Radies' Storal ftaSiaet oj& 3 Pictorial 
onie 
preaching, and a parson of her own, and it is cruel to deny 
mo my only consolation,” and.tlie poor woman broke down 
into a snuffling exhibition oilier wrongs 
1; I eau do what you request in regard to Father 
Dooley," said her nephew, who really pitied her, “but I 
must tell you before-hand that it will be in vain, for I have 
no influence with Winnifred.” 
“ Perhaps not,” said his aunt, with a dolorous sigh; 
“she’s that wilful that she’ll break her neck to get her 
owa way. But I think, Bradley, you ought to do what 
you can to have that French girl sent away. Her coming 
to this house was your doing, and I’ve a presentiment that 
she will bring trouble. Winnifred is ready to eat her up 
now, but one day she will hate her—mark me, site will, 
hate her.” 
Bradley was shocked by his aunt’s narrowness and sus¬ 
picion. ‘‘Nonsense,” ho muttered between his teeth as 
lie rose to liis feet. 
“ There is another thing, Bradley,” Mrs. Braitliwaite 
continued in a half whisper, not minding his exclamation ; 
“ I do not feel at liberty to mention it to anybody but you; 
that girl has held secret meetings with a suspicious char¬ 
acter—a strange man.” 
“ O, I know all about that,” returned the young man 
eagerly, catching at any straw that would save him from 
committal to a distinct course of action in reference to 
Yirginic; “she told me herself. A stranger met her by 
accident in the pine grove and spoke to her, and she was 
very much frightened. It happened the day I came.” 
Mrs. Braitliwaite shook her head, and settled down 
heavily into-herself. “ That ain’t all, Bradley; you don’t 
know the whole story.” 
“I’ll tell you what,” Bradley resumed after a moment of 
serious reflection, “if you will promise not to persecute 
Yirginie, and will put by your cruel suspicions of the poor 
girl, I wll do all I can to induce Winnifred to let Father 
Dooley visit you hero at the Hull.” 
Mrs. Braitliwaite looked at him with a glimmer of sur¬ 
prise in her leaden eyes. “It seems strange that you should 
want to keep tliatgirl here whenl am sttro she will only do 
harm by staying. But perhaps you know best, Bradley. I 
have always thought you were good ever since you were a 
little boy.” 
Bradley received this declaration with a black scowl on 
his face. “No, aunt, I am not good, but I want to be 
just, and I will stake my lifo and soul that Virginia Duval 
is a pure, noble-minded girl.” Then ho turned abruptly 
on his heel and walked out of the room. Just as he had 
taken his hut with the design of escaping from the house, 
Winnie opened the drawing-room door and came hurriedly 
toward him in her white morning-gown. There was a 
defiant, playful light in her eyes, but the expression on 
Bradley’s face was peculiarly discouraging. 
“ Mr. Fortescue has asked mo to ride over to the fair at 
Clovernook, Bradley, and 1 thought perhaps your highness 
might be induced to join 11s. I can mount you tolerably 
well already, and as the fair is a horse and cattle show, 
you will have an opportunity to select a steed for yourself. 
The stables are not half filled, and you can indulge your 
taste in horses to almost any extent, and oblige me at the 
same time.” 
Bradley grew as cold and rigid as stone. “ No, I thank 
you.” said he hastily; “I do not care for horse exercise, 
and you will excuse me from accompanying you to Clover- 
nook, as you already have an escort.” 
Bradley’s tone was like sleet beating on her face. A 
vista strange and bleak and desolate seemed to open for a 
moment before the young girl’s eyes. She felt hot tears 
burning against her lids, hut she nerved herself instantly. 
“ I suppose it is your absurd prejudice against Charley 
Fortescue. You disapprove my knowing him.” 
“ I have no prejudice against Fortescue, Winnifred. He 
does not interest me; but if you like his society, there is 
no reason why you should not enjoy it. Be assured I shall 
never attempt to interfere with your friendships.” 
An unreasonable feeling of indignation came to sustain 
the girl, as often happened. “ You want to exhibit your 
lofty pride and wise prudence to show me that you will 
take no fitvors from my hand. As I do not care to have 
mine go begging, I will not intrude litem again.” 
“Yes, I will ask one favor of you, Winnifred,” and his 
whole manner changed and softened. “ It may make 
you angry, I presume it will, but I shall do it because it is 
right.” 
“What is it you will deign to ask of me, Bradley ?” 
looking up at him with surprise. 
*■ I will ask you to treat your mother with more consid¬ 
eration—to give her the place she is entitled toby age and 
circumstances.” 
A fiery, red tide suffused Winnifred’s face. “ It is just 
what I have expected.” she cried, with bitter scorn; “you 
have espoused mamma’s cause, and taken sides against 
me. Now I suppose you will ask to have that disgusting, 
dirty old priest let into the house, though mamma knows 
she can have the carriage to go to chapel whenever she 
chooses. You will not interfere with my friendships, hut 
you will come and preach to me about my duties and obli¬ 
gations, and I shall tell you plainly that I hate preaching 
and euntiug.” 
