s.
Who knows what the end may be? But no matter how far we wander,
or where we rest, we shall never find a home so sweet, so peaceful,
so full of holy and happy associations, as this dear parsonage has
been to me."

The fire burned low, and in its dull flicker the shadows thickened;
while the rising wind sobbed and wailed mournful as a coranach
around the desolate old house, whence so many generations had glided
into the sheltering bosom of the adjoining necropolis.

Across the solemn gloomy stillness ran the sharp shivering sound of
the door-bell, and when the jarring had ceased Esau entered with his
lantern in his hand.

"The carriage is at the gate. The schedule was changed last week, and
the driver says it is nearly train time. Give me the satchels and
basket."

Slowly the two figures followed the lantern-bearer down the dim bare
hall, and the sound of their departing footsteps echoed strangely,
dismally through the empty, forsaken house. At the front door both
paused and looked back into the darkness that seemed like a vast
tomb, swallowing everything, engulfing all the happy hallowed past.

But Regina imagined that in the dusky library, by the wan flicker of
the dying fire, she could trace the spectral outline of a white
draped table, and of a tall prostrate form bearing a Grand Duke
jasmine in its icy hand. Shuddering violently, she wrapped her shawl
around her and sprang down the steps into the drizzling rain, while
Mrs. Lindsay slowly followed, weeping silently.

"Were it mine I would close the shutters,
Like lids when the life is fled,
And the funeral fire should wind it,
This corpse of a home that is dead."

CHAPTER XIII.

The snow was falling fast nest morning, when with a long hoarse
shriek the locomotive dashed into New York, and drew up to the
platform, where a crowd of human beings and equipages of every
description had assembled to greet the arrival of the train.

The din of voices, ringing of bells, whistle of engines, and all the
varied notes of that Babel diapason that so utterly bewilders the
stranger stranded on the bustling streets of busy Gotham, fell upon
Regina's ears with the startling force of novelty. She wondered if
there were thunder mixed with swiftly falling snow--that low, dull,
ceaseless roar--that endless monologue of the paved streets--where
iron and steel ground down the stone highways, along which the
Juggerna