those wonders of art
that transform dead colours into seeming life, and, while giving to
every lineament a faultless reproduction, heightens the charm of
each. How sweetly smiled down upon Mr. Markland the beautiful lips!
How tender were the loving eyes, that fixed themselves upon him and
held him almost spell-bound!

"Dear child!" he murmured, in a softened voice, and his eyes grew so
dim that the picture faded before him.

"As given to us!" said Mrs. Markland, almost solemnly.

A dead silence followed.

"But are we faithful to the trust? Have we guarded this treasure of
uncounted value? Alas! alas! Already the warm cheeks are fading; the
eyes are blinded with tears. I look anxiously down the vista of
years, and shudder. Can the shadowy form I see be that of our
child?"

"Oh, Agnes! Agnes!" exclaimed Mr. Markland, lifting his hands, and
partly averting his face, as if to avoid the sight of some fearful
image.

There was another hushed silence. It was broken by Mrs. Markland,
who grasped the hand of her husband, and said, in a low, impressive
voice--

"Fanny is yet with us--yet in the sheltered fold of home, though her
eyes have wandered beyond its happy boundaries and her ears are
hearkening to a voice that is now calling her from the distance.
Yet, under our loving guardianship, may we not do much to save her
from consequences my fearful heart has prophesied?"

"What can we do?" Mr. Markland spoke with the air of one bewildered.

"Guard her from all further approaches of this man; at least, until
we know him better. There is a power of attraction about him that
few so young and untaught in the world's strange lessons as our
child, can resist."

"He attracts strongly, I know," said Mr. Markland, in an absent way.

"And therefore the greater our child's danger, if he be of evil
heart."

"You, wrong him, believe me, Agnes, by even this intimation. I will
vouch for him as a man of high and honourable principles." Mr.
Markland spoke with some warmth of manner.

"Oh, Edward! Edward!" exclaimed his wife, in a distressed voice.
"What has so blinded you to the real quality of this man? 'By their
fruit ye shall know them.' And is not the first fruit, we have
plucked from this tree, bitter to the taste?"

"You are excited and bewildered in thought, Agnes," said Mr.
Markland, in a soothing voice. "Let us waive this subject for the
present, until both of us can refer to it with a more even
heart-beat."

Mrs.