“ It would seem that a daughter’s heart would teach her 
ail she ought to Idel toward a mother,” he said in a low 
voice, “without forcing upon any one such a disagreeable 
and thankless task.” 
“ Yes, of course,” returned Winnifred resentfully; “ you 
think me hard and unnatural and monstrous, but I cannot 
help it. That old priest shall not darken this door. I gave 
papa my word for it, and I will keep it ” 
Bradley turned upon his heel and walked off without 
another word, and that same morning when Winnifred rode 
away to Clovernook Fair, she almost hated herself. A 
sense of personal loathing had come over her, mingled vrith 
burning indignation toward Bradley. She knew she was 
right, but the world had changed and grown perverse and 
hard and unlovely. The old buoyant, brilliant conscious¬ 
ness of life and power was clouded over; but a sharp 
canter of several miles and a great deal of high-spirited, 
soulless banter poured out on Charley Fortescue would 
surely set her up again. 
The October day was mild and still as it drew toward 
noon, with a golden haze netting up fields and farms and 
woods and waters in a symphony of exquisite color. Brad¬ 
ley wandered along the lakesido and started up a partridge 
now and then from the cover. By circling nearly the 
whole sheet, he came to the north end, and was soon 
clambering up the high bank in among the dark Druidical 
pine trees, where he wandered about lor a time over the 
pale red needles, and at last emerged at a point where 
Finster’s cottage was visible, and seated himself on a 
mossy log. The voices of the children playing around the 
door came softened to his ear, and lie idly watched the 
ducks making circles in the water near where tho fisher¬ 
man’s boat was drawn up on the sand. 
Long time ho watched arid waited, for Bradley had 
great capacity of patience in him, until at last the cottage 
appeared to exercise an attractive power he could not 
resist, and slowly descending the bank, he came to a little 
unfenced cabbage patch. Tho place was only one room 
high on that side, where a window stood partly open. 
Bradley approached and peeped through the light screen 
of withering morning glories and scarlet runners that 
shaded it, and there ho saw this picture: Yirginie sat by 
a low cot with her hat off, and her golden hair making a 
dim glory in the shady room. She was reading to tho 
sick child, a freckle-faced, sandy-headed lad of eight or 
nine. The boy’s little brown fist was clasped in her hand, 
and the story was in French, wjiich she turned into English 
as she went along. The child’s eyes, large from illness, 
devoured her face, and now and then he broke into a 
weak, gurgling laugh, for the tale was a merry one. 
Bradley watched this scene for some instants, and then 
gently shook the sash and spoke her name. Virginia 
raised her head. She could not see him through tho screen 
ofleaves, but she knew his voice, and it thrilled through 
her. She put down the book and went to the window. 
“ You look worn and pale, and the air of that little den 
is stifling. Do come out aud let mo row you round the 
lake in Finster’s boat; I want to speak with you.” 
“ Where is madamoiselle, your cousin?” 
“ She has gone to Clovernook Fair with Fortescue. Do 
come out,” he pleaded in a whisper. 
Virginia went slowly back to the cot, stooped down and 
spoke to the sick boy, and kissed his freckled face. Then 
she tied on her hat, and another moment was embarking 
in Finster’s boat with Bradley llalcourt. 
“ I’m glad you’re going to give her a mouthful of fresh 
air,” said tho slatternly, easy-going Mrs. Fiuster with her 
heavy baby hanging on her shoulder liko a bag of beans. 
“She’s stuck to little Jake as if he was her own; beats 
all how he dotes on her. If the child gets well, it will be 
her purty lace as has cured him, and not the doctor 
stuff.” 
Bradley pushed off into the middle of tho calm lake. He 
had seated Yirginie in the stern so that she could not avoid 
meeting his glance when she raised her eyes. He knew 
not what he meant to do or say, for he seemed carried 
along by an irresistible tide. For some moments nothing 
was heard but the light plash of tho oars, but at last 
Bradley spoke in rather a constrained tone of voice. 
“ Did you tell me, Miss Duval, that you wish the search 
for your undo definitively abandoned?” 
“ Yes,” said she, with a little shudder; “he is dead to 
me.” 
“I have been surprised,” returned Bradley, assuming a 
cold air of grievance that seemed to fortify him, “ to see 
that you evidently wish to avoid me.” 
“0, monsieur!” in a low, pleading tone of remon¬ 
strance. 
“ Yes,” said Bradley, not daring to look at her for fear 
his coldness would melt, “ there is some mystery envelop¬ 
ing you; something is troubling or perplexing your mind. 
I dared once to hope that I might win the right to a little 
more frankness—the right to help you if it lay in my 
power.” 
