y actions of mad
violence, he ended by hanging himself in the very room where he had
imprisoned his victim.'

'Horrible!' said Laura. 'Yet I do not see why, when it is all past, you
should feel it so deeply.'

'How should I not feel it?' answered Guy. 'Is it not written that the
sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children? You wonder to
see me so foolish about Sintram. Well, it is my firm belief that such
a curse of sin and death as was on Sintram rests on the descendants of
that miserable man.'

The girls were silent, struck with awe and dismay at the fearful reality
with which he pronounced the words. At last, Amy whispered, 'But Sintram
conquered his doom.'

At the same time Laura gathered her thoughts together, and said, 'This
must be an imagination. You have dwelt on it and fostered it till you
believe it, but such notions should be driven away or they will work
their own fulfilment.'

'Look at the history of the Morvilles, and see if it be an imagination,'
said Guy. 'Crime and bloodshed have been the portion of each--each has
added weight and darkness to the doom which he had handed on. My own
poor father, with his early death, was, perhaps, the happiest!'

Laura saw the idea was too deeply rooted to be treated as a fancy, and
she found a better argument. 'The doom of sin and death is on us all,
but you should remember that if you are a Morville, you are also a
Christian.'

'He does remember it!' said Amy, raising her eyes to his face, and then
casting them down, blushing at having understood his countenance, where,
in the midst of the gloomy shades, there rested for an instant the gleam
which her mother had likened to the expression of Raffaelle's cherub.'

They walked on for some time in silence. At last Laura exclaimed, 'Are
you really like the portrait of this unfortunate Sir Hugh?'

Guy made a sign of assent.

'Oh! It must have been taken before he grew wicked,' said Amy; and Laura
felt the same conviction, that treacherous revenge could never have
existed beneath so open a countenance, with so much of highmindedness,
pure faith and contempt of wrong in every glance of the eagle eye, in
the frank expansion of the smooth forehead.

They were interrupted by Mr. Edmonstone's hearty voice, bawling across
the garden for one of the men. 'O Guy! are you there?' cried he, as
soon as he saw him. 'Just what I wanted! Your gun, man! We are going to
ferret a rabbit.'

Guy ran off at full speed in