such dependence on Sir John's sagacity: he knows what life is, though his days for the most part are spent at Forest Range. His nature is not timorous: I have heard him say often, 'Nothing venture, nothing have ;' but to use another aphorism, he 'looks before he leaps.

"My dear Miss Craven, I have looked most keenly, I assure you. Why, Sir John prophesied the breaking up of the Company last April, when my sister and John Erskine were with us. It was in May that poor McCormick came to him in such great terror, and actually sold off his shares, which would have been worth half as much again to him to-day, if he had retained them. And now it is the end of August, and the Company not only keeps its head above water, but is floating triumphantly on the crested waves of a golden flowing tide !”

"Then you have not taken Sir John's advice, and sold the shares your mother had in this Mining Company?"

"Of course not! My mother would not sell them, even had I wished it, and I, after one or two talks with the directors, could not advise her to sell out; on the contrary, I have made further purchases on my own account; and Sir John will own that I was right, when he sees me redeeming the alienated acres of Monkswood, and restoring the poor old long-neglected place to its pristine glories!"

"Cyril," said Agnes, very earnestly, and I noticed that her voice shook a little,-"I implore you by the friendship that is between us, by your hopes of making a happy home for Elizabeth, as you value your own peace of mind, do not trust to this Eldorado scheme of getting rich. Oh! be content to plod quietly on a few years longer, and I am sure that talents such as yours will be acknowledged by the world, and you will win your way to fame and fortune! Do you know, these companies seem to me nothing more nor less than gambling?”

"Nay! that is a hard name to give to the speculative

genius of the nineteenth century! But I promise you, Agnes, as a brother would promise his dearest sister, I will not trust solely to the prospects that are brightening before me;-I will stick firmly to my duties, and then,-if the bubble bursts,-I am just where I was."

"Not precisely," I ventured to remark; “I am not sure that shareholders are not liable in cases where the whole thing fails. Where are the mines?

"In North and South America, of course! in Peru, and Quito, and Columbia, and Mexico, and everywhere about the Andes and the Alleghany ranges."

"Are they tin mines like these about us, or copper mines?" asked Elizabeth.

"They are mines of all sorts; gold and silver mines, and copper too, and lead, I fancy also,-I think lead always goes with silver. And Mr. Sparkes, the great man among them, told me the other day in confidence, that in the course of the mining operations they had come upon diamonds and emeralds !"

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Almost like a story out of the ‘Arabian Nights,'" said Agnes, sadly.

"Nay!" interposed Elizabeth; "I have read Prescott's 'Conquest of Peru,' and there you are told all about the gems and precious metals of the soil. Prescott is reliable, of course, and he tells us that gold was a mere drug in the ancient city of Cuzco they made everything of gold, those aboriginal Peruvians—even the water-pipes, and reservoirs, and common vessels for domestic use; and jewels were of no account. I remember reading of a golden door, crusted over with emeralds and other precious stones!"

"That was when the Spaniard first planted himself in the land," Agnes replied. "Most of the mines are exhausted now, I fear."

"No doubt," was Cyril's quick rejoinder, "but what is more natural than that fresh ones should be discovered? This is a colossal company, you understand. They must have unlimited means at their command, and they will pour unlimited wealth into the lap of

their shareholders. I have studied the thing well,able geologists of known repute have given their opinion concerning the presence of mineral riches in certain spots among the mountains, and they confirm every statement of this Company. Several mines are being worked successfully already; many more are discovered and only waiting for funds to commence the works, and explorers still go out, finding spots where, by certain unmistakable indications, gold and silver, and other rich ores, lie beneath the soil."

