GRANDMOTHER FRANKLYN.

Kathleen's awed voice died away in a hushed sob, and in the grand parlor car there was a dead silence, broken only by the clatter of the car-wheels as they rushed over the glistening steel rails.

Old Benjamin Carew crouched silently in his seat, with clinched hands and half-averted face, but Kathleen could see that he was pale as death, and beads of dew stood on his forehead and around his pain-drawn lips.

"How dearly he must have loved his sister-in-law—my unhappy young mother!" she thought, tenderly; and just then his hand moved and sought hers, clasping it fondly, but with a grasp as cold as ice.

"Oh, Uncle Ben, I ought not to have told you this distressing story!" she exclaimed, remorsefully. "I am so glad to think that I never told papa the story I had from the dying housekeeper. It would have been so cruel for him to know that the woman he had loved and trusted had plotted away the life of my mother."

"Hush, child! you drive me mad! This is too cruel!" groaned the old man.

He leaned his gray head forward on the seat, and sobs, all the fiercer for being suppressed, shook his slight frame. Kathleen wept, too, and altogether it was a sorrowful journey they had to the home from which Vincent Carew had carried Zaidee, his fair young bride, to meet so dark a fate. They talked but little, for a heavy cloud of trouble hung over their spirits and shadowed the future, and the young girl at length became conscious of a strange dread of arriving at the end of the journey so long ardently desired. She ascribed it to sudden timidity at meeting strangers. She did not dream it was a warning presentiment.

She was glad that the cars went straight through Lincoln Station without changing. She could not bear to be reminded of that terrible night when the talon-like fingers of her unknown assailant had closed stranglingly about her white throat, and of all the sorrows that had followed after. The girl, so young and tender, shuddered as with an ague chill, wondering how she had lived through it all.

"And poor Daisy Lynn! poor Daisy Lynn! what ever became of that unhappy girl?" she wondered, pitifully, and her thoughts wandered to the girl's sad love story. "How sorrowful it is to go mad for love!" she sighed. "And yet, how sad it is to lose one's love and remain sane and conscious in the midst of all the cruel pain. Oh, God! am I fated to lose Ralph, my own true lover? How shall I bear to give my hand to another man while I love Ralph so dearly?" And when the train ran into the station at Richmond she was weeping bitter, burning tears for her love, Ralph, from whom she was so cruelly parted. "Oh, the pity of it that I did not believe in him that day that I sent him away from me in scorn, when he was already so sorrowful! Oh, Ralph, my darling! I did not think then that I should ever be suing for your forgiveness for my cruel words; but now—now I could fall at your feet for pity and pardon!" sobbed the unhappy young girl; and there came to her a memory of some verses she had read in the poems of Mittie Point Davis—sweet, sad verses from a loving heart:

"Richmond!" shouted the conductor, and Kathleen roused with a start from her sad musings, and drew her heavy wraps about her, for the opening of the car door had let in a blast of inclement air. It was late in the afternoon—almost twilight—and a long carriage ride was before them; for the Franklyns had written that they lived on the suburbs of Richmond, but would send a carriage to meet Kathleen.

Sure enough, a close carriage was in waiting, the driver an old darky who seemed surprised and even displeased that he had two passengers instead of one.

"Mistis was only 'specting a lady," he observed.

"This is my uncle, who came along to take care of me," Kathleen answered, with assumed cheerfulness, for her heart was beating with a strange suspense and dread. The old negro put her trunk up, and they entered the carriage, and set out on a long ride that did not end until night had wrapped its sable pall of gloom around the earth.

"Oh, uncle, how glad I am that you came with me! I should have felt so frightened all alone!" whispered the girl, nestling close to her relative's side.

He answered only by a silent pressure of her little hand. He had been strangely moody and silent ever since she had told him the story of her mother's tragic death.

The dark, gloomy exterior of the old brick house standing alone in thick, shrubberied grounds was not inviting, but presently the front door opened and a gleam of light stole forth. In its ray there appeared a witch-like old woman huddled in a gray blanket shawl, who stood shivering in the hall while they alighted.

"Howdy, granddaughter? Glad to see you!" She gave Kathleen a cold peck on the cheek and peered curiously at her companion. "Who's this? I warn't expecting anybody but you, my dear. Oh, your uncle! Howdy-do, sir? Walk right in, both of you, to the parlor. Folks all out at a party but me. You'll see them in the morning."

She ushered them into a prim, old-fashioned sitting-room that did not show much pretension to the wealth the Franklyns had written they were possessed of; but Kathleen was so glad of the great glowing fire that she ran to it and held her numb fingers to the blaze, with scarcely a glance at her surroundings. Uncle Ben followed her with a strange sinking at the heart.

His impressions of Mrs. Franklyn—Kathleen's grandmother—were not favorable, it seemed.

She was unprepossessing in her looks and manners, and she certainly regarded him in the light of an interloper. She had not extended to him the warm welcome that Northern people are led to believe is characteristic of Southern hospitality.

Mrs. Franklyn pulled out a little table on which was arranged a tempting little supper.

"I kept oysters and coffee warm for you," she said beamingly. "Now lay off your things, both of you, and eat before they get cold, won't you?"

"I am so tired—my head aches—I don't think I can swallow a mouthful!" pleaded Kathleen, on the point of hysterical tears.

Oh; why had she come? She was alarmed, somehow, and she wondered why her heart had failed to go out warmly to this new-found relative, as she had expected. Instead, she experienced fear and repulsion.

But the old woman was not to be denied. She almost forced her reluctant guests to swallow some of the food, and then she bundled them off to their rooms with an alacrity that savored of anxiety to be rid of their company.

"You must be dead tired and wanting to rest, and I'm free to confess that it's long past my usual bed-time," she declared.

"Good-night, Uncle Ben. I hope you will rest well," Kathleen said, kissing the old man with quivering lips. Then they parted, each to their separate rooms.

But there was no rest for Uncle Ben; his pillow was one of thorns, and he rose and paced the floor at midnight, restless and unhappy.

"My heart is on fire! Oh, God, I can not bear this pain! Let me go out into the cold, dark streets and walk it off!" he muttered, restlessly, and hurried into his clothes. "I suppose I can easily slip out of this old, ramshackle house without arousing any one," he thought as he proceeded to open the door.

But he recoiled with a start, for the door was locked on the outside! He was a prisoner in this strange house!