As it wound its dreadful length about her she reached forth her hands and piteously implored her father to save her. He only laughed, and said: "Oh, no, my daughter; I am the slave of the serpent. He demands your sacrifice, and I must obey." Looking again, she saw the faces of her father's political friends, all laughing at her, and the serpent said: "Only ten seconds to live!" Closer and closer its coils tightened about her; she could scarcely breathe; her agony becoming unbearable, she gave a loud shriek, and cried: "Oh, mother, save me!" Springing to the floor, the frightened girl beheld her mother entering the room. "What is it, child? How you frightened me." "It was a hideous nightmare. I thought I was being crushed by a serpent." After relating her dream, Belle tried again to sleep, but during the remainder of the night the phantom haunted her. Truly, her dream was only a presage of the grief and trouble in store for her. CHAPTER XVI. THE PRINCE OF MANNIS MANOR. Havelock, the home of Hon. Walter Mannis, is a beautiful village situated in a valley surrounded by lofty hills. The place is not a busy one, but the home of many old and wealthy families who reside there during the summer months. The streets are lined on either side with well-grown shade trees, and the handsome residences are surrounded by spacious grounds tastefully laid out. Mannis Manor had passed down from father to son for four successive generations, each inheritor marking his ownership with additions or alterations until the fine old house displays architectural styles of different periods of the past century. Walter Mannis inherited this old manor and its two hundred acres, beside a fortune in cash of over a quarter of a million dollars. Having been in possession about ten years, with so much money at his command, is it strange that he had devoted much of his time to pleasure and dissipation? Both parents dying during his childhood, in the conduct of household matters he was dependent upon a house-keeper, an inmate of the old manor many years before he became its owner.