sappeared.

It was one of those days in the early year when the spring seems to
rush upon the world as though suddenly new born, when there is all at
once a delicious whisper and rustle of leaves, and the sunshine
permeates everything; when the earth wakes up fresh, green, and laden
with dews; and soft breezes, fragrant with the promise of summer, come
stealing into the open windows. Nea looked like the embodiment of
spring as she stood there in her white gown. Below her was the cool
green garden of the square where she had played as a child, with the
long morning shadows lying on the grass; around her were the
twitterings of the house-martins and the cheeping of sparrows under
the eaves; from the distance came the perfumy breath of violets.

Such days make the blood course tumultuously through the veins of
youth, when with the birds and all the live young things that sport in
the sunshine, they feel that mere existence is a joy and a source of
endless gratitude.

"Who so happy as I?" thought Nea, as she tripped through the great
empty rooms of Belgrave House, with her hands full of golden
primroses; "how delicious it is only to be alive on such a morning."

Alas for that happy spring-tide, for the joyousness and glory of her
youth. Little did Nea guess as she flitted, like a white butterfly,
from one flower vase to another, that her spring-tide was already
over, and that the cloud that was to obscure her life was dawning
slowly in the east.

CHAPTER VIII.

MAURICE TRAFFORD.

I have no reason than a woman's reason;
I think him so, because I think him so.

SHAKESPEARE.

Before noon there was terror and confusion in Belgrave House. Nea,
flitting like a humming-bird from flower to flower, was suddenly
startled by the sound of heavy jolting footsteps on the stairs, and,
coming out on the corridor, she saw strange men carrying the
insensible figure of her father to his room. She uttered a shrill cry
and sprung toward them, but a gentleman who was following them put her
gently aside, and telling her that he was a doctor, and that he would
come to her presently, quietly closed the door.

Nea, sitting on the stairs and weeping passionately, heard from a
sympathizing bystander the little there was to tell.

Mr. Huntingdon had met with an accident in one of the crowded city
lanes. His horse had shied at some passing object and had thrown
him--here Ne