Alston Herald, and East Cumberland Advertiser. — 1880-11-27 (Alston, Cumbria, England)

NOVEMBER 27, 1.80.  Margaret's maid; "and," added the Rector, " she makes out that they are anything but a united couple, and disagree almost about everything." Ile did not know, however, the exact day that they had come back to Copely, but he had seen the Colonel and IT% Leo together ou such and such a day; and Robert referring to his note-book, discovered that they must have quitted Eaglestone-square one day after he had left his letter there.  All this had increased his anxiety and his doubt. W 843 it possible, jug possible, that she had never received it? and yet Robert's common-sense rejected this supposition, as almost incredible. Still could this have happened? The upright gentleman never for a moment suspected foul play. To destroy or read a letter addressed to another person, would in Robert Yore's eyes have been a crime very little short of murder, and this idea never even entered his-mind. But it might have been lost, he told himself, and on this thin thread of hope lie found himself day by day weaving a little love-tale, which after all might end in a happy home. In the meantime his father's illness increased, and his mother could not spare him. Had he even wished to do so, he could not have gone to Sallford at present but he could scarcely decide whether he wished this or otherwise. First he thought one thing, and then lie thought another. He was, in fact, in one of those mazes of uncertainty in which we sometimes find ourselves, and weeks crept away and still he could see no light. A few days after Annabel's visit to Lady Merge ret Colonel Fraser returned to Copely. Sarah luul recovered from her illness by this time, but she insisted that she must have immediate change Of air. Copely must be unhealthy, or she would never have taken a sore-throat in the middle of July. she argued, and so she decided to try what the sea air would do for her. It was now nearly the end of July, and on the twelfth of August Colonel Fraser expected a large party of friends to assemble at the Hall; therefore, after much consideration, and various places at a greater distance being thought of and abandoned, Sarah at lest fixed to take a house for a short time at Scarley, which is a village on the East coast of Northumberland, some few miles from Oldcastle. _ _ _  There is an Old Searley and a New Scarley. Old Scarley consists of the original rather straggling village, where there is an antiatie blacksmith:3 smithy, one or two good houses, an old tumble-down farmhouse, a public-house or two, and a handsome modern church and vicarage. New Searley is almost entirely composed of rows of small, thinly-built houses, intended chiefly for summer lodgings. Some of these rows stand on the roadway, some on the cliffs. Sarah chose one of the best houses on the cliffs, which are of singular beauty, standing in great brown masses upright from the sea. There is a walk along the very edge of these rocks, which affords singular facilities for suicide. That is, that in one or two places if you slipped your foot a hair's breadth, you would be plunged seventy or eighty feet down into the sea below.  There is no protection along the most of the walk, but in front of tho "Marine Residences," as the advertisements call them (one of which Sarah took), there is a stout railing, probably erected under the idea that children might accidentally stumble over the giddy verge. But it is a picturesque and quiet place where the sea comes surging and beating against the rockbound coast; or sweeping in long rolling waves, up on the smooth and shining sands, which spread out for miles after you have passed the high cliffs on which the houses stand.  Annabel was delighted with Scarley. She had scarcely ever stayed by the sea before, and the house that they were in looked straight on the endless mass of waves. Sarah and she used to sit at the window Fuld watch the fleet of herring-boats glide into the evening sea—the sea that looked then so tranquil and at rest; the same sea that every winter leaves widows and fatherless children to moan over the dangers of this perilous coast. In the little bays the sad tale is told by silent witnesses. Great pieces of timber and wreckage of every sort lie strewn upon the shore. One after the other, year after year, these losses occur. In the drifting mist, in the blinding sleet, in the sudden tempest, the sltilor's death-cry is heard, and the next morning perhaps, when the sea is lit with sunshine, and the sky is blue, the rolling waves bear home the ghastly records of the dead. But it was the summer sea that Annabel and Sarah vratched —the blue lovely sea, that came whispering to their feet as they sat on the great ledges of the rooks, speaking to each heart differently in its weird and mystic tongue. To Annabel it had a voice almost -willful in the intensity of feeling it excited. A names, solemn longing used to come over her as she stened to its strange, sweet harmony, and she seemed a hear and see things far away. Holy thoughts, tender dreams, and dim, unrealised holies, passed and repassed before the maiden's mental vision in these quiet hours. She could not tell what she felt, and yet the knew Robert Vere would understand her feelings. This man and she were akin in that inner life, where is hidden all the best and purest aspirings of our souls. "Re would teach me to be a good woman," she used to whisper to herself, "and I should try to make him a good and happy man." This was the girl's dream— s woman's dteam. They would try to raise and elevate each other—try on their journey together here to live so that together also they might pass to the Sinless Land.  (To be continued.)