shade--seemed soft and humid. And there stood Fanny, in a posture of
such unconscious sadness--such childlike innocence; her arms drooping--
her face wistfully turned to his--and a half smile upon the lips, that
made still more touching the tears not yet dried upon her cheeks. While
thin, frail, shadowy, with white hair and furrowed cheeks, the old man
fixed his sightless orbs on space; and his face, usually only animated
from the lethargy of advancing dotage by a certain querulous cynicism,
now grew suddenly earnest, and even thoughtful, as Fanny spoke of Death!




CHAPTER V.

"Ulyss. Time hath a wallet at his back
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion.
* * Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright."--_Troilus and Cressida_.

I have, not sought--as would have been easy, by a little ingenuity in the
earlier portion of this narrative--whatever source of vulgar interest
might be derived from the mystery of names and persons. As in Charles
Spencer the reader is allowed at a glance to detect Sidney Morton, so in
Philip de Vaudemont (the stranger who rescued Fanny) the reader at once
recognises the hero of my tale; but since neither of these young men has
a better right to the name resigned than to the name adopted, it will be
simpler and more convenient to designate them by those appellations by
which they are now known to the world. In truth, Philip de Vaudemont was
scarcely the same being as Philip Morton. In the short visit he had paid
to the elder Gawtrey, when he consigned Fanny to his charge, he had given