useful to him to know when he came to the management of his
property. Yet still these thoughts would thicken on him, in spite of
himself, every evening when he sat alone in the library.

The late hours of Christmas Eve was the time when he had most to suffer.
The day had been gloomy and snowy, and he had spent it almost entirely
in solitude, with no companion or diversion to restore the tone of his
mind, when he had tried it with hard study. He tried to read, but it
would not do; and he was reduced to sit looking at the fire, recalling
this time last year, when he had been cutting holly, helping the sisters
to deck the house, and in the evening enjoying a merry Christmas party,
full of blitheness and glee, where there were, of course, special
recollections of Amabel.

As usual, he dwelt on the contrast, mused on the estrangement of Mrs.
Edmonstone, and tormented himself about Charles's silence, till he fell
into the more melancholy train of thought of the destiny of his race.

Far better for him to bear all alone than to bring on Amy grief and
horror, such as had fallen on his own mother, but it was much to bear
that loneliness and desolation for a lifetime. The brow was contracted,
and the lip drawn into a resolute expression of keeping down suffering,
like that of a man enduring acute bodily pain; as Guy was not yielding,
he was telling himself--telling the tempter, who would have made him
give up the struggle--that it was only for a life, and that it was shame
and ingratitude to be faint-hearted, on the very night when he ought to
be rejoicing that One had come to ruin the power of the foe, and set him
free. But where was his rejoicing? Was he cheered,--was he comforted?
Was not the lone, blank despondency that had settled on him more heavily
than ever, a token that he was shut out from all that was good,--nay,
that in former years there had been no true joy in him, only enjoyment
of temporal pleasure? Had his best days of happiness been, then, nothing
but hollowness and self-deception?

At that moment the sound of a Christmas carol came faintly on his ear.
It was one of those tunes which, when the village choir were the only
musicians he knew, he had thought, unrivalled; and now, even to his
tutored, delicate ear, softened as it was by distance, and endeared by
association, it was full of refreshing, soothing harmony. He undrew the
curtain, opened the shutter, and looked into the court, where he saw
some figures