ready to be got out of bed, and dressed; and seemed This was a

glad when he was seated in his chair.

good sign; but there was no telling how long it might last.

It had lasted a whole week-a long, blank, melancholy winter's week! And now, Christmas Day was fast coming coming for the first time as a day of mourning, to the little family who, in spite of poverty and all poverty's hardening disasters, had hitherto enjoyed it happily and lovingly together, as the blessed holiday of the whole year! Ah! how doubly heavy-hearted poor Annie felt, as she entered her bed-room for the night, and remembered that that day fortnight would be Christmas Day!

She was beginning to look wan and thin already. It is not joy only, that shows soonest and plainest in the young grief-alas that it should be so!shares, in this world, the same privilege: and Annie now looked, as she felt, sick at heart. That day had brought no change: she had left the old man for the night, and left him no better. He had passed hours again, in trying to restore the mask; still instinctively exhibiting from time to time some fondness

and attention towards his grandchild — but just as hopelessly vacant to every other influence as

ever.

Annie listlessly sat down on the one chair in her small bed-room, thinking (it was her only thought now,) of what new plan could be adopted to rouse her grandfather on the morrow; and still mourning over the broken mask, as the one fatal obstacle to every effort she could try. Thus she sat for some minutes, languid and dreamy-when, suddenly, a startling and a wonderful change came over her, worked from within. She bounded up from her chair, as dead-pale and as dead-still as if she had been struck to stone. Then, a moment after, her face flushed crimson, she clasped her hands violently together, and drew her breath quick. And then, the paleness came once more she trembled all over— and knelt down by the bedside, hiding her face in her hands.

When she rose again, the tears were rolling fast over her cheeks. She poured out some water, and washed them away. A strange expression of firmness—a glow of enthusiasm, beautiful in its brightness

and purity-overspread her face, as she took up her candle, and left the room.

She went to the very top of the house, where the carpenter slept; and knocked at his door.

"Are you not gone to bed yet, Martin ?"—she whispered-(the old joke of calling him "Julius Cæsar" was all over now!)

He opened the door in astonishment, saying he had only that moment got up stairs.

"Come down to the drawing-room, Martin," she said; looking brightly on him-almost wildly, as he thought. "Come quick! I must speak to you at

once."

He followed her down stairs. When they got into the drawing-room, she carefully closed the door; and then said :

"A thought has come to me, Martin, that I must tell you. It came to me just now, when I was alone in my room; and I believe God sent it!"

She beckoned to him to sit by her side; and then began to whisper in his ear-quickly, eagerly, without pause.

His face began to turn pale at first, as hers had

done, while he listened.

Then it flushed, then grew

firm like hers, but in a far stronger degree.

When

she had finished speaking, he only said, it was a terrible risk every way-repeating" every way," with strong emphasis; but that she wished it; and therefore it should be done.

As they rose to separate, she said tenderly and gravely :

"You have always been very good to me, Martin : be good, and be a brother to me more than ever now -for now I am trusting you with all I have to trust.” Years afterwards when they were married, and when their children were growing up around them, he remembered Annie's last look, and Annie's last words, as they parted that night.

CHAPTER IX.

THE MASK OF SHAKSPEARE.

THE next morning, when the old man was ready to get out of bed and be dressed, it was not the honest carpenter who came to help him as usual, but a stranger the landlady's brother. He never noticed this change. What thoughts he had left, were all pre-occupied. The evening before, from an affectionate wish to humour him in the caprice which had become the one leading idea of his life, Annie had bought for him a bottle of cement. And now, he went on murmuring to himself, all the while he was being dressed, about the certainty of his succeeding at last in piecing together the broken fragments of the mask, with the aid of this cement. It was only the glue, he said, that had made him fail hitherto; with cement to aid him, he was quite certain of success.