“Alas! it’s far from russet frieze To silks and satin gowns, But I doubt if God made like degrees In courtly hearts and clowns; Yet homely hose must step apart Where gartered princes stand; Ah, may he wear my love at heart That wins her lily hand!” --_Hood._ “Well, I warned you,” said old Katharine, “but you would not heed an old crone’s tale. I warned your grandmother before you, but she would not listen, and there was the young squire of Elmdale broke his heart and died for love of her, and she knowing all the time that she caused it all by her unwise love of him. Oh, I’ve no patience with these willful Chiltons! But I’m getting on, thank the Lord! I won’t live to see your unborn children, my lady, driving thoughtless men to their death.” “Oh, Kathie, how wicked and cruel you are!” sobbed Lady Edith. Lady Edith lifted a warm, white face from the pillow and looked at old Katharine with heavy eyes full of pain and remorse. The long wretched night had worn away, and the old nurse was opening the blinds, letting in the morning sunshine. It glowed through the rosy silk of the curtains, and made Edith’s face look terribly pale and sad in its dim light. She had not slept all night, and she looked as conscience-stricken and remorseful as her nurse could possibly desire. “Don’t think I’m not sorry for you, dearie,” soothed the old crone. “But I’m grieved for the manly young fellow--yester eve so full of life and love and health--to-day another victim to the dreadful curse that has come down to us from barbarous times to blight the innocent and unoffending.” Lady Edith bowed her head in a passion of tears. “Oh,” she sobbed. “I never knew the truth until it was too late, too late! Guy, Guy, I would have given my life to have saved yours!” she cried in a passion of impotent despair. Old Katharine took the slight form into her motherly arms, and let Edith sob on until the rest of exhaustion stole over her, and, too weak for tears or cries, she lay still, with her violet eyes fixed on vacancy, and a frozen calm, more terrible than tears, on her lovely face. Presently the kind old face of the earl, her uncle and guardian, looked in upon his petted darling. “Dear uncle, you--have--news! Speak, but do not tell me that--that--he is dead!” she cried, with trembling lips. “Tut, no, of course he is not dead, my love; but----” He broke off and looked distressfully at her pale face. “Speak!” she cried, almost imperiously in her impatience. “Yes, I have news,” he said. “Eustace and I went to Lady Heathcote’s this morning to see the poor fellow, and she told us that it had been discovered that Guy was not mortally wounded--a flesh wound, deep, but not necessarily fatal, but----” He paused and regarded her curiously.