in our trivial prospects when his own are so much graver," said Mylius.

"Now you are making fun of me, Robert! But Dorothy was very strange to-night. She watched her father all the time. Won't you, just to please me, go home that way?"

"Yes, to please you; only, what shall I do when I get there? Say, Ho, warden, ho! let the portcullis fall?"

"I believe you would joke, Robert, at a funeral."

to Elmholme?

"It would depend whose," the irrepressible Mylius answered. "But what am I to do when I get Arouse the coachman, or wake the dogs, or cry Fire! or go stealthily under Miss Dorothy's window and play Romeo?"

“Well, really, Robert, I am sure I don't know exactly what you are to do. I think, perhaps, we'll let things take their course and wait until morning."

"That is a wise little woman. Shall I go in?" Mylius asked, as they arrived at the cottage.

"Of course," Barbara said, and they entered their paradise, of which we are allowed no glimpse.

CHAPTER XVI.

SORROW AND JOY.

THEY were not early risers at Elmholme. Mr. Harcourt was too much accustomed to night-work to acquire a habit of early rising, and Dorothy did not fall into that class of energetic women who must be up and bustling about for no apparent reason but the exercise of restless nerves and muscles. But she had been dressed and waiting in the breakfast-room half an hour on the morning following their arrival, when she was made aware that there was something singular in the fact that her father had made no sign of rising. Upon inquiry, she discovered that the house-servants were also apprehensive, and when she summoned William, her father's negro, the man showed all the superstitious terror of some unknown dangers which characterizes the race.

"William," she said, not betraying any of her own fear to the ignorant servant, but enjoining

self-control by her own calm authority; "William, you have called my father?"

"Yes, Miss Dor'thy, I hev knock and I hev spoke, and not a word ken I get from de master. Dah is, too, his same light what done burn de whole night thro'. I'se 'clare to goodness, Miss Dor'thy, I'se most feared some un gone took masser. Spec's like sumfin's wrong when he go for to come down dis yer place in de middle o' winter."

"William, I fear something may be wrong, but you must not alarm the other servants, but do as I order, exactly. Go to the dressing-room door and enter my father's room, then open his door and let me in. Remember that I rely upon you, William. There is no one else!"

The minutes were hours to Dorothy, but it was only twenty minutes before Mylius met the physician hurrying from the hotel in obedience to the telephone call from Elmholme-but it was too late. Mr. Harcourt, seated at his desk, pen in hand, his head only fallen upon his paper, was dead.

"Died in the harness "—so the flaming head-lines interpreted that sudden death from which we all pray to be delivered. The bulletins bore the fell tidings that afternoon, and it was well for Dorothy Harcourt that the seclusion of her home deprived

her of the knowledge that her heart's sorrow was bartered and sold, cried and shouted, on streetcorners in the great capitals.

"You should have some one with you, my child," said the white-haired old doctor, who could not fail to see the youth and weakness of this calm, fair woman, who ordered all with the strength beyond herself.

"I would rather be alone, doctor. I must be alone," she answered, avoiding his scrutiny.

"But it will be necessary for you to see some one, my dear Miss Harcourt. Certain matters must be arranged, and if there was only some lady to stand between you and these people-some one who would sympathize."

"That is it, doctor. I could not have any one near me who would sympathize. I must do all this myself, and to have any one near me who would sympathize would only tend to weaken me. Please, doctor, let me have my own way. I can not explain myself. I am different from other people."

"You are, indeed, poor child," he said to himself, turning away to hide the too shining sympathy in his own eyes.

He stopped, on his way back, at the cottage. "Yes, he's dead. Heart disease," he said gravely,

shaking his silver hair. "Poor, poor young thing! She will have no one. No, Mrs. Allen, not even you can help her this time. She is a strange nature, self-contained. The reaction will come later; then she will need you. It is a cloud on little Miss Bender's brightness."

"Yes, poor child, she has already cried herself sick, because Dorothy will not see her."

"There is the difference. She has not shed a tear, and won't. It will be terrible when the floodgates open. How are the children, Mrs. Allen? Why, Mopsa, what is the matter with my girl?" the doctor said, taking his little favorite on his knee. In answer, the child hid her face on his shoulder and burst into tears, crying:

"I love Miss Harcourt, and I'm sorry she hasn't any papa, nor any mamma, nor any sisters. I want to do something for her."

"Well, perhaps you can, dear," said the doctor, stroking the soft hair and looking at her mother.

In those days Dorothy Harcourt neither ate nor slept. Her tearless eyes were fixed, and her face seemed of marble. The servants regarded her with more awe than that shrouded form in the darkened chamber, and shuddered when she passed, as though,