e all I love," she thought, despairingly--"father,
husband, mother--all!"

She drooped day by day, despite the tenderest care. No smile ever
lighted her pale face, no happy light ever shone from the mournful dark
eyes.

"Her heart is broken," said Uncle Hugh; "she will die by inches before
our very eyes!"

And Uncle Hugh's prediction might have been fulfilled had not a new
excitement arisen to stimulate her to renewed life and send her back to
England.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

MR. PARMALEE TURNS UP TRUMPS.

Mr. G. W. Parmalee went down to Dobbsville, Maine, and reposed again in
the bosom of his family. He went to work on the paternal acres for
awhile, gave that up in disgust, set up once more a picture-gallery,
and took the portraits of the ladies and gentlemen of Dobbsville at
fifty cents a head.

Mr. Parmalee was fast becoming a misanthrope. His speculation had
failed, his love was lost; nothing lay before him but a long and dreary
existence spent in immortalizing in tin-types the belles and beaus of
Dobbsville.

Sometimes a fit of penitence overtook him when his thoughts reverted to
the desolate young creature, worse than widowed, dragging out life in
New York.

"I'd ought to tell her," Mr. Parmalee thought. "It ain't right to let
her keep on thinking that her husband murdered her. But then it goes
awfully against a feller's grain to peach on the girl he meant to
marry. Still----"

The remorseful reflection haunted him, do what he would. He took to
dreaming of the young baronet, too. Once he saw him in his shroud,
lying dead on the stone terrace, and at sight of him the corpse had
risen up, ghastly in its grave clothes, and, pointing one quivering
finger at him, said, in an awful voice:

"G. W. Parmalee, it is you who have done this!"

And Mr. Parmalee had started up in bed, the cold sweat standing on his
brow like a shower of pease.

"I won't stand this, by thunder!" thought the artist next morning, in a
fit of desperation. "I'll write up to New York this very day and tell
her all, so help me Bob!"

But "_l'homme propose_"--you know the proverb. Squire Brown, who lived
half a mile off, and had never heard of Harriet in his life, altered
Mr. Parmalee's plans.

The worthy squire, jogging along in his cart from market, came upon the
artist, sitting on the top rail of the gate, whittling, and looking
gloomily dejected.

"Hi! George, my boy!" cried out the squire, "what's gone wrong? You