CHAPTER XXVII.
THE SHADOWS DEEPEN.
From one of the luxuriously furnished chambers of her father's elegant mansion, Jenny Lincoln looked mournfully out upon the thick angry clouds, which, the livelong day, had obscured the winter sky.

Dreamily for a while she listened to the patter of the rain as it fell upon the deserted pavement below, and then, with a long, deep sigh, she turned away and wept.

Poor Jenny!--the day was rainy, and dark, and dreary, but darker far were the shadows stealing over her pathway.

Turn which way she would, there was not one ray of sunshine, which even her buoyant spirits could gather from the surrounding gloom.

Her only sister was slowly, but surely dying, and when Jenny thought of this she felt that if Rose could only live, she'd try and bear the rest; try to forget how much she loved William Bender, who that morning had honorably and manfully asked her of her parents, and been spurned with contempt,--not by her father, for could he have followed the dictates of his better judgment, he would willingly have given his daughter to the care of one who he knew would carefully shield her from the storms of life.