agreeable to the ladies at Lindores. Both of the strangers, thus caught in the net of difficulties and dangers which surrounded their old comrade, resented it more or less; but what could they do? Edith took no further part in the consultation. She retired behind her mother, whose arm she continued to hold firm and fast in both her hands. When she was moved by the talk going on at her side she grasped that arm tightly, which was her only sign of emotion, but for the rest retired into the darkness where no one could see, and into herself, a still more effectual retirement. Lady Lindores felt that her daughter's two hands clasping her were like a sort of anchor which Edith had thrown out in her shipwreck to grasp at some certainty. She bore the pressure with a half smile and sigh. She too had felt the shipwreck with keen passion, still more serious than that of Edith: but she had no one to anchor to. She felt this, half with a grateful sense of what she herself was still good for; but still more, perhaps, with that other personal sense which comes to most—that with all the relationships of life still round her, mother and wife, she, for all solace and support, was like most of us virtually alone.