ip with sweet
dews! how thickly the shed hawthorn-blossoms lie on the grass of the
long lane, rolling in little drifts before the wind! And the birds,--do
the same birds come back to nest in their old places about the Grange, I
wonder?"

"Yes," answered Bessie, smiling; "I think all the birds have come back,
save one, the dearest of them all, who fled away in the night-time. Her
nest is empty still. Oh, Zelle, do you remember our pleasant little
chamber in the turret? I could not stay there when you were gone. It is
the stillest, loneliest place in all the house now. Even your pet hound
refuses to enter it."

"Now, my Cousin, you are really cruel," said Zelma, the tears at last
forcing their way through her reluctant eyelids. "When I left Burleigh
Grange, I went like Eve from Paradise,--_forever_."

"Ah, but Cousin dear, there is no terrible angel with a flaming sword
guarding the gates of the Grange against you."

"Yes, the angel of its peace and ancient honor," said the actress; then
added, pleasantly, "and he is backed by a mighty ogre, _Respectability_.
No, no, Bessie, I can never go back to my old home, or my old self; it
is quite impossible. But you and my uncle are very good to ask me.
Heaven bless you for that! And, dear, when you are Lady Willerton, a
proud wife, and, if God please, a happy mother, put me away from your
thoughts, if I trouble you. Rest in the safe haven of home, anchored in
content, and do not vex yourself about the poor waif afloat on wild,
unknown seas. It is not worth while."

So Bessie Burleigh was obliged to abandon her dear, impracticable plan;
and the cousins parted forever, though neither thought or meant it then.
Bessie returned to Arden, married the master of Willerton Hall, and slid
into the easy grooves of a happy, luxurious country-life; while Zelma
rode for a few proud years on the topmost swell of popular favor,--then
suddenly passed away beyond the horizon of London life, and so, as it
were, out of the world.

One dreary November night, after having revealed new powers and won new
honors by her first personation of Belvedera, Zelma went home to find on
her table a brief, business-like letter from the manager of a theatre at
Walton, a town in the North, stating that Mr. Lawrence Bury had died
suddenly at that place of a violent, inflammatory disease, brought on,
it was to be feared, by some excesses to which he had been addicted. The
theatrical wardrobe of the deceased (of