“Monsieur does not trust me,” she said, with alow 
lGnijrartiGn 
half sob; “ he has suspicions like madame. I do not won¬ 
der, for monsieur lias been all kindness, all goodness. It 
is monstrous in me to seem ungrateful.” 
“Ihave no suspicions,” he exclaimed, dropping tho oar, 
now. “I do trust you, Yirginie, with all my heart and 
soul, but will you give me the right to ask one question : 
Is it true there are thoughts of—of marriage between you 
a id Mr. Swayne ?” 
She gave a little cry of surprise, and clasped her hands. 
“ Marriage between me and Mr. Swayne I Monsieur must 
know, he must surely have seen, that the poor young man 
has a hopeless passion for madamoiselle. You are be¬ 
trothed to her, and you have no cause for anxiety. She is 
a glorious being, monsieur. I knowthather heart is noble 
and true, and I have reason to worship the ground where 
she walks.” 
Bradley sat with his face quite pale, a troubled gleam' in 
his eyes, and his arms hanging at his side, for he had let 
the boat drift as it would. “If what you say is true,” he 
returned, “things are more inextricably tangled up than I 
had supposed. But I cannot think of my cousin now. I 
am mad, perhaps, Yirginie. I am out of my senses, but I 
must speak. It has made me desperate and reckless to see 
you suffer. I have not slept, and am not myself. But 
why should I keep up this miserable mockery and pre¬ 
tense, when I know now that I love you better than life?” 
Yirginie gave a low, despairing moan, and covered her 
face with her hands. “0, monsieur,” she sobbed broken- 
ly, “you do not respect me, and I have reverenced you 
as a superior being far, far above me; but you have for¬ 
gotten your honor or my helpless and dependent state, else 
you could not speak thus, knowing what I owe to my 
generous, kind friend, who has so loved and trusted in 
me.” 
Bradley was bowed down to the depths of contrition by 
the sight of her grief. He went over to her and knelt be¬ 
fore her, and took one of her cold, small hands in his. 1 0, 
forgive me,” lie cried. “Do not misjudge me so cruelly. 
1 do reverence you liko a saint in heaven. No wonder you 
are shocked, for my conduct has seemed weak and strange 
and inconsistent and unmanly. I was led to make a wicked 
promise to my mother before I knew the strength of my 
feeling toward you. But the tie that binds me tomv cousin 
is only a business arrangement—a matter of expediency, 
of convenience and cursed family pride. I will break it, 
and follow the dictates of my oivn heart.” 
“You do not know the truth, monsieur,” said she, rais¬ 
ing her head with the tears streaming over her pale 
cheeks. “Your cousin, loves you, though, perhaps, un¬ 
consciously.” 
“ God forbid,” said Bradley, with an incredulous smile. 
“ That is a strange delusion of your’s, Yirgiuio ; she loves 
only her own way and the power to rule.” 
Yirginie shook her head mournfully, and gently with¬ 
drew her hand. “ Monsieur is tioblo; lie will put by this 
delirium and let me land here in the little cove, and forget 
all that has passed in this mad hour. I am going away, 
for I have only done harm in this place. I am going back 
to file good pastor Viardot at Geneva. I put myself under 
your protection while I remain, monsieur. Do not let 
them think me a mere adventuress. Do not let your cousin 
believe herself deceived and wronged by me, and that I 
have returned evil for her good. 0, monsieur, I beseech 
you save me from every breath of suspicion and re¬ 
proach.” 
“ Wherever you go,” said Bradley doggedly, “ I shall 
follow, unless you tell mo distinctly that you do not love 
me. You will draw mo to you by an irresistible attrac¬ 
tion.” 
She put her hands again over her eyes and began to 
tremble. “ 0, have mercy, monsieur; be not pitiless 1” 
He had possessed himself of one of her hands again, and 
covered it with kisses. “ You do love me, Yirginie ; I 
know it dow. I will obey you liko a dog, and never pain 
you again.” 
“ You will be docile if I tell you we must part forever,” 
she whispered. 
“ 0 , my God, Yirginie,” he groaned, “these are hard 
words. Do not give me over to despair. I will do nothing 
unworthy of you or of myself, nothing to pain or trouble 
you. But trust me, believe in me, my love. If we belong 
to each other, who shall part us? Yirginie, I saw you 
stoop and kiss that boy in the cottage. I would give live 
years of my life for a touch of your lips.” 
Yirginie’s face was pale; sho did not blush at his words. 
Her eyes had a depth of solemn meaning as she said, “ It 
will be the first and last time.” And just as the keel of 
tho boat grated on the sand of the little cove, Bradley 
folded her in his arms. 
(To be continued.) 
LOST. 
Somewhere between sunrise and sunset, 
Two golden hours, 
Each set with sixty diamond minutes; 
No reward is offered 
As they are lost forever. 
