any longer, his thoughts had completely unmanned him, and he longed for solitude. If it were rude to leave the party he must brave even Lady Hetherington's wrath, but he would try and get away unobserved. Now, while the hum of admiration was still going on, and while people were gathering round Lady Caroline, was the opportunity. He availed himself of it, slipped away unperceived, and hurried to his own room. He closed the door behind him, turned the key, and flung himself on to the bed, in the dark. He felt that he could contain himself no longer, and now that he was alone and unseen, there was no further reason to restrain the tears which had been welling into his eyes, and now flowed unchecked down his cheeks. He was a man of nervous temperament, highly wrought susceptibilities, and acute sympathies, which had been over-excited during the evening by the story of Tom Creswell's death, his own recollections of his past life, and the weird thought-compelling power of Lady Caroline's music. There was no special occasion for these tears; he knew nothing had happened to Marian, nothing--no, nothing had happened calculated in any way to interpose any--any barrier between them; his position was pleasant, his prospects brighter than he could have hoped--and yet, and yet! How very strange that she had not written lately!--unless, indeed, she had been completely absorbed by ministering to the trouble round her. Walter could easily picture to himself the comfort she must have been to all in the midst of the desolation which had fallen upon that hitherto prosperous house; he recollected how even in the midst of her own deep sorrow she had been able, at the time of her father's death, to rouse her mother from the lethargic state of grief into which she had fallen; and if Marian could do that then, while her own heart was bleeding, how much more would she be able to bestir herself now, when neither for the dead, nor for those left behind, had she anything but a kindly interest? And might not this sad event prove a useful lesson to her; might it not prove the one thing needful to render her a perfect character, showing her, as it would, that there are worse misfortunes than poverty, and that grief can slip in behind the shields of wealth and position, and abase the heads of their possessors to the dust? That longing for money and worship of position was the only blot in Marian's character, as seen by Walter Joyce's eyes, and if this accident led to its eradication, it would not have been without its beneficent purpose.