General Murray, the only son of Sir Patrick, had, like his father before him, married at a very early age, so that his eldest daughter was not more than twenty-two years younger than himself, and he was, when he married for the second time a wife younger than Margaret, a man but little over forty, in the prime of his life and strength, as handsome as he had ever been, and attractive enough to take any girl's fancy. The second wife had been poor, but she had been noble, and the entail of the old hereditary estate, upon which stood at once the old Castle and the new unfinished palace, was broken in order that it might be secured to the children of Lady Lilias, whether sons or daughters. Who could doubt that so young and blooming a bride, out of a well-conditioned family, would bring both in abundant measure to the old house? Margaret and Jean, the two daughters of the first marriage, were left in the south country in possession of their mother's little estate when their father began life for the second time. They felt themselves a little injured, shut out of their natural rights, as was natural, and held themselves aloof from the new _ménage_, which was established joyously in the old Castle with every augury of happiness. But when, no more than a year after, the blooming young wife was carried to the church-yard, and a second poor little Lilias left in her stead, the two sisters flew, with many a compunction and self-reproach, to the infant's cradle. Margaret especially, who, though she was young, was already disposed to believe that everything went wrong when she was absent, reproached herself bitterly for not being on the spot to watch over her father's wife. It would not have happened had she been there, she felt convinced, and this perfectly visionary self-blame no doubt helped to give a certain bias to her already peculiar character. "I must do my best for the daughter. I did not do it for the mother," she acquired a habit of saying when any other career was suggested to her. She did not feel quite sure that she was not her father's elder sister, so confusing were their relations. He was broken down with grief and disappointment, and she took charge of him at once, and of his home. It would perhaps be going too far to say that this was the reason why she did not marry. Had any great love arisen in her heart, no doubt Margaret would, like other people, have considered it her duty to obey its dictates; but, when suitors to whom she was indifferent came, Miss Murray metaphorically pushed them aside out of her path, with a curt intimation that she had no time to think of such nonsense. Miss Jean, who was of a sentimental turn, had not so easily escaped the common dangers of youth, but she did so in a more romantic way, poor lady, by loving, unfortunately, a young hero who had not a penny, and who died in an obscure Indian battle when she was a little more than twenty. This was shortly after the time when the infant Lilias was thrown upon