ome
in any other spot. "Young trees may be moved," he would say; "an old
one dies in transplanting." It was noticed by all his friends that the
stoop in his shoulders was more decided, his step less elastic, and
his ordinary flow of spirits checked.

Mrs. Kinloch, too, grew older unaccountably fast. Her soft brown hair
began to whiten, her features grew sharp, and her expression quick,
watchful, and intense. Upon being spoken to, she would start and
tremble in her whole frame; her cheeks would glow momentarily, and
then become waxen again.

Impatient at the slow progress of her son's wooing, and impelled now
by a new fear that all her plans might be frustrated, if Mildred
should happen to hear any rumor touching the cause of Lucy's
disappearance, Mrs. Kinloch proposed to herself to assist him more
openly than she had hitherto done--She was not aware that anything
implicating Hugh had been reported, but she knew enough of human
nature to be sure that some one would be peering into the mystery,--a
mystery which she divined by instinct, but had not herself dared to
explore. So, finding a favorable opportunity, she sat down beside
Mildred, determined to read the secret of her soul; for she made no
question that she could scan her, as she might the delicate machinery
of the French clock, noiselessly moving under its crystal cover.

Mildred shuddered unconsciously, as she felt her step-mother's thin
fingers gently smoothing the hair upon her temples; still more, as the
pale and quivering lips were pressed to her forehead. The caress was
not a feigned tenderness. Mrs. Kinloch really loved the girl, with
such love as she had to bestow; and if her manner had been latterly
abstracted or harsh, it was from preoccupation. She was soon satisfied
that the suspicion she dreaded had not found place in the girl's mind.
Leading the way by imperceptible approaches, she spoke in her softest
tones of her joy at Hugh's altered manners, her hopes of his future,
and especially of her desire to have him leave the navy and settle on
shore.

"How happy we might be, Hugh and we," she said, "if we could live here
in this comfortable home, and feel that nothing but death would break
up the circle! How much your dear father counted on the happiness in
store for him in growing old with his children around him!--and would
he not be rejoiced to see us cling together, bound by ties as strong
as life, and cherishing his memory by our mutual affection