as they were lying down.

"Yes," answered the youth; "William Ralph is my name,--the first for my
father, the second for an uncle who went to distant countries, ere I can
remember, and has never been heard of since."

"Was the uncle your father's or mother's brother?" inquired the hermit,
in a careless tone.

"My mother's. Ralph Greyson was his name."

"And does your mother appear to mourn his loss, or wish for his return?"
said the hermit, still in the same careless, half-absorbed tone of
voice.

"She speaks pityingly of him sometimes, for he was a bright, promising
youth, she says, when one distressful circumstance crushed his hopes and
ruined his usefulness; but I do not think she desires his return, for he
left his native shores cursing her as the cause of his misfortunes."

"Ah! how had she caused his misfortunes?" asked the hermit, drowsily.

"By marrying below her sphere," said Willie, in a trembling, embarrassed
tone; "a man who proved a vulgar sot, and thus disgracing him in the
eyes of a proud family, with whom he sought an alliance."

As Willie ceased speaking, the hermit breathed heavily, as if in deep
sleep; so, turning his face to the cedar-plaited wall, the lad was soon
wrapped in his own sweet, youthful slumbers.

CHAPTER XXV.

"Wasting away--away--away,
Slowly, silently, day after day.
Fainter, and fainter and fainter the flow,
Of the current of life more sluggish and slow,
And a ghastly glare in the glassy eye,
And the wan cheek tinged with a hectic dye."

In the dim gloom of a soft spring evening, a slender, graceful form bent
silently over a low, curtained couch, gently fanning the annoying
insects from the pale brow of its slumbering occupant. The apartment was
furnished with almost princely magnificence. Curtains of the richest
blue-wrought damask, hung in massy folds from ceiling to floor, before
the deep bay-windows. Rosewood sofas and fauteuils, in costly coverings
of the same soft color, rested on the brilliantly interwoven flowers of
the Persian carpet, whose velvety softness echoed not the slightest
tread. A fairy chandelier hung suspended from the lofty, corniced
ceiling. Rare statuary decorated the mantel. Large mirrors and pictures
in broad gilt frames adorned the walls. Marble stands, covered with
deep-fringed cloths of gold, on which lay books in superb bindings,
g