“‘Tis more grief than sickness, Miss. It’s sorrow is killin’ him. Any one that saw him last year wouldn’t know him now; his hair is white as snow, and his voice is weak as a child’s. Here we are now--here’s the gate. It isn’t much of a garden, nobody minds it; and yonder, where you see the light, that’s his honour’s room, beside the big tower there, and you are to have the two rooms that my mistress lived in.” And, still speaking, she led the way through a low arched passage into a small clean-looking chamber, within which lay another with a neatly-arranged bed, and a few attempts at comfortable furniture. “We did our best, Miss, Sam and myself,” said Molly; “but we hadn’t much time, for we only knew you was coming on Tuesday night.” “It is all yery nice and clean, Molly. Your name is Molly, isn’t it?” “Yes, Miss,” said she, curtseying, and deeply gratified. “I want nothing better!” said Kate, as she sat down on the bed and took off her bonnet. “If you don’t need me now, Miss, I’ll go and bring you your tea; it’s all ready in the kitchen.” “Very well, Molly; leave it for me in the outer room, and I’ll take it when I am inclined.” Molly saw that she desired to be alone, and withdrew without a word; and Kate, now free of all restraint, buried her face in the pillow and wept bitterly. Never, till the very spot was before her--till the dark shadows of the rugged rocks crossed her path, and the wild solitude of the dreary island appealed to her, by the poor appearance of the people, their savage looks, and their destitution--never till then had she fully realised to her mind all the force of the step she had taken. “What have I done! What have I done!” sobbed she, hysterically, over and over. “Why have I left all that makes life an ecstasy to come and drag out an existence of misery and gloom! Is this the fruit of all my ambition? Is this the prize for which I have left myself, without one affection or one sentiment, sacrificing all to that station I had set before me as a goal? I’ll not bear it. I’ll not endure it. Time enough to come here when my hopes are bankrupt, and my fortune shipwrecked. I have youth--and, better, I have beauty. Shall I stay here till a blight has fallen on both? Why, the very misery I came from as a child was less dreary and desolate than this! There was at least companionship there! There was sympathy, for there was fellow-suffering. But here! what is there here, but a tomb in which life is to waste out, and the creature feel himself the corpse before he dies?” She started up and looked around her, turning her eyes from one object to the other in the room. “And it is for this splendour, for all this costly magnificence, I am to surrender the love of those humble people, who, after all, loved me for myself! It was of _me_ they thought, for me they prayed, for my success they implored the saints; and it is for this”--and she gazed contemptuously on the lowly decorations of the chamber--“I am to give