of surprise which ran through the assembly, and grew more and more excited, "But it is the truth, I tell you. I put out those beautiful eyes of which I was so envious because the people praised them so much. I could not bear it, and the demon of jealousy had full possession of me, young as I was, and sometimes, when I saw him preferred to me, I wished him dead, dead, just as he is now. Oh, Robbie, my heart is breaking with agony and shame, but I must go on. I must tell how I hated you and the pretty baby ways which made you so attractive, and when I climbed up in the chair after the lumps of sugar and saw the cup of Cayenne pepper, and you standing below me with wide-open eyes and outstretched hands, asking me to give, the devil look possession of me and whispered that now was my chance to ruin those eyes looking up so eagerly at me. I had heard that red pepper would make one blind, and—and—oh, horror, how can I tell the rest?"

Lucy's voice was like a wailing cry of agony, as, covering her white face with her hands, she went on:

"I held the cup toward Robbie, and said: 'Is it this you want?' and when in his ignorance he answered: 'Yes, div me some,' I dropped it into his hands, saying to myself, 'it is not my fault if he gets it in his eyes.'

"You know the rest, how from that moment he never looked on me or any one again; but you do not, cannot know the anguish and remorse which filled my soul, when I realized what I had done. From that day to the hour of Robbie's death there has never been a moment when I would not have given my sight—yes, my life for his. And that is why I have been the devoted sister, as you have called me. I was trying to atone, and I did a little. Robbie told me so, for I confessed it all to him before he died; I told him just how vile I was, and he forgave me, and loved me just the same and went to sleep with my name on his lips. I can see it there now, the formation of the word Lucy, and it will be the first he utters when he welcomes me to heaven, if I am permitted to enter there.

"I have made this confession because I thought I ought, that you might not think me better than I am, I know you will despise me, but it does not matter; Robbie forgave and loved me to the last, and that alone will keep me from going mad."

She ceased speaking, and with a low, gasping sob fell forward into the arms of her father, who had stepped to her side in time to receive her.

It was a blustering March day when they buried Robert Grey in the cemetery at Allington, while his sister, who had been taken directly from the church to her home, lay unconscious in her room, only moaning occasionally, and whispering of Robbie, whose eyes she had put out.

"People will hate me always," she said, when after weeks of brain fever she was herself again. But in this she was mistaken, for the people who knew her best loved her most, and as the years went on, and all felt the influence of her pure, stainless, unselfish life, they came to esteem her as almost a saint, and no house was complete which had not in it some likeness of the sad, but inexpressibly sweet face which had a smile for every one, and which was oftenest seen in the cheerless houses where hunger and sickness were. There Lucy Grey was a ministering angel, and the good she did could never be told in words, but was known and felt by those who never breathed a prayer which did not have in it a thought of her and a wish for her happiness.

When Grey was first laid in her arms, and she saw in his great blue eyes a look like those other eyes hidden beneath the coffin-lid, she felt as if Robbie had come back to her, and there awoke within her a love for the child greater even than his own mother felt for him. And yet, so wholly unselfish was her nature that she never mourned or uttered a word of protest when, as the boy grew older, he evinced a preference for the farm-house in the pasture, rather than for the grand old place at Grey's Park, where, since her sister's marriage and her father's death, she had lived alone.

"Hannah needs him more than I do," she would say to herself, but her sweet face was always brighter, and in her great black eyes there was a softer light when she knew he was coming to break the monotony of her lonely life.

After her marriage, Geraldine did not often honor Allington with her presence. It was far too quiet there to suit her, and Lucy lived too much the life of a recluse. No little breakfasts, no lunches, no evening parties at which she could display her elegant Paris costumes; nothing except now and then a stupid dinner party, to which the rector and his wife were invited, and that detestable Miss McPherson, who said such rude things, and told her her complexion was not what it used to be, and that she looked older than her sister Lucy. Miss McPherson was an abomination, and going to the country was a bore, but still Geraldine felt obliged to visit Allington occasionally, and especially on Thanksgiving day, when it is expected that the sons and daughters of New England will return to the old home, and grow young again under the roof which sheltered their childhood.

And so, on the morning when our story properly opens, Mr. and Mrs. Burton Jerrold and their son Grey, a well grown lad of fourteen, left their home on Beacon street, and with crowds of other city people took the train for the country, to keep the festal day.