I should strongly recommend you not to go." "Why, you've only just come down from him yourself, doctor." "Ah, I'm there in the way of duty." "So am I," said the visitor decisively, and passing up the stone steps of the entrance strode into the hall.

There was a large sitting-room upon the ground floor, through the open door of which the visitor saw a sight which arrested him for a moment.

A young girl was sitting in a recess near the window, with her lithe, supple figure bent forward, and her hands clasped at the back of her head, while her elbows rested upon a small table in front of her.

Her superb brown hair fell in a thick wave on either side over her white round arms, and the graceful curve of her beautiful neck might have furnished a sculptor with a study for a mourning Madonna.

The doctor had just broken his sad tidings to her, and she was still in the first paroxysm of her grief--a grief too acute, as was evident even to the unsentimental mind of the merchant, to allow of any attempt at consolation.