ness in the head, but it is quite gone now. I beg your pardon for 'my rudeness. Shall we join the waltz again?" "No, thank you," answered she. "I am a good deal tired, and was going to ask you to be kind enough to take me to my aunt. It is lucky for you, Mr. Forbes, for I don't think waltzing would be the best possible cure for your complaint." 66 It would do it no harm, I assure you," replied Forbes, as he gave her his arm. Having consigned Miss Dunbar to the care of her chaperon, Grantley Forbes remained a few minutes by them, talking with as much apparent ease as ever; then, gradually retreating, contrived to extricate himself from the crowd, and proceeding into a small room, at that moment untenanted, flung himself upon a chair by an open window, and hid his face in his hands. He had not been above a quarter of an hour alone when another young man entered the room-a tall and commanding figure, whose fine face was rendered singularly unattractive by a most imperious expression. Notwithstanding, however, this marked difference between their countenances, a strong family likeness at once proclaimed them brothers. "Grantley!" exclaimed this gentleman. "What, it is you, then? I thought I saw you go in here a while ago, and came in hopes of detecting you in a tête-a-tête with Mary Dunbar; when, lo! here you are all alone. What has happened now? Is the lady cruel? What has chanced to interrupt you in your newlydiscovered vocation of shining in a ball-room, most learned and sober-minded brother ?" "Nothing, Henry, nothing," hastily replied Grantley only came in here to rest." "I "The deuce you did! Who ever heard of swains in such rcquest as you are resting in the middle of a ball? Come along, man, you are wanted. That fascinating maiden lady, Miss Marjery Dunbar, is impatient at losing sight of you so long, and only refrained from coming along with me to look for you under the supposition that my niece Mary' and you were together, my niece' having just escaped from the jurisdiction of her vigilant aunt, in some unexplained manner. Come along, Grantley." "I cannot, Henry," replied his brother;" you must make some excuse for me. Say I am not well. I assure you it is true. I do not feel well; I cannot go back to the ball-room.' Nonsense, Grantley," returned Henry; "you know that is fudge; nobody will believe it. Why did you come here at all ?" Why, indeed?" exclaimed Grantley, as it were involuntarily. 66 "I'll tell you why," retorted Henry, with a sneering laugh. "Because the governor sent you, and so you must do as he bids. You are under orders, Grantley, and must obey." "I am indeed no free agent!" said Grantley, in a low voice of suppressed and bitter feeling. Free agent indeed! It is not every younger brother to whom such a glorious chance of repairing the injustice of fortune is opened up. It is rather a good joke to see you boggling at being enriched malgré vous. Now, once for all, Grantley, you know you must be on duty; you can't help yourself, so you had better come with a good grace." can. "No, Henry," replied his brother firmly, "I neither will nor I am not well; there is no falsehood in the case. I have just heard some very painful tidings, connected with-with an old friend in Edinburgh, which have completely upset me, and I am quite unable to return to the ball-room. I shall get away to the hotel as soon as possible. Now, my dear fellow, I have told you the honest truth, and the greatest favour you can do me will be to excuse me to Miss Marjery, and leave me alone." Henry Forbes attempted some further persuasion, but finding his brother immoveable, at length abandoned the contest. Within a short time after Grantley found himself alone in his apartment at the Hotel. He locked the door, threw open the window, to admit the cold night breeze, and seating himself by it, leant his burning forehead on the ledge. Then starting from his seat, he walked rapidly for a few minutes up and down the room, then again flung himself into the chair, and pressed his hands upon his brow. "Ruined!" he exclaimed, almost aloud. "In distress-in poverty! and I cannot be near her, cannot console, cannot aid her. And she-what must she not think me? Oh! Sybil ! Sybil !" The memory of the last evening they had passed together rushed over his mind. "Leap year!" he said; "how true has been her augury! How true those fatal words, the omen I rashly tempted! Sybil, he who would yield his life's blood to help you is far away, banished from your sight, doomed to act the part of a villain towards your confiding innocence! And you, in sorrow, in bitterness of heart! Oh, Heaven! how is this to be endured ?" At that very moment the eyes of the far-distant Sybil were fixed upon the same night sky, whose breezes were cooling the fevered brow of her lover. Late as the hour was she had been unable to sleep, and unwilling to retire to a restless pillow. Within a few days after that time the sale of household effects was to take place, in the house which so long had been her home, and which so soon must know her no more. Her apartment bore many traces of the miserable confusion incident to such a time; half-packed trunks, empty bookshelves, all its little elegant appliances displaced or removed; how changed from the sanctuary of peace and repose which it was wont to be! But more changed than all was the heart of its occupant. She had been removing various articles from the drawers of a cabinet, soon to be hers no longer; hitherto the repository of sundry little precious relics, which she was now transferring to another receptacle. With a pale cheek and quivering lip, yet with a tearless eye, she had lifted many of them, more or less blent with associations of the past. At last she came to one-a withered branch of the lovely little rose de meaux, around whose stalk a slip of paper was sealed, inscribed with the date-" June 19th, 1824." It was the rose which Grantley Forbes had plucked and given to her just as they were leaving the garden, that last night which they spent together. Sybil gazed upon it long and earnestly, then pressed it to her lips and laid it down. "It is withered," she said to herself, "and so it should be." The air of the room seemed to stifle her; she approached the window and threw it open, leant her head upon her hands, as she stood before it, and burst into an agony of tears. "Perhaps he has forgotten me," she said. "I ought to wish that he may, for I am going where we shall never meet more. God strengthen me to bear this trial. I think I could have borne it all better than that thought. And God bless him, wherever he may be." Her bursting sobs choked the prayer. 