His mother was delighted to find the turn his mind had taken, and though she secretly feared the worst as regarded Teresa, yet she encouraged her son in his sanguine anticipations.

St. John had disappeared from the vicinity of Como on the day of the duel, and no one knew whither he had fled.

One day, Lady Sedley walked over to the villa which had been occupied by the St. Johns, and found a melancholy satisfaction in visiting all the spots in which she had been wont to see her lamented young friend. She had loved Teresa as a daughter, and she found many little memorials of her which deeply affected her.

She visited the seat under the old cedars, where Teresa had often read, and prayed, and wept; she strolled through the apartments which had been tenanted by her; she opened the books Teresa had most loved, and read her pure taste in the passages she had marked. There stood her harp uncovered as she had left

it on the night preceding Bently's murderthere was the song which the unhappy Jessy had last attempted.

All these thi gs were fresh and unchanged, but where were the forms which had flitted through the rooms on that eventful evening, where the hearts that had throbbed, the hands that had called forth melody, the voices that had charmed all listeners? One of those young lovely women was in the cold grave, and the other-where was the other?

Lady Sedley went up into Teresa's bedroom, and found that seals had been set on all the drawers containing her property.

She was now Teresa's only remaining friend, and, therefore, she opened some of the drawers and collected her papers together. Amongst them she found a small locket, enveloped in paper, and on glancing her eye over the discoloured and faded writing on the envelope, she was much affected. It was written by Teresa's mother, the lovely and unfortunate

Geraldine Cellini, and addressed to the miniature of Mrs. Arbuthnot, her own proud, cold mother.

The poor Geraldine had given vent to the agony of her feelings in these lines, on reading the sudden announcement of Mrs. Arbuthnot's death in the paper; and the tenderness and remorse expressed in them were truly touching.

Lady Sedley had never heard Teresa speak of her mother, and only knew that her young friend's maiden name was Cellini, and that her father had married an Englishwoman.

She started at the name of Geraldine affixed to the lines in her hand, for that name recalled many associations of early youth; and, with hasty curiosity, she touched the spring of the locket, which, flying open, revealed the miniature of Mrs. Arbuthnot. The cold, soulless eyes, the sharp features, and thin, proud lips, were all faithfully represented, and no one who had known the original could hesitate for a moment to identify the likeness.

Lady Sedley had known the original;—Mrs. Arbuthnot wsa her mother's sister, and Geraldine her first cousin.

At this discovery of her near relationship to Teresa, Lady Sedley's tears flowed abundantly, but soon her thoughts had flown far, far back into early scenes and associations-the chord of memory had been touched, and it vibrated powerfully through her inmost heart. It is true she had never loved her aunt Arbuthnot, but the name recalled early days, and her sweet cousin Geraldine had been dear to her.

She had heard of Geraldine's marriage, which was termed disgraceful by her parents; and when she had inquired after her, had been silenced by cold, evasive answers.

Throwing herself into a chair, she indulged in the sad luxury of retrospection; again she was the careless child, and Geraldine, the companion of her girlish days, stood before her, with her laughing eyes and brilliant loveliness; again, she was the admired beauty, still linked in sweet friendship with her fair cousin; again, she was

followed, courted, and caressed; again she encountered, for the first time, the expressive gaze of those eyes whose glances were, from that moment, sorrow or bliss to her; again she listened in dreamy joy to that avowal of affection which crowned her fondest hopes.

She stood once more before the altar, and Geraldine, the fairest of her bridesmaids, stood by her side, and she listened to vows which bound for ever to her, in weal and woe, the

handsome, noble Sedley; again she gazed, in deep and newly-awakened love, on her smiling first-born, her beautiful Herbert, as he held out his little arms towards her; and again she felt the unutterable anguish of that desolating hour which deprived her of a beloved husband, and left her a widow at the age of thirty.

Long and unrestrainedly did Lady Sedley weep for the past days, the vanished joys of youth, and, as her eyes rested on a large toiletglass opposite to her, she contrasted her present faded beauty with the bloom of her early years,