practice, however; but she used it, she told me, when writing her diary, from an affectionate remembrance of those dear old bygone years and persons. Sariann was six years older than I, and dearly loved and valued by her father, to whom in his declining years-prematurely aged by his recent afflictions-she was more than a right hand. She was exceedingly liked and esteemed by my grandmother, who desired nothing more earnestly than to promote, in every possible way, the intimacy between herself and me.

About this time (my governess, Miss Pitt, being absent for a short holiday), Sariann one morning came into the drawing-room, where grandmamma and I sat reading and otherwise occupied. She held a letter in her hand, and her face was very white, and her manner and look full of an agitation the more remarkable in one so usually calm and self-possessed.

"Dear Lady Denzell!" hurrying forward and speaking with much difficulty, "see here! oh, see here! he is come back! thank God, he is come back!"

She gave grandmamma the letter in her hand, and, breathing heavily, sat down. I went to

her and kissed her pale cheek, and wiped her brow with my kerchief, the while I caressingly unfastened her bonnet and mantle.

"Is the letter to Dr. Beechley or to you?" I murmured.

Sariann's whole frame quivered as she faltered, “To mother!”

"Oh!" groaned I, involuntarily, "then he knows nothing. Poor Charles!"

"Yes-poor Charles!" she repeated, in accents of sorrowful bitterness.

Grandmamma read the letter twice-it did not seem to contain much in words, whatever it did. in meaning then she silently returned it to Sariann. The latter meeting my eyes, which were no doubt burning with irrepressible curiosity, she instantly gave it to me, and I eagerly read, half aloud,

" MY EVER DEARLY LOVED MOTHER,-I entreat you to forgive me for my apparently heartless, unfeeling conduct, and the distress it must have caused your sensitive nature. But did know the truth-which God in mercy grant you never will in this world!—you would not, you could not, blame me. I implore you

you

all, father, Sariann, to accord me an unconditional, entire pardon for the past.

"I am now longing, heart and soul, to come home for awhile; but ere doing so must add another request to the above, which is that no person in the house will ask, or even hint, a question to me, direct or indirect, with intent to penetrate the mystery enshrouding the last three years of my life. If any one of you refuse this latter, I will never again-forgive me, I cannot help myself-never again, enter the doors of my home, endeared though it is to me by every tie that can bind the heart of man to all that is good and best. I know you will send me a speedy answer, mother-beloved mother!-and I await it with feelings I am powerless to express.

"Your loving, still unhappy Son,
"CHARLES BEECHLEY."

"No choice remains to you, my dear, but to grant his-I regret to term it so-his imperious request," grandmamma said, presently. "And without doubt your good father sees it in that light also."

"Ye-es, he does," replied Sariann, hesita

tingly, a pained, angry expression filling her eyes with tears and contracting her smooth forehead.

"Whatever the sad, hidden cause," resumed grandmamma, half pleadingly, "it is clear it has made Charles a desperate man; and those who love and pity him must forbear and forgive, if they wish to save him from utter destruction. For myself, therefore (his true friend still), I promise that by no intentional word or look will I wound his feelings; and I believe I can equally answer for my little girl." "Oh, yes!" I responded, "that you can." "Thank you, dear kind friend that you always are," murmured Sariann, gratefully. "Every one will not treat him so mercifully; of that he may be sure, and must learn to submit, whether he likes it or not. Yes," she resumed, after a short silence, and speaking in a mournfully resigned tone, poor papa takes the same view of the melancholy case that you do; but oh, dear Lady Denzell! you may conceive how keenly, cuttingly painful to his honourable mind is the thought that a child of his-his once so proudly prized son-must henceforth live shrinking 'neath a covering of

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secrecy, the close maintaining of which will be regarded by all-ah me!-as a positive proof that some fearful deed, some crime, lies concealed under it."

"I can quite understand-quite enter into your father's and your feelings, my dear child," grandmamma said, gently; "but remember that brief and beautiful story of the returned prodigal."

"Oh, yes, dear Lady Denzell! I do indeed I do!" interposed Sariann, earnestly; "and as for poor papa, this morning, directly after receiving the letter, he set off for Dover, his heart full only of pity, forgiveness, and love for his unhappy, erring boy."

But Charles declares he is not in fault," I objected; "you see that in this letter his sorrow is only because of the distress which he feels his unavoidable conduct-so he positively calls it, you know-has brought upon you all, especially his mother. Perhaps, we cannot tell -oh, it is as bewildering a riddle as any which that horrid Sphinx inflicted upon humanity!" I concluded, with perplexed impatience.

"It is," sighed Sariann, looking as puzzled as I must have done.