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to return to your home and try to think no more of it. Trust to me I will manage the affair for you. A word of what has occurred here to-day must not escape your lips. Mind, Lady Trevor and Sir Gerard must know nothing of it. They might be more scrupulous than we are, you know," he added with a hard short laugh.

The words and the ring of that laugh thrilled the haughty girl with indignation. Mr. Crofton saw the gleam of anger in her averted eye and it warned him to be more guarded. He must humour her pride, he thought, which he saw would brook no familiarity; the habits of years could not be conquered so soon even in her bitter humiliation. She looked upon herself still as the mistress of Barrington House and demanded all the respectful deference she had hitherto received from him. The time would come when feeling herself entirely in his power she might be a little humbler.

Eva now gathered herself up from the grassy mound where she had been sitting and prepared to leave the ruins. Mr. Crofton walking respectfully at her side. The aspect of nature was still bright and joyous, but in her crushed heart was no answering response. A gloom had fallen upon her spirits. How painfully did she realize the truth of that saying, "we know not what a day will bring forth." She left her home that morning gay and happy without a care she returned to it stricken, humbled beneath the terrible discovey she had made, the recollection of which must darken her days even if this fatal secret could be concealed. She pleaded illness to Lady Trevor to account for her pallid gloomy face, and thoughtful depressed manner; for in spite of all her efforts she could not help showing something of the fearful effects her late passionate excitement had caused her. The groom, Maurice, declared that the halfmad woman Dinah Blake had frightened his young mistress almost to death with her

odd ways an assertion which gave his mother, Nurse Lynch, something to think about, She alone suspected the cause of Miss Barrington's altered looks or guessed the subject of that conversation in the ruins of St. Bride.

Very anxiously did Eva await the promised visit from Mr. Crofton the following day. He came ostensibly on business, but secretly by appointment, to let her know the result of his expected interview with Dinah at Elm Lodge.

"You have nothing to fear from her!" he said, with an encouraging smile, "the woman is very ill and her death will soon relieve you from all anxiety.”

A cruel joy flashed across Eva's pale face at the prospect of this woman's death who called herself her grandmother; but then came the recollection that the secret would not die with her, and the sudden gleam of happiness vanished.

"Where is she?" she asked eagerly.

"In my house. She came to it last night more dead than alive, so anxious was she to keep her appointment and have the matter settled before she died. She made a deposition before me, as a magistrate, and belives that I will see Miss Dormer restored to her rightful inheritance."

There was a grim smile playing over Mr. Crofton's hard, deeply-lined face, as he spoke. Eva looked up at him with a wistful gleam in her grey eyes; he understood that questioning, anxious gaze, and answered hastily:

"Of course I mean to do nothing of the kind. Your interests are dearer to me than those of a stranger. I think it would be a cruel thing to deprive you of what you have so long possessed, just because you do not happen to have a legitimate right to it. You are the oldest, by a few hours, of Major Barrington's daughters, although that claim would never hold good in a court of law in consequence of your illegitimacy. But no one need know anything of that;

your half-sister will not miss what she never asked, after a short silence, as Mr. Crofton possessed." rose to take his leave.

"Who has the charge of Dinah Blake? Is there any danger of her talking about this painful affair to any one who might circulate the story?"

"Not the least!" was the prompt answer of Mr. Crofton. "Last night when she was too ill to leave my house I committed her to the care of my sister, a sensible, elderly woman who manages my domestic affairs. She will take care that no person has access, to her, but herself. "

"But the secret will be known to her also," was Eva's hasty observation, with a troubled look.

"That is unavoidable, but there is no cause for alarm on that account, she can be induced to keep it," said Mr. Crofton, with a significant smile.

"I understand her silence must be bought?" said Eva, with some of her usual hauteur.

"Exactly so!" was the cool rejoinder, "my sister is poor and dependent on me, and would not care to lend herself to an act of villainy without a consideration."

"I am sure of it. She has had a low nervous fever, and is reduced to a very weak state. You have nothing more to fear from her."

"She has done me all the injury she could in revealing the shameful secret," said Eva, bitterly; "I wish to Heaven she had died first!" she added, with fierce vehemence.

"Remember that it is only known to those who will keep it," remarked Mr. Crofton sympathetically.

"But can I rely on their silence?" was her gloomy rejoinder.

"Undoubtedly! As long as you make it their interest to keep the secret," he answered, emphatically.

"I understand," she said, quietly, but with an angry, disdainful smile.

