the woman, with a conscious affright, ill-veiled by a poor assumption of ease. "Lie still, there's a darling, and go to sleep. Sleep's better for you than all the doctor's stuff."

"Who?" repeated Susan. "Something is wrong. Who?"

"Oh, dear!" said the woman. "There's nothing wrong. Willie has taken the turn, and is doing nicely." "Father?"

"Well, he's all right now!" she answered, looking another way, as if seeking for something.

"Then it's Michael! Oh, me oh, me!" She set up a succession of weak, plaintive, hysterical cries before the nurse could pacify her, by declaring that Michael had been at the house not three hours before, to ask after her, and looked as well and as hearty as ever man did.

"And you heard of no harm to him since ?" inquired Susan.

"Bless the lass-no, for sure! I've ne'er heard his name named since I saw him go out of the yard as stout a man as ever trod shoeleather."

It was well, as the nurse said afterwards to Peggy, that Susan had been so easily pacified by the equivocating answer in respect to her father. If she had pressed the questions home in this case, as she did in Michael's, she would have learned that he was dead and buried more than a month before. It was well, too, that in her weak state of convalescence (which lasted long after this first day of consciousness) her perceptions were not sharp enough to observe the sad change that had taken place in Willie. His bodily strength returned, his appetite was something enormous, but his eyes wandered continually, his regard could not be arrested, his speech became slow, impeded, and incoherent. People began to say, that the fever had taken away the little wit Willie Dixon had ever possessed, and that they feared that he would end in being a natural, as they call an idiot in the Dales.

The habitual affection and obedience to Susan lasted longer than any other feeling that the boy had had previous to his illness; and, perhaps, this made her be the last to perceive what every one else had long anticipated. She felt the awakening rude when it did come. was in this wise:

It

One June evening she sat out of doors, under the yew-tree, knitting. She was pale still from her recent illness; and her languor joined to the fact of her black dress, made her look more than usually interesting. She was no longer the buoyant, selfsufficient Susan, equal to every occasion. The men were bringing in the cows to be milked, and Michael was about in the yard, giving orders and directions with somewhat the air of a master; for the farm belonged

of right to Willie, and Susan had succeeded to the guardianship of her brother. Michael and she were to be married as soon as she was strong enough-so, perhaps, his authoritative manner was justified; but the laborers did not like it, although they said little. They remembered him a stripling on the farm, knowing far less than they did, and often glad to shelter his ignorance of all agricultural matters behind their superior knowledge. They would have taken orders from Susan with far more willingness; nay! Willie himself might have commanded them, and for the old hereditary feeling towards the owners of land they would have obeyed him with far greater cordiality than they now showed to Michael. But Susan was tired with even three rounds of knitting, and seemed not to notice, or to care, how things went on around her; and Williepoor Willie !—there he stood lounging against the door-sill, enormously grown and developed, to be sure, but with restless eyes and ever open mouth, and every now and then setting up a strange kind of howling cry, and then smiling vacantly to himself at the sound he had made. As the two old laborers passed him, they looked at each other ominously, and shook their heads.

"Willie, darling,' said Susan, "don't make that noise-it makes my head ache."

She spoke feebly, and Willie did not seem to hear; at any rate, he continued his howl from time to time.

"Hold thy noise, wilt 'a?" said Michael roughly, as he passed near him, and threatening him with his fist. Susan's back was turned to the pair. The expression of Willie's face changed from vacancy to fear, and he came shambling up to Susan, and put her arm around him, and, as if protected by that shelter, he began pulling faces at Michael. Susan saw what was going on, and, as if now first struck by the strangeness of her

brother's manner, she looked anxiously at Michael for an explanation. Michael was irritated at Willie's defiance of him, and did not mince the matter.

"It's just that the fever has left him silly-he never was as wise as other folk, and now I doubt if he will ever get right."

Susan did not speak, but she went very pale, and her lip quivered. She looked long and wistfully at Willie's face, as he watched the motion of the ducks in the great stable-pool. He laughed softly to himself from time to time.

"Willie likes to see the ducks go overhead," said Susan, instinctively adopting the form of speech she would have used to a young child.

"Willie, boo! Willie, boo!" he replied, clapping his hands, and avoiding her eye.

"Speak properly, Willie," said Susan, making a strong effort at selfcontrol, and trying to arrest his attention.

