e had no head
for play." Interspersed with these were little discussions as to the
immediate cause of death, as full of ignorance and as ingenious as
such explanations usually are, all being contemptuously wound up by
Haggerstone's remark, "That death was like matrimony,--very difficult
when wanted, but impossible to escape when you sought to avoid it!" As
this remark had the benefit of causing a blush to poor Martha, he gave
his arm to the ladies, with a sense of gratification that came as near
happiness as anything he could imagine.

"Is Miss Dalton in the drawing-room?" said Mrs. Rick-etts, as with an
air of deep importance she swept through the hall of the villa.

"She's in her room, Madame," said the maid.

"Ask if she will receive me,--if I may speak to her."

The maid went out, and returned with the answer that Miss Dalton was
sleeping.

"Oh, let her sleep!" cried Martha. "Who knows when she will taste such
rest again?"

Mrs. Ricketts bestowed a glance of withering scorn on her sister, and
pushed roughly past her, towards Nelly's chamber. A few minutes after a
wild, shrill shriek was heard through the house, and then all was still.

CHAPTER XXI. NELLY'S SORROWS

Stunned, but not overcome, by the terrible shock, Nelly Dalton sat
beside the bed where the dead man lay in all that stern mockery of calm
so dreadful to look upon. Some candles burned on either side, and threw
a yellowish glare over the bold strong features on which her tears had
fallen, as, with a cold hand clasped in his, she sat and watched him.

With all its frequency, Death never loses its terrors for us! Let a man
be callous as a hard world and a gloomy road in it can make him; let him
drug his mind with every anodyne of infidelity; let him be bereft of all
affection, and walk alone on his life road; there is yet that which can
thrill his heart in the aspect of the lips that are never to move more,
and the eyes that are fixed forever. But what agony of suffering is it
when the lost one has been the link that tied us to life,--the daily
object of our care, the motive of every thought and every action! Such
had been her father to poor Nelly. His wayward, capricious humors, all
his infirmities of temper and body, had called forth those exertions
which made the business of her life, and gave a purpose and direction to
her existence; now repaid by some passing expression of thankfulness or
affection, or, better still, by some transient g