for Caesar was an old story to the people of Castra Sanguinarius,

He retained her hand a moment, looked at her fixedly, the sorrowful expression returned, and he hastened away in silence.

Arthur followed, and presently coming back said, 'Poor John! You put him so much in mind of Helen.'

'Poor Mr. Martindale!' exclaimed Violet. 'Am I like her?'

'Not a bit,' said Arthur. 'Helen had light hair and eyes, a fat sort of face, and no pretence to be pretty--a downright sort of person, not what you would fancy John's taste. If any one else had compared you it would have been no compliment; but he told me you had reminded him of her from the first, and now your white cheeks and sick dress recalled her illness so much, that he could hardly bear it. But don't go and cry about it.'

'No, I won't,' said Violet, submissively, 'but I am afraid it did not suit him for us to be talking nonsense. It is so very sad.'

'Poor John! so it is,' said Arthur, looking at her, as if beginning to realize what his brother had lost. 'However, she was not his wife, though, after all, they were almost as much attached. He has not got over it in the least. This is the first time I have known him speak of it, and he could not get out her name.'

'Nearly. She died in June. It was that cold late summer, and her funeral was in the middle of a hail-storm, horridly chilly.'

'At Brogden. Old Mr. Fotheringham was buried there, and she was brought there. I came home for it. What a day it was--the hailstones standing on the grass, and I shall never forget poor John's look--all shivering and shrunk up together.' He shivered at the bare remembrance. 'It put the finishing touch to the damage he had got by staying in England with her all the winter. By night he was frightfully ill--inflammation worse than ever. Poor John! That old curmudgeon of a grandfather has much to answer for, though you ought to be grateful to him, Violet; for I suppose it will end in that boy of yours being his lordship some time or other.'