CHAPTER XVI.

RISING CLOUDS.

'FLORA, my love, has anything occurred to distress you?" said the baronet, as he entered the breakfast room one morning in his embroidered dressing-gown and slippers, with the newspaper in his hand.

Flora looked anxious and unhappy, her eye letter which she had re

rested upon an open

ceived by the early post.

"I have heard from Mr. Ward, dearest," he gives me tidings which have

she replied;

made me very uneasy. Scarlet fever, of a malignant kind, has been raging lately in Wingsdale, and I grieve to say that two of my brother's children are ill with it now, and it is feared that the baby is sickening."

The baronet coughed slightly, stirred the fire, and sat down to sip his chocolate.

"My poor mother!" faltered Flora; "Mr. Ward writes that she is far from strong; the nursing will be so heavy upon her."

'Have not the children a mother?" said Sir Amery, abruptly.

"Emma has taken such alarm at the idea of infection, that she has actually hurried away, and engaged a room at a hotel in a town about ten miles distant from Wingsdale!"

The baronet elevated his handsome brows with an expression of contempt.

"I fear," continued Flora, with emotion, "that the anxiety and fatigue will quite break down the health of my mother. She will watch the children day and night, as she watched me in my fever." The voice of the daughter trembled as she added, “Oh, Amery! she needs me to help her; dearest, will you not spare me to her now?"

'You!" exclaimed her husband in a loud tone of surprise, pushing back his chair from the table; "what could have put such an insane thought into your mind? Do you think that I would suffer you to go into the midst of infection, to take the place of an unfeeling woman,―to act as nurse to a set of mulattoes, -to risk your precious life for those whom their own mother has deserted ?"

My mother will never desert them," said Flora; "it is to assist her"

to assist her; let that set your mind at rest," replied Sir Amery. Then he added, as his stern features relaxed into a smile, "It is easier to find an efficient substitute for you, Flora, in the sick-room at Laurel Bank, than at Lady Montague's soirée to-night."

"The ball!-oh!" exclaimed Flora, leaning back on her chair, "I have not the heart to go to it!"

"No heart is required," said the baronet, laughing; "we do not look for such commodities at balls."

Flora was ever submissive and obedient to her husband. She saw that it was his will that she should accompany him to the party, and she went, though with a joyless spirit. Decked out in jewels and costly array, and leaning on the arm of him who attracted every eye, the fair young wife might have appeared an object of envy to the proudest dame in the glittering throng. But there was a fount of sadness in her bosom, which mingled with and imbittered every pleasure. The music had to her a mournful tone; the gay dancers flitted before her like images in a dream; she felt it hard to wear a smile on the lips when the

heart was depressed with care.

Flora was

glad to choose a quiet corner for herself, where it would be unnecessary to enter into conversation, where she might remain unnoticed and unknown.

She was seated beside some ladies who were strangers to her, and Sir Amery conversing with friends of his own in another apartment, Flora felt herself alone in a crowd, solitary in the midst of society. Her thoughts wandered back to her mother's home, she was treading, in fancy, well-known paths, seeing long-absent faces, listening to the sound of the church bells which had once made sweet music to her ear; and, absorbed in her own recollections, had been at first inattentive to the conversation of the ladies beside her, till her ear was caught by the sound of the name which was to her dear beyond all others.

"And that is Sir Amery!" exclaimed one, leaning forward to catch a glimpse of him through the open folding-doors; "what a princely form! what a noble countenance ! He looks like the statue of an old Greek demigod warmed into life!"

The wife felt a glow of pleasure at the

words, and turned with interest towards the

speaker.

“Did you not say that he was married?” said the companion of the lady who had spoken.

“Oh, yes; he married some time ago; made quite a mistake, if report be true—the usual fate of geniuses; he threw himself away on some insipid little rustic, who had nothing but a pretty face to recommend her!"

Flora had heard enough; she rose and left her seat, and made her way with difficulty through the crowd to another part of the ball

room.

But even here she was destined again to find her gifted husband the topic of conversation. An elderly gentleman was talking with a young man, who appeared to be eagerly arguing some point with him.

"But you must allow that he has very great power-"

"Just as I allow that the boa-constrictor has very great power," replied the senior, laughing. "This man envelops truth in the mighty folds of his genius, and squeezes the very life and shape out of it. I believe