at a time, and I had no heart, no courage, to talk about myself then. Ah me! if you had been always with me it might have-but there, such regrets are worse than useless."

My sigh was almost a moan over the truth of those words; how I wished then, and wish now, that I had never left my home to live in Scotland!

"But. mamma," urged I, "why not tell her?"

66

Oh, I could not bring myself to say any thing likely to distress poor mamma, she is so delicate. Besides, I was not sure you know at that time there really was much seriously the matter with me-if anything the matter at all, indeed. I looked strong and well then. I was neither thin nor pale, and my appetite so good that papa often laughed at the quantity I ate; it was a common observation how blooming and healthy I was. Altogether I felt ashamed of telling any one I thought myself ill, knowing they would only regard it as a girlish whim."

"Surely, Edith, you might have confided in me," broke forth Charles, in an agitated voice; "but what blindness possessed me and dulled

my faculties, that I never discovered it for self, I cannot conceive."

my

"But what makes you think you are really ill, darling?" quoth I. "Oh, God mercifully grant you may after all be mistaken!"

Secretly, as is my wont under every tribulation, I sent a petition to my Heavenly Father for support, for my heart shrank from her answer; albeit, for the dear thing's sake, I resolved to learn the truth.

Edith shook her head; then she said drearily,

"No, Sariann, I am not mistaken; would that I were for all your beloved sakes, far more than my own, would that I were! No; what I thought at first I know now."

Anon she stopped, and looked at Charles, her sweet face full of a loving sister's regretful tenderness.

"One day," she spoke reluctantly, glancing alternately at Charles and me-" one day I was walking with papa, and we met a lady who had not long come to Riversdale. You know her-Mrs. Irskin-and she began almost at once talking of her niece, whom she seemed exceedingly grieved and anxious about—a girl

of my age," she added, looking scrutinizingly at me-" who they feared was dying of consumption. Then, upon papa's gently suggesting the possibility that the girl's over-anxious friends might be mistaken, she entered into a lengthened detail of the symptoms slowly but surely developing themselves in her, and as I listened I felt like one receiving her death-warrant; every point in the description exactly tallied with my feelings. Yes—now I know—consumption; like poor Alice Irskin, I too was dying slowly of consumption."

Charles sat down beside Edith on the bench, and, resting his elbows on his knees, bent his face upon his hands.

"How long ago was this?" I asked, in a choking voice.

"About six months. Mrs. Irskin then went on to say she intended taking her niece the next day to Mandelow, to consult a doctor of great eminence residing there, who was especially famous for his knowledge in all lung and chest diseases-Dr. Mardyke. Well, after that I was so miserable! It was such a heavy, dreary secret to bear about with me unassisted. I too was in a consumption; I, too, was dying!

Papa and mamma thought me in good health; how could I undeceive them! Sometimes I ventured to complain of being tired, but they only laughed and said I was always lazy when Charley was away. Oh, they little understood what a gnawing, sinking sensation of fatigue every exertion cost me! When I said I was always hungry, eat what I might, Just the right thing,' poor papa declared, 'I was growing tall, and needed propping up well.' Even the pains in my side and back, which I one evening mentioned to old nurse Mary, were, she assured me, of no consequence, being merely growing pains, and all young girls were subject to them. At last I began to hope there really was little or nothing the matter with me. The symptoms of ill health I suffered might be the same in feeling and appearance as those of Alice Irskin, but might they not result from a wholly different cause—a cause containing no absolute danger? This reflection comforted me for a while; but at the termination of another month my fast-increasing ill health told me only too plainly I was deluding myself with false hopes. Just about this time grandpapa invited papa and mamma to pay

them a visit in Scotland; and they accordingly went. And now a sudden resolve seized me: I would-yes-I too would see, and consult Dr. Mardyke. I would insist upon knowing the truth, and thus terminate this painful uncertainty on the subject of my failing health; if, in fact, it was failing: but that was the dark point I determined if possible to clear up.

"Remembering that Mrs. Irskin had said Thursday was one of his reception-days for patients in his own house, I accordingly put off my governess with the excuse I was going to pay a visit, and should be absent till late, and, saying the same to the servants, got into the public coach one Thursday morning, and was driven to Windlake station; the distance, you know, from there to Mandelow is not great."

Charles had raised his pale face at this part of Edith's narrative, an expression of blank astonishment in all his features.

"To think of you, delicate, timid creature, going through all that by yourself!" he interposed, passionately, "and ill, too, as you were. Oh, Edith, why did you do it?"

She made no answer; her mind seemed so