Half Brothers. Stretton Hesba

nearer to him, and she neither spoke nor stirred until he opened his eyes and saw her.

      "Come here, Margaret," he said.

      She was beside him in a moment, gazing down at him with eyes full of tenderness and devotion, as if she were ready to give her life for his. He looked up at her with something like a smile upon his face.

      "Margaret," he said, "I love you more than anything else in the world."

      "Yes, father," she answered with clasped hands and fervent voice, "and I love you more than anything in the world."

      "This is my old friend's adopted son," he went on, glancing from her to Sidney. "John Martin trusted him; so we can trust him. I wish you to look upon him as a friend, a trustworthy, straightforward, honorable friend. If you should ever want advice or help, go to him for it. There's no telling what may happen to me, Margaret, and I want you to know what to do. I shan't die any sooner for saying this to you, and I shall feel more content."

      "If it will make you any happier," said Sidney, "I swear solemnly before Almighty God to help your daughter at all times, and to shield her from all possible harm, with my own life, if needful."

      To himself, even more than to his listeners, there sounded an unusual solemnity in the oath he had so involuntarily taken. It seemed a pledge to enter upon some high and chivalrous vocation for the sake of this unknown girl. It imposed upon him an obligation, a bounden duty, from which he could never free himself. He felt glad of it. A glow of self-approbation suffused itself through his soul. He thought of the strong vows of allegiance and devotion taken by the knights of chivalry, at which it was the modern fashion to smile, and he felt astonished at his own earnestness and warmth. Would Margaret and her father see anything absurd in this conduct of his?

      No; they were as grave as himself. They were in deep trouble, and Sidney's words did not sound too serious. They looked at him steadfastly; Margaret's dark eyes turning from her father to him with unaffected and unconscious earnestness. She held out her hand to him, and he took it reverentially.

      "Yes, father," she said, "I will go to him whenever I want advice or help; I will think of him always as my friend."

      "Go away now, Margaret," he said. She obeyed simply, and without appeal, turning round with a half smile upon her wistful face as Sidney opened the door for her. "I have brought her up on military discipline," said Colonel Cleveland; "I've taught her to do as she's told, and she will obey me even in my grave. It's happier for women so; they cannot guide themselves in this wilderness of a world. She'll look to you in the same way now, if anything happens to me. I thought I was dying six hours ago; and the bitterest thought was leaving my little girl with no counselor. She has got female cousins enough, but no trustworthy man belonging to her. Now that's all right, and you'll see to her as if you were her brother."

      "As long as I live," answered Sidney with fervor.

      It was after midnight when he rode away over the now dark and deserted Common. He was conscious that during the last few hours a crisis had come into his life; a difficulty which he had long foreseen and carefully avoided. He already loved this girl. But had he any right to love her? Was he free to win her heart? It was more than six years since he had last seen Sophy, and not a syllable of news from her had reached him. He shrank from letting down a sounding-line into the depths of these past years; it had been better to let them lie undisturbed. But why had he been such a fool as to marry Sophy Goldsmith?

      The night was dark, but the sky was full of stars. Along the high roads crossing the Common lamps glimmered here and there, just tracing out the route, but leaving the open stretch of moorland as dark as if it had been hundreds of miles from any artificial light. The bushes and brushwood were black; and here and there lay small sinister-looking pools, lurking in treacherous hollows, and catching some gleam of light on their surface, which alone revealed them to the passers-by. A red gloom hung over London, throbbing as if it beat with the pulsations of the life underneath it. There were but few country sounds breaking the stillness, as there would have been on distant moorlands: but now and then the shriek of an engine and the rattling of a train jarred upon the silence; and to Sidney, when he reined in his horse and listened to it, a low roar, unlike any other sound, came from the busy and crowded streets stretching for many miles eastward. It was past midnight; and yet London was not asleep.

CHAPTER VII.

       MARGARET.

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      Margaret Cleveland watched Sidney ride away until the darkness hid him from sight. He was to be her friend. But what perils were there in a country like England which could so fill her father's heart with dismay, and induce him to commit her welfare so solemnly to a man who was an absolute stranger to her? She was glad to have Sidney Martin as a friend; there was an attraction to her in his frank, steadfast face, which gave her great pleasure, and inspired a perfect confidence in him, the confidence of a child. But what was her father afraid of for her? To-day had been the most eventful day of her life; a crowd of emotions, mostly painful ones, had invaded the calm of her girlhood. This morning she had still been a child; to-night she was a woman.

      Now that trouble had come she felt how utterly imperfect her training had been to prepare her to meet it. She knew nothing of the world. Her father had stood between her and it so completely, that when he had been brought home apparently dying, she had been unable to do anything, or to summon anyone to his aid. She did not know the name of any of his friends whom he was in the habit of meeting at his club; and if he had not recovered sufficiently to give her Sidney Martin's name and address, she would have known no one to whom she could have looked for help in any contingency.

      True, they had been living abroad for some years since her mother's death, and she had felt no wish to oppose her father's plan of keeping her aloof from his somewhat distant relations, and of excluding her from all companionship except his own. She had been quite satisfied with his companionship; and her faithful and loyal nature had accorded a willing obedience to his slightest wish. He chose to treat her as a child, and she was glad to remain a child.

      But to-night she did not feel sure that this mode of life had been a wise one, either for herself or him. Suddenly there had come upon her a demand for prompt decision and action, which she was unable to meet. She had been obliged to stand by and let the servants act for her. It was painful to her to feel how helpless she must have been if her father had not gained consciousness enough to whisper to her, "Write at once to Sidney Martin and ask him to come."

      The doctors assured her there was no immediate danger for her father's life. Her mind, therefore, was at rest upon that point; and these other thoughts crowded irresistibly upon her serious consideration. It did not occur to her that her father purposely guarded her from making any outer use of her life; reserving all her sweetness, freshness, and girlish charm for his own pleasure merely. She had never felt herself a prisoner. Yet she knew well she did not live as other girls did; and the balls, concerts, and pleasure parties, of which her father spoke with so much scorn, probably would have had no attraction for her. But there were duties undertaken by other girls in which she had longed to share. There were children to teach, the poor to visit. "Doing good," Margaret called it, simply and vaguely. "He went about doing good," she murmured, turning away from the window, where she had lingered long after Sidney was out of sight, and looking up at a picture of our Lord, surrounded by the sick and poor. "He went about doing good," she repeated.

      Her own loneliness and the immense claims of human brotherhood suddenly presented themselves to her aroused mind. Her face lit up with a strange enthusiasm. She could not be alone while there were so many millions of fellow-creatures close by, with natures like her own, whom she could help, and who could help her. She remembered how her mother had spent her life in manifold ministrations to those who were in sorrow or trouble of any kind; and now she was herself twenty years of age, and knew nobody to help or comfort—except her father.

      She stole softly downstairs to his room, and crept across the floor to his bedside. He was sleeping, fitfully,