a fragrant memory to me. I
often thought of her, and wondered as I watched the white clouds moving
across the summer sky, or the silver moon shining in the heavens,
whether she too was looking out upon the same fair scene from the other
side the sea and thinking of her some time sister of Miss Melford's
school.

II.

AFTER MANY DAYS.

Some years after I had left the school financial difficulties beset my
uncle's affairs. Aunt Ducie died in the midst of them, and Uncle Gervase
did not long survive. Our household gods went under the auctioneer's
hammer, our beautiful home became the home of strangers, and I went to
live in an obscure quarter of a distant town. My means being exceeding
small, I took rooms in a small house in a semi-rural suburb, and from
thence began to look for work for pen and pencil. I had learned to draw,
and had succeeded in one or two small attempts at story telling, and
with my pen and pencil for crutches, and with youth and hope on my side,
I started out with nervous confidence upon the highway of fame.

Cherry-Tree Avenue was a long, narrow street within a stone's throw of
the grim, grey castellated towers of the county gaol, and the weekly
tenants who took the small, red-brick houses were continually changing.

Facing us was No. 3, Magdala Terrace, a house which was empty for some
weeks, but one April evening a large van full of new furniture drove up
to it, followed by a respectable looking man and woman of the artisan
class, who soon began to set the house in order. Before sleep had fallen
on the shabby street a cab drove up to No. 3, and from it stepped a
woman, tall, slight, and closely veiled. I had been to the pillar box to
post an answer to an advertisement, and it happened that I passed the
door of the newly let house as the cab drew up. Without waiting to be
summoned, the trim young woman came out to welcome the new-comer, and
said in French:

"Madame, the place is poor, but clean, and quiet, and," lowering her
voice, "fitted for observation."

In spite of my own anxieties I wondered who the stranger could be, and
why the little house was to be an observatory. Then I remembered the
vicinity of the big gaol, and thought that madame might have an interest
in one of the black sheep incarcerated there.

Very soon strange rumours began to circulate amongst the dwellers in the
avenue. The bright young woman was madame's foster sister; madame
herself was of high degree, a countess