ther."

_Mrs. Fairfield_ (clasping her hands).--"We were proud of her, all of
us--father, mother,--all! She was so beautiful and so good, and not
proud she! though she looked like the first lady in the land. Oh! Nora,
Nora!"

_Leonard_ (after a pause).--"But she must have been highly educated?"

_Mrs. Fairfield._--"'Deed she was!"

_Leonard._--"How was that?"

_Mrs. Fairfield_ (rocking herself to and fro in her chair).--"Oh! my
Lady was her godmother--Lady Lansmere I mean--and took a fancy to her
when she was that high! and had her to stay at the Park, and wait on her
ladyship; and then she put her to school, and Nora was so clever that
nothing would do but she must go to London as a governess. But don't
talk of it, boy!--don't talk of it!"

_Leonard._--"Why not, mother?--what has become of her?--where is she?"

_Mrs. Fairfield_ (bursting into a paroxysm of tears).--"In her grave--in
her cold grave! Dead, dead!"

Leonard was inexpressibly grieved and shocked. It is the attribute of
the poet to seem always living, always a friend. Leonard felt as if some
one very dear had been suddenly torn from his heart. He tried to console
his mother; but her emotion was contagious, and he wept with her.

"And how long has she been dead?" he asked at last, in mournful accents.

"Many's the long year, many; but," added Mrs. Fairfield, rising, and
putting her tremulous hand on Leonard's shoulder, "you'll just never
talk to me about her--I can't bear it--it breaks my heart. I can bear
better to talk of Mark--come down stairs--come."

"May I not keep these verses, mother? Do let me."

"Well, well, those bits o' paper be all she left behind her--yes, keep
them, but put back Mark's. Are _they_ all here?--sure?" And the widow,
though she could not read her husband's verses, looked jealously at the
MSS. written in his irregular large scrawl, and, smoothing them
carefully, replaced them in the trunk, and resettled over them some
sprigs of lavender, which Leonard had unwittingly disturbed.

"But," said Leonard, as his eye again rested on the beautiful
handwriting of his lost aunt"--but you call her Nora--I see she signs
herself L."

"Leonora was her name. I said she was my Lady's godchild. We called her
Nora for short"--

"Leonora--and I am Leonard--is that how I came by the name?"

"Yes, yes--do hold your tongue, boy," sobbed poor Mrs. Fairfield; and
she could not be soothed nor coaxed into continuing or renewing a
subject