ng very well, the doctor says."

She crossed the room, and sat down on the edge of the mattress, taking
one of the large brown hands in both of hers and bending her face over
the pillow.

"Elsie! mother! Elsie, speak to your poor child!"

That wailing voice pierced the stupor, and Dr. Grey was surprised to
see the woman's eyes unclose and rest wonderingly upon the countenance
hovering over her.

"My dear Elsie, don't you know me?"

"Yes, my bairn. What ails you?"

She spoke indistinctly, and shut her eyes once more, as if exhausted.

"If she was in her coffin, I verily believe she would rise, if she
heard your voice calling her," said Robert, wiping away the tears of
joy that trickled across his sunburnt cheeks.

Dr. Grey stooped to put his finger on Elsie's pulse, and Mrs. Gerome
threw herself down on the carpet, and buried her face in the pillow,
where her silver hair mingled with the grizzled locks that straggled
from beneath the old woman's torn lace cap.

CHAPTER XII.

"Well, Ulpian, are you convinced that 'Solitude' is an unlucky place,
and that misfortune dogs the steps of all who make it a home? Once you
laughed at my 'superstition.' What think you now, my wiseacre?"

"My opinion has not changed, except that each time I see the place I
admire it more and more; and, were it for sale, I should certainly
purchase it."

"Not with the expectation of living there?"

"Most assuredly."

Miss Jane had suspended for a moment the swift clicking of her
knitting-needles in order to hear her brother's reply, and now she
rejoined, almost sharply,--

"You will do no such silly thing while there is breath left in my body
to protest, or to persuade. Pooh! you only talk to tease me; for five
grains of observation and common sense will teach you that there is a
curse hanging over that old piratical nest."

"Dear Janet, when headstrong drivers persist in carrying a pair of
fiery, vicious horses into the midst of a procession of wild beasts
that would have scared even your sober dull Dapples out of their lazy
jog-trot, it is not at all surprising that snapped harness, broken
carriage, torn flesh, and strained joints should attest the folly of
the experiment. The accident occurred not far from my office, which is
haunted by nothing worse than your harmless sailor-boy."

"All very fine, my blue-eyed oracle, but I notice that the horses
belonging to 'Solitude' were the only ones that made mischief and came