cies, dreams of future designs, with her fan playfully
striking at the flowers as she passes them.

In silence Helen follows; and no word is exchanged between them till
they reach the lower end; when Jessie, turning round, the two are face
to face. The place, where they have stopped is another opening with
seats and statues, admitting the moonlight. By its bright beam the
younger sister sees anguish depicted on the countenance of the older.

With a thought that her last words have caused or contributed to this,
she is about to add others that may remove it. But before she can
speak, Helen makes a gesture that holds her silent.

Near the spot where they are standing two trees overshadow the walk,
their boughs meeting across it. Both are emblematic--one symbolising
the most joyous hour of existence, the other its saddest. They are an
orange, and a cypress. The former is in bloom, as it always is; the
latter only in leaf, without a blossom on its branches.

Helen, stepping between them, and extending an arm to each, plucks from
the one a sprig, from the other a flower. Raising the orange blossom
between her white fingers, more attenuated than of yore, she plants it
amid Jessie's golden tresses. At the same time she sets the cypress
sprig behind the plaits of her own raven hair; as she does so, saying:--

"That for you, sister--this for me. We are now decked as befits us--as
we shall both soon be--_you for the bridal, I for the tomb_!"

The words, seeming but too prophetic, pierce Jessie's heart as arrow
with poisoned barb. In an instant, her joy is gone, sunk into the
sorrow of her sister. Herself sinking upon that sister's bosom, with
arms around her neck, and tears falling thick and fast over her
swan-white shoulders.

Never more than now has her heart overflowed with compassion, for never
as now has Helen appeared to suffer so acutely. As she stood, holding
in one hand the symbol of bright happy life, in the other the dark
emblem of death, she looked the very personification of sorrow. With
her magnificent outline of form, and splendid features, all the more
marked in their melancholy, she might have passed for its divinity. The
ancient sculptors would have given much for such a model, to mould the
statue of Despair.

CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT.

A BLANK DAY.

On the frontier every settlement has its professional hunter. Often
several, seldom less than two or three; their _metier_ being to supply