nsideration or fear of what the end may bring; too full
of life and spirits to-day, to dream of a sadder morrow;--so happy in
the present that the future troubles him not at all.

"How ill you look!" he says, anxiously, addressing his uncle. "My dear
Arthur, you have been overdoing it. You should not have remained so
long in that room alone."

"Well, it is all over now," Sartoris says, wearily, sinking into a
chair near him. "I was glad to finish it once for all. Those private
papers he kept in his own room should be examined sooner or later; and
now my task is at an end I feel more contented."

"Was there anything beyond?----"

"Very little. Just one letter sealed and directed to me. It contained
a desire that poor Maud's letters should be buried with him. I found
them in a drawer by themselves neatly tied with pale-blue ribbon,--her
favorite color,--and with them an old likeness of her, faded almost
white."

"For how long he remembered her!" says the young man, in a tone of
slow astonishment.

"Too long for our present day," returns his uncle, absently. Then
there is silence for a moment or two, broken only by the chatter of
the birds in the sunlit garden outside. Presently Sartoris speaks
again. "Where is Horace?" he asks, indifferently.

"He was here, half an hour ago, with Clarissa. She came over when she
heard of----our sad news. They went out together,--to the stables, I
think. Shall I find him for you?"

"No, I do not want him," says Sartoris, a little impatiently. "How
strange no one told me of Clarissa's coming! And why did you not go
with her to the stables, Dorian? Surely you know more about horses
than he does."

* * * * *

About twenty years before my story opens, Dorian, fourth Lord
Sartoris, died, leaving behind him three sons,--Reginald (who now,
too, has passed into the land of shadows), Arthur, the present earl,
and Dorian, the younger.

This Dorian alone, of all the brothers, had married. But his wife (who
was notable for nothing beyond her deceitful temper and beautiful
face, being as false as she was fair) having died too, in giving birth
to her second child Horace, and her husband having followed her to the
grave about three years later, the care of the children developed upon
their uncle Reginald, who had been appointed guardian.

But Reginald--being a somewhat careless man in many respects, and
little given to children--took small heed of them, and,