"What do all the paltry aims and ambitions of our life matter, after all?" the girl asked herself, soberly. "The grave awaits us all at last! "'The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, Await alike the inevitable hour; The path of glory leads but to the grave.'" Sitting there among the lonely green graves and broken, discolored monuments, with the ivy creeping over their dim inscriptions, Leonora, a little lonely black figure, began her sketch. She worked industriously and skillfully, and nothing disturbed her for several hours. Johnnie had availed himself of the opportunity to make an excursion into the woods on his own account, and she was quite alone; but nothing alarmed her, and she worked on fearlessly amid the fragrant stillness of the lovely June day, whose calmness was broken by nothing louder than the hum of the bees among the flowers, or the joyous carol of the sky-lark as it soared from earth to heaven, losing itself, as it were, in the illimitable blue of the sky. The midday sun climbed high and higher into the sky, and Leonora, pausing over her nearly completed sketch, pushed back her wide hat from her flushed face, and stopped to rest, glancing around at the quiet graves that encompassed her. "What a still and peaceful company we are!" she said, aloud, quaintly, never thinking how strange it looked to see her sitting there--the only living thing among the silent tombs. Then all at once, as if the tenants of the grave had come to life, Leonora heard a soft babel of voices and laughter. With a start she turned her head. A party of gay young ladies and gentlemen were strolling toward her across the level greensward. Foremost among them was Lord Lancaster, walking beside the earl's daughter. It was too late for retreat. Every eye turned on the graceful figure sitting there so quietly among the graves of the dead and gone Lancasters. As they passed the low stone wall that divided them, Lancaster lifted his hat and bowed low and profoundly. Then they were gone, but an eager hum of masculine voices was borne back to her ears on the light breeze: "By Jove! what a beauty!" "Heavens! was that a ghost?" "What a lovely being! Who is she, Lancaster?" She heard his deep, musical voice answer carelessly: "It is Miss West--a young lady who is staying in the neighborhood for the sketching, I believe." They went on toward the ruins. Leonora, with a deeper color in her fair face, bent over her sketch and rapidly put some finishing touches to it. "Now I wonder where little Johnnie can be?" she thought. She glanced up and saw Captain Lancaster coming back to her. CHAPTER XXVI. He came on quickly toward the figure sitting among the graves, with the small head poised defiantly, although Leonora was thinking to herself: "He is coming to scold me, perhaps, for trespassing on his property."