my brother-in-law some day, it is only fair that I should know something of him. He does not belong to our set, Prissy.'

666

"Oh, Vincent, pray don't get him into your set!' I cried, in my girlish simplicity. My brother laughed. You have a very bad opinion of me, like all the rest of them, I see,' he said; but you need not be alarmed; I am not so black as I am painted by our father, perhaps.' He said this very bitterly, and then he turned the conversation to some other subject. But I remember well, Harry, what a chill came over my heart then; for, young as I was, I feared that this meeting could turn to no good. And I was right.

"But I soon had something else to occupy my attention. So had we all. A very strange and unexpected thing happened, Harry. A very, very distant relation of our father, whom we had never seen, and of whom we had scarcely ever heard, died and left us a fortune. The fortune was this old Priory estate, which, with five thousand pounds, came to our poor father. Five thousand pounds was also bequeathed to our brother Vincent; and to my sisters and myself was left a like sum, on condition of its being at once sunk in a joint life annuity.

"You may suppose, Harry, what an upstir this news made in our family; and when we were quite sure of its being true our heads were completely turned, I think. For a little while there was nothing but rejoicing and congratulations all round. One good effect of this unexpected shower of wealth was a reconciliation between our poor father and Vincent; and another was the payment of all my father's and brother's debts.

“I do not know," continued Prissy, "whether the happiness of being free from debt was too great to be borne by our poor father, or whether the fatigue of arranging with lawyers was too much for his weakness, or whether it was real disease at last; but he did not live to visit his property, much less to settle upon it. He lived long enough to be put in possession, and to see

the provisions of the will regarding ourselves executed; and then he died, very, very suddenly, on the eve of his intended journey to this place.'

"And left no will?" said Harry, inquiringly.

"He left no will, and the estate thus descended at once to Vincent."

"I can understand this, aunt: but

"You are impatient, I see. Well I will shorten this part of the story, Harry. Soon after our poor father was buried, Vincent came to look at the Priory. He very speedily returned. It would never do for him, he said; he should die of exhaustion before he had lived a month in the old place. But if we, his sisters, chose to make it our home, we should be welcome to live in it rent free. We did choose to live here, Harry and in a few weeks we bade adieu to Oxford. It was a long farewell, Harry, though we then did not anticipate that it would be a final parting, as it really was we neither of us ever saw our native town after that day of leaving it.

"And now," continued Prissy, "I am just coming to the sad and sorrowful part of the story. And, Melly, my dear, would it not be better for you to retire for a little while? Why should your thoughts be carried back to that time of misery?"

"My thoughts are very much accustomed to travel on that road, my dear; and I think I can bear it," returned Miss Fleming, quietly. "I would rather, therefore"

The door opened while she was speaking, and Mr. Crickett entered.

"No, William, no; you were told that we did not wish to be disturbed," said Miss Prissy, almost angrily.

"Prayer-time, ladies," said the butler, with an unmoved countenance, as he advanced to the table and placed on it the book; "and it is according to rule. Howsoever, if Master Harry is to come in before the

"You

“William is right, my dear," said Miss Melly, mildly. are right, William," she repeated, approvingly. "No earthly thought ought to interfere with higher duty. Let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God; and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.'

And so they presently knelt before their Father in heaven; and if there were any there who mocked Him with a solemn sound upon a thoughtless or hypocritical tongue, so did not the simple-minded and single-hearted sisters.

When these evening devotions were over it was remembered that Harry had dined sparingly, and was to leave the Priory early on the coming day; and it was not till a plentiful supper had been spread, and hastily despatched, and Mr. Crickett had finally withdrawn for the night, that Prissy would consent to resume the interrupted history.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE SISTERS' STORY, CONCLUDED.

"I HAVE told you, Harry," said Prissy Fleming, when Mr. Crickett had withdrawn, and her sister, her nephew, and herself were once more seated round the fire, "I have told you of our first coming to the Priory. We were very young to have such a charge put upon us, but we did not feel the burden. Our hearts were so light, Harry, at having escaped from the constant pressure of poverty-genteel poverty, too—that I am afraid we did not feel so deeply as we ought to have felt the recent bereavement we had experienced. There is this to be said in our excuse, that our poor father had been so soured by his troubles-but I will.

H

not speak of this. I shall only say, that if we mourned his death too little, and were too light-hearted and happy in our new circumstances, retribution was not long delayed.

"Well, Harry, we took possession of the Priory; and as our brother absented himself, we had the credit with our neighbours of being the sole owners of the estate. We did not set about to rectify the mistake. Perhaps we were elated with the consequence we thus obtained. It was natural we should be, I suppose.

"We soon became rather popular, Harry. And this also, I suppose, was natural. Visitors called upon us; invitations poured in. But you have heard something of this, I dare say." "Oh yes, aunt Prissy," said Harry, with a smile; “you were quite the rage-popular idols, shall I say? You were spoken of as the fair nuns of the Priory, and much more to the same purpose. All this I have heard; and I do not wonder at it."

"There was a great deal of nonsense spoken, I have no doubt," said Prissy; “and enough came to our ears to tickle our vanity. At least, I can answer for myself; and I dare say all our heads were a little turned with the adulation we received: and we behaved accordingly.

"There were gay doings at this old place, Harry, that is the truth of it, and a great deal of vanity and folly. We held our levees; we had our parties, to which our neighbours, for many miles around, were invited and came. We had a sufficient command of money to sustain this life of frivolity; for our separate portions of our father's recently acquired personal property gave us this power, independently of our annuities. Besides this, our brother, poor Vincent, would not hear of receiving any rent for the Priory; for, with all his wildness, he was generous. So we spent money very fast, and very foolishly."

"What signifies speaking so much of these things, my dear?” asked Miss Fleming, for the first time breaking her self-imposed silence.

"Very little indeed, sister; only that it is best for our nephew to know all our weaknesses. But I will pass on to another part of our story. I told you, Harry, of a young collegian whom we met with our brother one evening at Oxford, as we were walking by the river-side. That young collegian was your own father."

Henry Rivers' countenance betrayed his surprise. "I never knew that my father was at college," he said.

"He was at college," returned Prissy, calmly; "but I do not wonder you never heard of it. He was always reserved towards you, Harry, you yourself acknowledge."

“He was exceedingly uncommunicative, aunt-unhappily for me, or I might have been better prepared for my present troubles," said Harry, with deep emotion.

"True, true; and oh, Harry!" exclaimed Prissy, "I can never think—we can never think, dear Melly and I-of those troubles without a deep feeling of sorrow that if your poor father had never known our brother, things would never have happened as they have done. It is written that one sinner destroyeth much good; and it is no small part of our self-reproach, that your ruin, dear Henry, is to be traced to our own brother."

"Don't talk of my ruin, aunt Prissy," said Henry Rivers, more cheerfully than he had yet spoken since his return from Fairbourne Court. "I am not poorer now than many a more worthy fellow than I, nor so poor as many a one besides. I am young, I have hands to labour, health, strength, determination, and I hope, a blunt sort of intellect which may serve my purpose. I hope, too, that I am indifferently honest; and I know that, as yet, I have done nothing to make me ashamed of my altered circumstances. Somehow or other I shall get through the world, I think; and if I have betrayed a little weakness to-day, aunt, I am not going to sit down all my life hereafter to cry over a broken toy. You must not talk of my being ruined till I have done something to make you ashamed of me. Then indeed