which were soon to roll such
bloody waves of death.

Meanwhile, where was Miss Ercildoune? Surrey had thought her behavior
strange the last morning they spent together. How much stranger, how
unaccountable, indeed, would it have seemed to him, could he have seen
her through the afternoon following!

"What is wrong with you? are you ill, Francesca?" her aunt had inquired
as she came in, pulling off her hat with the air of one stifling, and
throwing herself into a chair.

"Ill! O no!"--with a quick laugh,--"what could have made you think so? I
am quite well, thank you; but I will go to my room for a little while
and rest. I think I am tired."

"Do, dear, for I want you to take a trip up the Hudson this afternoon. I
have to see some English people who are living at a little village a
score of miles out of town, and then I must go on to Albany before I
take you home. It will be pleasant at Tanglewood over the
Sabbath,--unless you have some engagements to keep you here?"

"O Aunt Alice, how glad I am! I was going home this afternoon without
you. I thought you would come when you were ready; but this will do just
as well,--anything to get out of town."

"Anything to get out of town? why, Francesca, is it so hateful to you?
'Going home! and this do almost as well!'--what does the child mean? is
she the least little bit mad? I'm afraid so. She evidently needs some
fresh country air, and rest from excitement. Go, dear, and take your
nap, and refresh yourself before five o'clock; that is the time we
leave."

As the door closed between them, she shook her head dubiously. '"Going
home this afternoon!' what does that signify? Has she been quarrelling
with that young lover of hers, or refusing him? I should not care to ask
any questions till she herself speaks; but I fear me something is
wrong."

She would not have feared, but been certain, could she have looked then
and there into the next room. She would have seen that the trouble was
something deeper than she dreamed. Francesca was sitting, her hands
supporting an aching head, her large eyes fixed mournfully and immovably
upon something which she seemed to contemplate with a relentless
earnestness, as though forcing herself to a distressing task. What was
this something? An image, a shadow in the air, which she had not evoked
from the empty atmosphere, but from the depths of her own nature and
soul,--the life and fate of a young girl. Herself! what cause, then, for
mou