come--promise me to be always, what you are now, a sister to Blanche."

She held out her hand for the last time. With a full heart Anne
Silvester kissed it, and gave the promise.

IX.

In two months from that time one of the forebodings which had weighed on
Lady Lundie's mind was fulfilled. She died on the voyage, and was buried
at sea.

In a year more the second misgiving was confirmed. Sir Thomas Lundie
married again. He brought his second wife to England toward the close of
eighteen hundred and sixty six.

Time, in the new household, promised to pass as quietly as in the old.
Sir Thomas remembered and respected the trust which his first wife had
placed in Anne. The second Lady Lundie, wisely guiding her conduct in
this matter by the conduct of her husband, left things as she found them
in the new house. At the opening of eighteen hundred and sixty-seven the
relations between Anne and Blanche were relations of sisterly sympathy
and sisterly love. The prospect in the future was as fair as a prospect
could be.

At this date, of the persons concerned in the tragedy of twelve years
since at the Hampstead villa, three were dead; and one was self-exiled
in a foreign land. There now remained living Anne and Blanche, who had
been children at the time; and the rising solicitor who had discovered
the flaw in the Irish marriage--once Mr. Delamayn: now Lord Holchester.