, 1879-12-01

the door, De Courcey listened to every
note, moved not, nor spoke. until the
last strain had died away on the silence,
then sunk back again with the muir
INJURED words. "Bless her |" Miss Les
lie assurejIy was not the antecedent
of the pronoun personal.
The doctors people are going to
Eagle Crag to-day. The doctor him
sell, and his wife, and the governess,
and the children, and even the old
grandmother just a family party"
Eagle Crag? Where is that ?"
asked De Courcey. And his servant
replied that it was mountain five miles
south of Cliff House.
Take carriage to the mountain,
and then 60 up on foot, or with ponies
and donkeys."
De Couroey looked at his knee, and
his look was far from complimentary to
that constituent portion of himself.
If it had been two days later, I
could have gone," he muttered.
Four hours later he had gone. and the
fashion of his going was on this wise.
He had resolved on being present at
dinner, had dressed, and was slowly
dragging himself down from the last
landing, when he met Will, DR.. Tracy's
colored boy, rushing up to the family
rooms.
Miss Bracket! Where's Miss
Bracket ?" gasped he. Miss Bracket
was the Oldest nurse in the house, and
devoted to the grandmother. A per-
ception of the aged woman's need
flashed across De Courcey's thought as
Will stammered out
1.-THE doctor says she's to come this
minute. She's fell off'n her horse, and
kilt herself dead gwine up the crag."
"Going up the Crag? Grandmother!
Well, you are crazy. Grandmother
never could"
Tain't gran n'mother, sir, that's dead.
She's all right. It's Miss Alcastor."
Miss Alcasto-!" Twenty tongues
made the noun an interjeotion; and the
man went on, the words tumbling over
and over one another from his trem-
bling lips.
eyes, she has Just done killed her
self; the pony he stumbled an fell
over the steepest jut O. the bank, and
the guide, he let the bride break, and
he tumbled on his back, an all four
hoofs up'ard, and Miss Alcstor too, she
was lynn under him."
The next half hour in De Courcey's
memory was confused dream, as, upon
the doctors own horse, he went rushing
across the country, tearing up the hills
and down, trees, hedges, and fence
lines speeding away behind him, his
lame leg hugging Mazeppa's side, and
his hand never loosening the bridle-
rein, until, ct small cottage at the foot
of the Crag, he flung himself to the
ground.
An open gate, the door flung wide,
the odor of camphor. O couch wheeled
to the middle of the narrow room,
bending forms, and in the midst, more
than all, and the center of all, still,
white face lying among pillows scarcely
more still and white.
"Dead."
De Courcey did not speak the word,
save as silent tongues speak words, in
hearts. He only took a step forward
kneeled beside her there, and touched
with lightest touch the fnger-tips of
the hand which fell over the bedside.
Was it that touch, they wondered then,
all who stood near by, that tenderest
touch, which brought back conscious
ness and flushed the pallid cheeks with
quick, feeting color? An instant,
and this tingo of color was gone; but
in that instant the lifted lids had re-
vealed the dark eyes, had shown De
Ceurcey those soft, sad orbs in all their
unspeakable sweetness. If she had
passed that instant out beyond his NOR
tai clasp, De Courcey would have kept
that look through all his human life,
and would have been thankful for it to
the end. But Miss Alcastor did not
die. From that day, as she will tell
you, she began to live. She, to whom
the world had been little else than a
battlefield for her weak but resolute
strivings, she, from that hour, began to
learn how good it is to live the sheltered
life of woman beloved.
Mrs. Edward De Courcey nee AL
CASTOR" I heard not many days ago, a
dove-like voice, which had to me ring
of old times, confide to listening ear.
1t was near a countrv-seat, in the high
lands of the Hudson, and low basket
phaeton, drawn by gray ponies. had
just bowled past. 1t held a lady and
two children.
"She is beautiful, is she not? Those
are her children. The boy is four, the
girl two. Mrs. De Courcey is charm
lng," and Miss Leslie, who spoke,
gazed after the vanishing carriage.
And so goes the world of change,
and with it Alice Leslie and her
changed social feeling. Waverzey.
A NOBLE RACE.-The natives of Bel
uchistan, country on the northwestern
frontier of India, are noted for their
bravery, truthfulness, and chivalry to-