Cyril talked on, till I believe Agnes and I began to believe in the Cordillera and Alleghany Company, and we all grew enthusiastic together. One might have thought that one had only to go out to certain districts of the Western World with a pickaxe and a spade, and dig up the precious metals, as one digs up potatoes in the less auriferous land of Southamshire! We talked till the golden glory faded from the sea, and left it cold and grey,-till the ruby-coloured mists that floated in the west became of a leaden, spectral hue, and a melancholy wind came moaning across the desolate waste of waters. The night was closing in, chill and sad, for there was no moon, and suddenly, as is often the case on these wild, wave-beaten shores, heavy troops of clouds came scudding up and settling landwards, casting a livid gloom upon the lately glowing landscape. Cyril was evidently depressed as he walked homewards: did he think the sudden chill and gloom might be the type of the close that waited on his brilliant visions? Whatever he thought, he did not recover his cheerfulness that night, and the next morning he left Penrhoe, and we were to see him no more till Christmas-tide. We lingered on a fortnight longer, and the last week of our sea-side sojourn we had Sally Hawkes for our guest; she had been so seriously unwell that Mrs. Denham was really glad to give her change of air and scene, lest she should break down altogether, a consummation not at all improbable.

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CHAPTER XV.

THE CEDAR CHAMBER.

IT was September when we returned once more to dear old Forest Range, a beautiful mellow September; and Southamshire looked fairer than ever, in its rich autumnal loveliness, after the bold and rugged features of the Cornish scenery. We had been at home, I think, about a week,-not longer, certainly, —when one morning, as Agnes and I were conversing in the breakfast-room, we saw Mrs. Denham walking, or rather striding, across the lawn towards the open window where we sat. We both exclaimed: for it was still very early, not much more than half-past nine,—and she must have taken the earliest train that stopped at St. Croix, and walked up from the Ashchurch station. So unlike Mrs. Denham, the cold, the slow-pondering, and the formal mistress of that dreary Monkswood! But where was Sally Hawkes, her inseparable shadow? Was anything the matter? was Cyril dead? was- -? But our rapidly uttered cogitations were quickly suspended by Mrs. Denham stepping in at the window, which was French, and looking at us fixedly and stonily, and saying "The Lord has visited me with His sore judgments: He has given me over into the hand of the spoiler !"

My first idea was that Mrs. Denham had suddenly gone mad; my second, that the great bubble of the Cordillera and Alleghany Company had burst at last; but I said, "Dear Mrs. Denham, sit down, what is the matter?"

For she was trembling all over, and her features working strangely, she, the frigidly composed, the

imperturbable! "Fetch your guardian! fetch Sir John!" she cried, waving her hand as Vashti might have waved it, had she lost her senses. I obeyed her, looking to Agnes to remain with her while I left the room. While I was away,—and I had to seek Sir John in several places, and finally hunt him out from the uttermost parts of his own farm-lands, Mrs. Denham said to Agnes, imperiously, "Give me some wine! give me brandy!"

Agnes went herself and brought the decanters and a glass she felt intuitively that our unexpected visitor did not wish to be waited on by servants. Mrs. Denham seldom took wine at all, her usual beverage was water, and wine and spirits before ten o'clock in the morning had probably never suggested themselves to her before. She poured out some brandy, slightly diluted it with water from a carafe that always stood on a side-table, swallowed it slowly, gasped several times, and seemed relieved. Then Agnes, ashen-pale to the very lips, ventured to enquire, "O Mrs. Denham-is it Cyril ?-is he?"

"Cyril also is smitten," replied Mrs. Denham, as Agnes said, with an awful intonation. But she gathered that her friend was still in the land of the living; and then it also flashed across her mind that the glistening bubble we had talked about that evening on the Penrhoe shore had melted into air. She sat sorrowful and anxious, not daring to say more, while Mrs. Denham shook her head and muttered to herself.

When Sir John appeared, she greeted him thus: "Sir John! the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the light! You were right about those mining shares. There are no mines!there may be no Cordillera chain or Alleghany Mountains for aught I know! I believe nothing; I trust nobody: I have been deceived by lies,-I am a ruined woman!"

Sir John was not surprised, but he was very sorry, and there was no sign of triumph on his fine, frank