CHAPTER XI.
MARGARET AND HER FATHER.
'Twas midnight--midnight after the burial.

In the library of the old homestead sat its owner, his arms resting upon the table, and his face reclining upon his arms.

Sadly was he reviewing the dreary past, since first among them death had been, bearing away his wife, the wife of his first only love.

Now, by her grave there was another, on which the pale moonbeams and the chill night-dews were falling, but they could not disturb the rest of the two who, side by side in the same coffin, lay sleeping, and for whom the father's tears were falling fast, and the father's heart was bleeding.
"Desolate, desolate--all is desolate," said the stricken man.

"Would that I, too, were asleep with my lost ones!" There was a rustling sound near him, a footfall, and an arm was thrown lovingly around his neck.