ng
flames only rendered the darkness of the farthermost portion of the hail
more deep and fearful. The clock chimed eleven: it was, as ever, the
voice of Time giving warning of eternity!

A light gleamed at the most distant end of the apartment, and a slight
but graceful girl approached the stranger. She was habited in a close
vest of grey cloth: her head covered with a linen cap, devoid of any
ornament; from under the plain border of which, a stream of hair
appeared, tightly drawn across a forehead of beautiful colour and
proportions.

"Will you please to follow, sir, to my master's study?"

Dalton turned suddenly round; the entire expression of his countenance
softened, and his firm-set lips opened, as if a word laboured to come
forth, and was retained only by an effort.

"Will you not follow, good sir?" repeated the girl, anxiously but
mildly. "My master is ill at ease, and wishes to return to my lady's
room: it may be----"

The sentence remained unfinished, and tears streamed afresh down cheeks
already swollen with weeping.

"Your name, girl?" inquired the stranger, eagerly.

"Barbara Iverk," she replied, evidently astonished at the question. He
seized her arm, and, while gazing earnestly in her face, murmured in a
tone of positive tenderness,--

"Are you happy?"

"I praise the Lord for his goodness! ever since I have been here, I have
been most happy; but my dear lady, who was so kind to me----" Again her
tears returned.

"You do not know me?--But you could not." Hugh Dalton gradually relaxed
his hold, and pulled from his bosom a purse heavy with Spanish
pieces--he presented it to the girl, but she drew back her hand and
shook her head.

"Take it, child, and buy thee a riding-hood, or a farthingale, or some
such trumpery, which thy vain sex delight in."

"I lack nothing, good sir, I thank ye; and, as to the coined silver, it
is only a tempter to the destruction of body and soul."

"As it may be used--as it may be used," repeated the sailor quickly;
"one so young would not abuse it."

"Wisdom might be needed in the expenditure; and I have heard that want
of knowledge is the forerunner of sin. Besides, I ask your pardon, good
sir, but strangers do not give to strangers, unless for charity; and I
lack nothing."

She dropped so modest a courtesy, and looked so perfectly and purely
innocent, that moisture, as unusual as it might be unwelcome, dimmed the
eyes of the stern man of ocean; and as he repl