"You know who I am-tell me my name!" She grasped his arm almost painfully tight to make him attend. Now he looked at her, and for an instant, a gleam of recognition quivered over his face; but the exertion was evidently painful, and he began to cry at the vainness of the effort to recall her name. He hid his face upon her shoulder with the old affectionate trick of manner. She put him gently away, and went into the house into her own little bedroom. She locked the door, and did not reply at all to Michael's calls for her, hardly spoke to old Peggy, who tried to tempt her out to receive some homely sympathy, and through the open casement there still came the idiotic sound of "Willie, boo! Willie, boo!"

CHAPTER III.

AFTER the stun of the blow came the realization of the consequences. Susan would sit for hours trying pa

tiently to recall and piece together fragments of recollection and consciousness in her brother's mind. She would let him go and pursue some senseless bit of play, and wait until she could catch his eye or his attention again, when she would resume her self-imposed task. Michael complained that she never had a word for him, or a minute of time to spend with him now; but she only said she must try, while there was yet a chance, to bring back her brother's lost wits. As for marriage in this state of uncertainty, she had no heart to think of it. Then Michael stormed, and absented himself for two or three days; but it was of no use. When he came back he saw that she had been crying until her eyes were all swollen up, and he gathered from Peggy's scoldings (which she did not spare him) that Susan had eaten nothing since he went away. But she was as inflexible

as ever.

"Not just yet, only not just yet, and don't say again that I do not love you," said she, suddenly hiding herself in his arms.

And so matters went on through August. The crop of oats was gathered in; the wheat-field was not ready as yet, when one fine day Michael drove up in a borrowed shandry, and offered to take Willie a ride.

His manner, when Susan asked him where he was going to, was rather confused; but the answer was straight and clear enough.

"He had business in Ambleside. He would never lose sight of the lad, and have him back safe and sound before dark." So Susan let him go. Before night they were at home again; Willie in high delight at a little rattling paper windmill that Michael had bought for him in the street, and striving to imitate this new sound with perpetual buzzings. Michael, too, looked pleased. Susan knew the look, although afterwards she remembered that he had tried to veil it from her, and had assumed a

grave appearance of sorrow whenever he caught her eye. He put up his horse; for, although he had three miles further to go, the moon was up-the bonny harvest-moon-and he did not care how late he had to drive on such a road by such a light. After the supper which Susan had prepared for the travellers was over, Peggy went up stairs to see Willie safe in bed; for he had to have the same care taken of him that a little child of four years old requires.

Michael drew near to Susan.

"Susan," said he, "I took Will to see Dr. Preston, at Kendal. He's the first doctor in the county. I thought it were better for us-for you to know at once what chance there were for him."

"Well?" said Susan, looking eagerly up. She saw the same strange glance of satisfaction, the same instant change to apparent regret and pain. "What did he say?" said she. "Speak! can't you?"

"He said he would never get better of his weakness.'

"Never!"

think. And I don't thank them that went and took my poor lad to have such harsh notions formed about him. If I'd been there I could have called out the sense that is in him."

to

"Well, I'll not say more night, Susan. You're not taking it rightly, and I'd best be gone, and leave you to think it over. I'll not deny they are hard words to hear, but there's sense in them, as I take it; and I reckon you'll have to come to 'em. Anyhow, it's a bad way of thanking me for my pains, and I don't take it well in you, Susan," said he, getting up, as if offended.

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Michael, I'm beside myself with sorrow. Don't blame me if I speak sharp. He and me are the only ones, you see. And mother did so charge me to have a care of him! And this is what he's come to, poor lile chap!" She began to cry, and Michael to comfort her with caresses.

"Don't," said she. "It's no use trying to make me forget poor Willie is a natural. I could hate myself for being happy with you, even for just a little minute. Go away, and leave me to face it out."

"And you'll think it over, Susan, and remember what the doctor says?”