By

And thus the interview terminated. degrees Eva recovered something of her former cheerfulness, as the dreaded evil was for the present swept from her path. She waited daily in expectation of the death of Dinah, but the old woman still lingered. Mr. Crofton said, "If she were only out of the way, Eva would feel less anxiety, for she feared that she could not be bribed to silence, like the mercenary agent and his sister. She had told her grand-daughter in that interview in the ruins, that she wanted none of her money; that she only wished to do justice to the girl she had wronged. Unless Dinah Blake died, therefore, the exposé Eva would have done anything to avoid, might still be made, and the threatened storm burst upon her devoted head. It was a fearful trial for the proud girl to bear alone-this secret agony of dread-and to have to maintain an outward composure, so as not to excite remarks. Her life was blighted; never again could she be the gay, light-hearted being she had once been. In her anguish she often wished for death, for when happiness is withdrawn from our life. "Is the woman really near death?" she it does not seem worth possessing. Life,

"An act of villainy!" How the words, revealing the naked truth, grated in the girl's ears. The deep flush of shame crimsoned her brow, and an angry light flashed from her eyes, but she said not a word. She was completely in the power of this man and his sister, and pride forbade her to free herself from the bondage they were about to impose upon her. Anything was preferable to having the finger of scorn pointed at herto seeing herself dragged down from the high position she had hitherto occupied and humbled in the dust. Any suffering-any unprincipled act—almost any crime before that! Eva Barrington inherited much of her despised grandmother's strength of character. She had also her proud, passionate determined nature.

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What were the voices the still lakes heard?

What were the scenes that the forest saw ?
What was the life that the green leaves stirred?
Who were the subjects to nature's law?
They were the voices of nature's own—
Birds and beasts, and herself alone.

The rapid chatter of chipmunk small,

Springing ever amongst the leaves;

The blue-winged jay with its constant call;

And creaking of boughs as they felt the breeze; Woodpeckers tapping with iron beak

Dead pine trunks, for the worm they seek.

The human cry of the mocking loon

Ever rose from the lake's dark wave;
The partridge drummed, and the ringed racoon
Sought his prey like a crafty knave.

Wolf, and fox, and muskrat grey,
Lived their lives and passed away.

The forest deer, with russet hide,

Hart, and hind, and tender fawn,
Beat their tracks to the bright lake-side,
Drinking there in the early dawn,

And the tawny lynx, in the tall, rank grass,
Quiet crouched till the herd should pass.

The green snake slipt through the moss-bound fern, The black snake reared his fearless head,

As the wild cat crept to the quiet burn,

Or the dark, brown bear with his heavy tread;

Whilst on some steep rock's savage crest

The eagle made her cruel nest.

The speckled trout, and the white-fish leapt,

Where bull-frogs croak, and the wild ducks fly;

The monster sturgeon quiet slept

Beneath the glow of a mirrored sky;

And the ceaseless hum of mosquitos' wings

Rose below all other things.

TORONTO.

Now, sound of axes fills the wood,

The blue smoke curls above the leaves,
The grass now grows where the hemlock stood,
And the golden corn lies bound in sheaves;
And where the beavers built their dams
Come the low of cattle, and bleat of lambs.

And stately halls and temples stand

And homes are raised, and cities filled;
The Red-skin fades from off the land,

And nature's myriad voice is stilled:
The Pale-face rears resistless head.
The Present lives, the Past is dead.

MY FIRST CARIBOO.

BY HUBERT HUMBER.

L

OOKING northward from Quebec one sees a range of low mountains extending all along the north shore of the St. Lawrence away to Anticosti, and behind this range of hills for hundreds of miles lies a

wild land of mountain, lake and river-the home of the moose and cariboo deer. The cariboo, unlike the moose, is a great runner, seldom staying long in one place; and, being very wary, and of prodigious powers of endurance, even after receiving a mortal wound, its pursuit is justly considered the most exciting of all our Canadian sports. When the cold of early winter has driven the deer from their far northern haunts into the mountains in the immediate vicinity of Quebec, there are always to be found those who are willing to encounter the privations and dangers of that inhospitable region for the chance of a successful stalk after such noble game.

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These words were spoken to me by my Indian hunter, Michel, as I sat looking very ruefully at the carcass of a huge bull moose which lay before me half buried in the snow; and when Michel added, "no get cariboo easy like dat," I resolved that my last shot had been fired at moose, and that the next season-it was too late that yearI would try my hand at cariboo : so a few days after, when parting with Michel at the village, I made a compact with him that when the time came we should hunt cariboo together.

The summer had come and passed; the fall snipe shooting was over; the long arrowshaped flocks of wild geese had passed with noisy flight to the southward, and the long Canadian winter was setting in with great severity when I sent word to Michel to come in and see me. We met, and the result was an engagement to start on the 15th of DeCariboo not like moose, no for sure." cember, and a specific estimate of our wants

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