HAROLD HARDY'S REVENGE.

CHAPTER I.

"A SAD PARTING."

It was very dark, without and within-without in the sleet and gloom of a starless night; within in the bitterness and disappointment of Harold Hardy's heart, as after a final fruitless mission, he plodded up the steep hill towards his home.

The rain was driving in a cruel, smarting slant right into his face, and yet he did not care to quicken his steps. It was long past supper-time, his mother would be watching eagerly for him he knew, and yet he had no heart to give the familiar whistle, which would have summoned her and his faithful

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dog, Shep, in a moment to the door. There was a sore parting in store for all of them, there was no good news to tell-it was better for his poor mother to hope and pray on whilst she could.

Harold was scarcely conscious of the heavy sigh which broke up from his heart, as he leaned a moment against the thick myrtle on the cottage wall, but it would have been enough to bring his mother swiftly to the door, even if Shep had not already sprung there, with a joyous whine. The cold rain drifting in caught the flame of the uplifted candle in Mrs. Hardy's hand, and blew it out, but not before she had seen a glimpse of her son's white face against the darkness without -a glimpse that told her, all too plainly, that her own faint hope had been rudely quenched too.

Down, down, Shep," she said, trying to check the dog's glad welcome, which was almost more than her son could bear just now, and then she drew him into the kitchen,

where a bright log-fire burned on the low hearth, and sparing him with ready tact the keen pain of questioning, she said, "It was no use, my poor boy, I feared as much, Captain Bracebridge was not to be won over after all."

"No, not by love or threat,” Harold answered, with unsuppressed rage, as he sank despondingly into a chair, "he's a cruel bad man, mother, but I'll have my revenge yet," and as he spoke Harold struck his heavy mud-clogged boots almost fiercely against the ruddy logs, and the bright sparks leaped from them, as the hot words leaped from his own quivering lips.

Poor Shep winced, for the sparks had sprung out on him, and he had had no word or look of kindness from his master yet, but he did not lift his head from Harold's knee, where it had lain since he came in. Harold took no notice of him, but Mrs. Hardy's hand, which had ever in the extreme gentleness of its touch a strong influence over her

son, was laid on his shoulder now, as she stooped to raise with the other a plate of hot cakes from the hearth.

"It's a sore trial, no doubt, lad," she said, "for you and me, who are all in all to each other now, but we'll make it no lighter to bear by speaking hard words against the dealings of God or man, and if it's the Lord's will that you should go from me," the widow added, choking down as best she could the great trouble rising to her throat, "I'd like to make sure that you had His blessing with you on the sea."

"And so I will, mother, and yours too," the boy answered, suddenly drawing her face close to his own and kissing it, as, won for a moment from his own sorrow at the sight of hers, he tried to comfort her.

"Yes, lad, but you'll no be able to carry the blessing and the curse together in your heart, hark you, for the one drives the other

out; but come to your supper now, and we 'll

talk of it by-and-by.”