BY

THE AUTHOR OF "SIDNEY GREY."

&c. &c.

"Out of darkness, into light, through the shadows."

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,

13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

1859.

The right of Translation is reserved.

249. x. 306.

LONDON:

R. BORN, PRINTER, GLOUCESTER STREET, PARK STREET, REGENT'S PARK.

THROUGH THE SHADOWS.

CHAPTER I.

"We were two sisters of one race;
She was the fairest in the face."

TENNYSON.

"No; stay a moment, don't put it by; I'll think about it."

Caroline Brandon took a coral hair-ornament from her sister's hand as she spoke, held it between the looking-glass and a tall, thin candle which was on the dressingtable, and stood with a pondering look on her very pretty fair face. The ornament, rather costly and new-fashioned, looked out

VOL. I.

B

of place beside the small looking-glass and the one poor candle; and Caroline, in her fresh white dress, and elaborately-curled hair, looked somewhat out of place too, contrasted with the untidy upper room, littered with children's toys and school-books, and the sister in sober grey stuff, who had been helping her to dress.

She had some right to take pride in the contrast, perhaps; she had been engaged for two hours in the "pursuit of dress under difficulties," and in spite of the one candle, the constant interruptions of the children, and the unaccustomed hands of her attendant, the result gained was something that young ladies who dress with the aid of wax-candles, quiet rooms, and ladies'-maids, could hardly have sneered at.

The question about the head-dress seemed the crowning perplexity of the evening's anxious labour. Caroline gained no enlightenment by dangling it over her white fingers,

and she turned her bright blue eyes to seek counsel in her sister's dark ones.

"It would be a very pretty contrast," Ruth said.

"Oh! I know that," Caroline answered, with a deep sigh, "only I wonder whether Miss Ash and Mrs. Warren would think it worldly to wear red in one's hair, and whether aunt Harriet—”

"You will have your hood on when you come down stairs, and when you come home again, she would not see," Ruth interrupted rather quickly.

"Oh! to be sure, I should feel very cold without my hood. Well, then, Ruth, just put it on, the red pins fasten it on each side; now, hold up the candle to let me see. Oh!"

"It is a very pretty contrast, as I told you," said Ruth, drawing out one of her sister's long yellow curls as she spoke, to match a string of red beads that fell as low as her white polished shoulders.