books nearest Mr. Wendover's chair were all Greek and Latin; and straying
round the room she found Homers and Horaces, Greek playwrights and
historians, repeating themselves many times, in various quaint costly
editions. A scholar evidently--perhaps pragmatical and priggish. Bessie's
coolness about her cousin implied that he was not altogether agreeable.

'Perhaps I should have liked him no better than the false Brian,' she
said to herself to-day, as she stood musing before the old brown books in
the library, thinking of that more individual collection which she had
been allowed to inspect on her last visit.

She shuddered at the image of that other Brian, remembering but too
vividly how she had last seen him, kneeling to her, claiming her as his
own. God! could he so claim her? Was she verily his, to summon at his
will?--his by the law of heaven and earth, and only enjoying her liberty
by his sufferance?

The thought was horrible. She snatched a book from the shelf--anything to
distract her mind. Happily, the book was Shakespeare, and she was soon
lost in Lear's woes, wilder, deeper than any sorrow she had ever tasted.

She read for an hour, the soft air fanning her, the sun shining upon her,
the scent of roses and lilies breathing gently round her as she sat in
the deep oak window-seat. Then the clock struck three, and it was time to
think of leaving this enchanted castle, where no prince or princess of
fairy tale ever came.

There was no need for haste. She might depart at her leisure, and dawdle
as much as she pleased on her homeward way. All she wanted was to be
seated neat and trim in a carefully arranged room, ready to pour out Aunt