ell, sir, he goes up to London a good deal, and has some friends down
from town occasionally; but he does not seem to care much about the
people in the neighborhood."

"He has some children, Mrs. Balk?"

"Only one daughter, sir; a sweet pretty thing she is. Her mother died
when Miss Agnes was born."

"You have no idea, Mrs. Balk, what my aunt Aldina's great misfortune
was?"

"Well, sir, I can't help thinking it must have been a love affair. She
always hated men so much."

"Then why did she leave The Shallows to me, Mrs. Balk?"

"Ah, you are laughing, sir. No doubt she considered that The Mere ought
to belong to you, as the heir of the Ringwoods, and she placed you here,
as near as might be to the place."

"In hopes that I might marry Miss Maryon, eh, Mrs. Balk?"

"You are laughing again, sir. I don't imagine she thought so much of
that, as of the possibility of your discovering something about the
missing will."

I bade the communicative Mrs. Balk good night and retired to my
bedroom--a low, wide, sombre, oak-panelled chamber. I must confess that
family stories had no great interest for me, living apart from them at
school and college as I had done; and as I undressed I thought more of
the probabilities of sport the eight hundred acres of wild shooting
belonging to The Shallows would afford me, than of the supposed will my
poor aunt had evidently worried herself about so much. Thoroughly tired
after my long journey, I soon fell fast asleep amid the deep shadows of
the huge four-poster I mentally resolved to chop up into firewood at an
early date, and substitute for it a more modern iron bedstead.

How long I had been asleep I do not know, but I suddenly started up, the
echo of a long, sad cry ringing in my ears.

I listened eagerly--sensitive to the slightest sound--painfully
sensitive as one is only in the deep silence of the night.

I heard the old-fashioned clock I had noticed on the stairs strike
three. The reverberation seemed to last a long time, then all was silent
again. "A dream," I muttered to myself, as I lay down upon the pillow;
"Madeira is a heating wine. But what can I have been dreaming of?"

Sleep seemed to have gone altogether, and the busy mind wandered among
the continental scenes I had lately visited. By and by I found myself in
memory once more within the Weggis churchyard. I was satisfied; I had
traced my dream to the cries that I had heard there. I turned round to
sleep again. Per