"I can't forget it," said she. She meant she could not forget what the doctor had said about the hopelessness of her brother's case; he had referred to the plan of sending Willie away to an asylum, or madhouse, as they were called in that day and place. The idea had been gathering force in Michael's mind for long; he had talked it over with his father, and secretly rejoiced over the possession of the farm and land which would then be his in fact, if not in law, by right of his wife. He had always considered the good penny her father could give her in his catalogue of Susan's charms and attractions. But of late he had grown to esteem her as the heiress of Yew Nook. He too should have land like his brother-land to possess, to cul

tivate, to make profit from, to bequeath. For some time he had wondered that Susan had been too much absorbed in Willie's present, that she never seemed to look forward to his future state. Michael had long felt the boy to be a trouble; but of late he had absolutely loathed him. His gibbering, his uncouth gestures, his loose shambling gait, all irritated Michael inexpressibly. He did not come near the Yew Nook for a couple of days. He thought that he would. leave her time to become anxious to see him and reconciled to his plan. They were strange, lonely days to Susan. They were the first she had spent face to face with the sorrows that had turned her from a girl into a woman, for hitherto Michael had never let twenty-four hours pass by without coming to see her since she had had the fever. Now that he was absent it seemed as though some cause of irritation was removed from Will, who was much more gentle and tractable than he had been for many weeks. Susan thought that she observed him making efforts at her bidding, and there was something piteous in the way in which he crept up to her, and looked wistfully in her face, as if asking her to restore him the faculties that he felt to be wanting.

"I never will let thee go, lad. Never! There's no knowing where they would take thee to, or what they would do with thee. Nought but death shall part thee and me!"

The countryside was full, in those days, of stories of the brutal treatment offered to the insane; stories that were in fact only too well founded, and the truth of one of which only would have been a sufficient reason for the strong prejudice existing against all such places. Each succeeding hour that Susan passed, alone, or with the poor, affectionate lad for her sole companion, served to deepen her solemn resolution never to part with him. So, when Michael came, he was annoyed and

surprised by the calm way in which she spoke, as if following Dr. Preston's advice was utterly and entirely out of the question. He had expected nothing less than a consent, reluctant it might be, but still a consent; and he was extremely irritated. He could have repressed his anger, but he chose rather to give way to it, thinking that he could so best work upon Susan's affection, to gain his point. But, somehow, he overreached himself; and now he was astonished in his turn at the passion of indignation that she burst into.

"Thou wilt not bide in the same house with him, say'st thou? There's no need for thy biding, as far as I can tell. There's solemn reason why I should bide with my own flesh and blood, and keep to the word I pledged my mother on her deathbed; but, as for thee, there's no tie that I know on to keep thee fra going to America or Botany Bay this very night, if that were thy inclination. I will have no more of your threats to make me send my bairn away. If thou marry me, thou'lt help me to take charge of Willie. If thou doesn't choose to marry me on those terms-why! I can snap my fingers at thee, never fear. I'm not so far gone in love as that. But I will not have thee if thou say'st in such a hectoring way that Willie must go out of the house-and the house his own too-before thou'lt set foot in it. Willie bides here and I bide with him."

"Thou hast maybe spoken a word too much," said Michael, pale with rage. "If I am free, as thou say'st, to go to Canada or Botany Bay, I reckon I'm free to live where I like, and that will not be with a natural, who may turn into a madman some day, for aught I know. Choose between him and me, Susy, for I swear to you, you shan't have both."

"I have chosen," said Susan, now perfectly composed and still.

"Whatever comes of it, I bide with Willie."

"Very well," replied Michael, trying to assume an equal composure of manner. "Then I'll wish you a

very good night." He went out of the house-door half-expecting to be called back again; but, instead, he heard a hasty step inside, and a bolt drawn.

"Whew!" said he to himself, "I think I must leave lady alone for a week or two, and give her time to come to her senses. She'll not find it so easy as she thinks to let me go."

So he went past the kitchen window in nonchalant style, and was not seen again at Yew Nook for some weeks. How did he pass the time? For the first day or two he was unusually cross with all things and people that came across him. Then wheat harvest began, and he was busy, and exultant about his heavy crop. Then a man came from a distance to bid for the lease of his farm, which had been offered for sale by his father's advice, as he himself was soon likely to remove to the Yew Nook. He had so little idea that Susan really would remain firm to her determination, that he at once began to haggle with the man who came after his farm, showed him the crop just got in, and managed skilfully enough to make a good bargain for himself. Of course the bargain had to be sealed at the public house ; and the companions he met with there soon became friends enough to tempt him into Langdale, where again he met with Eleanor Hebthwaite.

How did Susan pass the time? For the first day or so she was too angry and offended to cry. She went about her household duties in a quick, sharp, jerking, yet absent way; shrinking one moment from Will, overwhelming him with remorseful caresses the next. The third day of Michael's absence she had the relief of a good fit of crying; and after that she grew softer ⚫