tant separately, could make a combination of great
value.

Soon after breakfast at Merryvale the following morning, Mrs. Egan
wanted to see the Squire. She went to his sitting-room--it was bolted.
He told her, from the inside, he was engaged just then, but would see
her by-and-by. She retired to the drawing-room, where Fanny was singing.
"Oh, Fanny," said her sister, "sing me that dear new song of 'The
Voices,' 't is so sweet, and must be felt by those who, like me, have a
happy home."

Fanny struck a few notes of a wild and peculiar symphony, and sang her
sister's favourite.

THE VOICE WITHIN

I

You ask the dearest place on earth,
Whose simple joys can never die;
'T is the holy pale of the happy hearth,
Where love doth light each beaming eye.
With snowy shroud
Let tempests loud
Around my old tower raise their din;--
What boots the shout
Of storms without,
While voices sweet resound within?
O dearer sound
For the tempests round,
The voices sweet within!

II

I ask not wealth, I ask not power;
But, gracious Heaven, oh grant to me
That, when the storms of Fate may lower,
My heart just like my home may be!
When in the gale
Poor Hope's white sail
No haven can for shelter win,
Fate's darkest skies
The heart defies
Whose still small voice is sweet within
O, heavenly sound,
'Mid the tempests round,
That voice so sweet within!

Egan had entered as Fanny was singing the second verse; he wore a
troubled air, which his wife at first did not remark. "Is not that a
sweet song, Edward?" said she. "No one ought to like it more than you,
for your home is your happiness, and no one has a clearer conscience."

Egan kissed her gently, and thanked her for her good opinion, and asked
her what she wished to say to him. They left the room.

Fanny remarked Egan's unusually troubled air, and it marred her music;
leaving the piano, and walking to the window, she saw Larry Hogan
walking from the house, down the avenue.

CHAPTER XV

If the morning brought uneasiness and distrust to Merryvale, it dawned
not more brightly on Neck-or-Nothing Hall. The discord of the former
night was not preparatory to harmony on the morrow, and the parties
separating in ill-humour from the drawing-room were n