the remainder of the day I was as desultory and as restless
as our Queen of Hearts herself. Owen affectionately did his best to
quiet me, but in vain. Even Morgan, who whiled away the time by smoking
incessantly, was struck by the wretched spectacle of nervous anxiety
that I presented to him, and pitied me openly for being unable to
compose myself with a pipe. Wearily and uselessly the hours wore on till
the sun set. The clouds in the western heaven wore wild and tortured
shapes when I looked out at them; and, as the gathering darkness fell on
us, the fatal fearful wind rose once more.

When we assembled at eight, the drawing of the lots had no longer any
interest or suspense, so far as I was concerned. I had read my last
story, and it now only remained for chance to decide the question of
precedency between Owen and Morgan. Of the two numbers left in the bowl,
the one drawn was Nine. This made it Morgan's turn to read, and left it
appropriately to Owen, as our eldest brother, to close the proceedings
on the next night.

Morgan looked round the table when he had spread out his manuscript, and
seemed half inclined to open fire, as usual, with a little preliminary
sarcasm; but his eyes met mine; he saw the anxiety I was suffering; and
his natural kindness, perversely as he might strive to hide it, got the
better of him. He looked down on his paper; growled out briefly, "No
need for a preface; my little bit of writing explains itself; let's go
on and have don e with it," and so began to read without another word
from himself or from any of us.

BROTHER MORGAN'S STORY of FAUNTLEROY.

CHAPTER I.

IT was certainly a dull little dinner-party. Of the four guests, two of
us were men between fifty and sixty, and two of us were youths between
eighteen and twenty, and we had no subjects in common. We were all
intimate with our host, but were only slightly acquainted with each
other. Perhaps we should have got on better if there had been some
ladies among us; but the master of the house was a bachelor, and, except
the parlor-maids who assisted in waiting on us at dinner, no daughter of
Eve was present to brighten the dreary scene.

We tried all sorts of subjects, but they dropped one after the other.
The elder gentlemen seemed to be afraid of committing themselves by
talking too freely within hearing of us juniors, and we, on our
side, restrained our youthful flow of spirits and youthful freedom of
conversation ou