66 And thus were their thoughts united, though they knew it not. There was no Agrippa's glass" to reveal to one of those sorrowing and faithful hearts the love and the anguish of the other. "Alas! for love, if thou wert all, CHAPTER IV. Shall song its witching cadence roll ? Campbell. Four years had elapsed since the commencement of our narrative; years fraught with many an eventful change, above all to those yet upon the threshold of life; for at that period one year will do the work of ten, in altering, maturing, too often in hardening the character. It was now again leap year-1828; and again it was the beginning of the beautiful month of June. The brilliant sunshine of a fine evening, between the hours of five and six, was flinging additional splendour over the stately city of Edinburgh, as it burst upon the eyes of a party of travellers in a barouche and four, covered with the dust of a long journey, which drove rapidly into Princes Street from the London road, and whirled up to the door of Douglas' Hotel, in St. Andrew's Square. All things looked gay and smiling, as if to welcome their arrival, and Mr. Douglas and his myrmidons rushed forth to perform their part in the reception. "Thank goodness," exclaimed a gentleman, springing from the carriage as soon as the steps were let down, "here we are once more in Auld Reekie. Welcome to Scotland, my dears," as he extended a helping hand to the remainder of the party, two ladies, preceded by a tall slender lad about eighteen, who jumped out after him. The elder lady, wife to the first-named gentleman, was a fashionable-looking woman, of a certain age; the other much younger, and infinitely prettier. While the rest of the party were talking together, and preparing to enter the hotel, this young lady lingered for an instant on the steps, and cast a long glance around her. Her eyes wandered over the various objects before them with that mournful intensity of gaze which we fix upon the countenance of a dear and long-absent friend; till at length, as the lady's maid, valet, and waiters began ascending, armed with multifarious articles of luggage, she seemed, by an effort, to recall her roving thoughts, passed her little hand over her eyes, and followed her party up stairs. "Here we are then, in Edinburgh, at last," exclaimed the elder lady, as they entered their sitting-room. "Ay, blessings on the good old town!" ejaculated her husband. "How my very heart warmed when I caught the first glimpse of Arthur's seat in the distance! "Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said This is mine own, my native land?'" "And has Sybil not a word to say ?" inquired the young man, approaching the window where she stood, gazing out upon the square. "Sybil, you used to talk of nothing but Scotland when we were 'ower the seas and far awa;' can you not find a speech to welcome it now ?" "I have a heart to think the welcome, at any rate, Frank," answered Sybil, turning her eyes towards him. Tears were trembling on their long black lashes, though a smile was on her lips. Not a heart in that room, however great might be its gladness on returning to its native land, beat with one hundredth part of the tumultuous sensations that agitated hers, on standing once more within the walls of Edinburgh. That evening, ere the party separated for the night, Sybil had despatched a chairman with the following note to a friend from whom she had long been divided-her cousin Juliet, who had now been about two years the wife of her guardian's eldest son. DEAREST JULIET, To Mrs. Maitland, George Street. I cannot hope to see you this evening, but neither can I resist sending to see whether you are in town, and whether we may hope to meet to-morrow. Indeed, I could not go to sleep to-night without talking to you on paper, since I am denied the comfort of doing so by word of mouth, and telling you how strange-how very strange-it seems to me that I should once more be in Edinburgh. I can scarce believe it, even yet. And so changed! I do not know myself again for the girl who left this place, now nearly four long years ago. Yes, four years; and this again is leap year! You used to laugh at my visionary fancies; but I have one connected with that particular period, which certainly has been strangely realized by this return to Edinburgh. A year and a half ago, when my uncle and aunt Murray had resolved on going down to Scotland, and all our preparations were begun, I know not how it was, but I never felt as if we were to make it out then. And so it proved, for my cousin Frank coming home just then so ill from Harrow, and being threatened with consumption, obliged us to set out for Italy instead. And thus our time of absence has been prolonged till this fated period again arrived. You will laugh at me, Juliet. Yet, no; I don't think you will be inclined to laugh just now, when we are on the eve of meeting after so long, and to me at least, so sad, a separation. There is little thought of laughter in my heart to-night, and I am sure, if the stern realities of life could cure me of the dreams in which I used to indulge, I have had some experience in them since the happy days of old. I long to see you, Juliet. I have many, many things to say, and to ask, which I cannot write. There is much of the news of Edinburgh that I want to hear, and you know, love, you have not been so good a correspondent since you were married as formerly. Let me know when we can meet; and now, good night. My kind remembrances to your husband. Douglas' Hotel, Ever, dearest Juliet, Your most affectionate cousin, St. Andrew's Square. SYBIL LINDESAY. It was now above two years since the death of her father had left Sybil an orphan. The severe pecuniary losses sustained by Colonel Lindesay, of which mention has been made in the previous chapter, had induced him to decide on quitting the neighbourhood of Edinburgh for a cheaper place of residence. His ties to it were |