struggling to frame an answer, when Mr. Daubeny said soothingly

"Don't let us trouble ourselves about the future; we are in the hands of God, Whose Will be done!"

"Will you come to supper ?" said Lettice, appearing at the door. "We have just got it ready, and if Ralph were to rest a little now we might come back and sit with him afterwards."

When the meal was over, and the little party had returned to the sick-room, they found Ralph in bed, whence he had superintended arrangements for their comfortable accommodation. Easy-chairs and stools were ranged round the fire, the table was pushed back, the flames roared cheerily up the chimney. In the far distance, through the silence of the snowy night, the hoarse voices of village carollers could be faintly heard, and once a drum and fife band from St. Dunstan's passed at no great distance. But bands and singers alike seemed to avoid the Castle as though there were something uncanny in its towers, and the little group within, shunned by the world, gathered the closer together, to keep with what cheerfulness they might their last Christmas round the old hearth. None cared to look forward through the thick night of ignorance to future Christmas Eves, though the thought would sometimes rise unbidden, "How next year shall we

be sundered, who now sit hand in hand!” But

Who would not in Life's dreary waste,
Snatch when he could with eager haste,
Some interval of joy ?

And thus, turning aside from sad forebodings, Sir Kenelm and his children gave themselves up to enjoy the bliss of being together. They talked much of old days; family jokes, long dropped, revived, and stories, half forgotten, of past experiences, were recalled once more. Since his confession, the ice which had bound up the memory of his wife within Sir Kenelm's heart had wonderfully thawed. He could bear to speak of her since his own deed had opened out to him the hope of one day returning to her side, and he was now anxious to leave with his children thoughts of their mother, to be their guardian angels in the time when he also should be taken from them. Though all were oppressed with a vague prophetic instinct of coming change and parting, there was but one among Sir Kenelm's children who was conscious that two short months hence their "head might be taken from them" to live in hard and shameful bondage. But we see things with different eyes when the world is behind us, and with "Eternity, in all its calm majesty, rising before him," Ralph could already feel that the worst bitterness had passed out of his proud father's coming fate. He gazed on

him with love as he lay back on his pillows, looked on one dear face after another with deepening, clinging tenderness, and sometimes joined a little in the cheerful talk. So calm and bright was that hour of social intercourse that none dreamed it would be the last-the last between them and Ralphbefore the Great Silence.

At ten o'clock Sir Kenelm's watchful eye detected a slight, weary droop in the sick boy's eyelids.

This time is like a pleasant dream; one is reluctant to let it go," he said regretfully, "but I hope we shall have just such another to-morrow, and every evening when Ralph is strong enough to bear our noise. So get you gone, my children, and warm yourselves well by the sitting-room fire before you go to bed."

Mr. Daubeny said a few prayers by the bedside, and then father and son were left together in the darkened chamber, Sir Kenelm seated by Ralph's side, and holding his hand with a fast, firm clasp.

CHAPTER XVIII.

How pleasant are thy paths, O Death,
From sin to pleasing God!

For the pardoned in thy land are bright
As innocence in robe of white,

And walk in the same road.

FABER.

THERE was silence in the room, broken only by Ralph's difficult breathing. Every power was failing, and the languid blood flowed dull and cold, but the heart was straining its utmost to perform its needful task-the poor young heart which throughout the last year of trial had swelled almost to bursting with stormy emotions, painfully suppressed; which had throbbed with apprehension, or sunk low in deep despair. Brave, strong heart, which had borne up through all, and which now, worn out before its time, was about to be laid aside as a valueless and used up thing to moulder into dust!

Sir Kenelm watched in the dull firelight the wasted face upon the warm, soft pillow, and thought with cold wonder how this frame, which he could now touch and see, would soon be shut away from him, low beneath the grass, where he could never reach it. How soon his boy-companion of eighteen years would be to him an idea, a memory only, like her for whose presence he had languished with a five-years' fruitless thirst.

Oh, that I had been kinder to you while I had you!" he murmured, inwardly, and then, as his eye caught the faint, blue scar which disfigured the dying boy's cheek, he groaned aloud! "Oh! that God had spared him till that mark was gone! Can I see it on his face when he is dead, and live?"

He looked down at the white hand that had dealt the blow, so white and yet so cruel, and dashed it against the iron bed-post.

Some minutes later the quiet was broken. by a restless movement from the bed. Sir Kenelm kept silence, hoping that Ralph might fall asleep again; but his breathing continued to show that he was awake, and at last, bending over him, Sir Kenelm found that tears, which he vainly sought to hide, were stealing slowly from under his half-closed eyelids.

"What is it, my own dear, patient saint ?" he asked, with passionate tenderness.

It was the first time during all his long decline that he had seen Ralph's fortitude give way.

"I want to live; I cannot die!" he answered, and a tempest of sobs shook his frame.

His father's heart sank. Till now he had been supported by the belief that Ralph was resigned to go.

"My boy," he said with difficulty, "life is not worth such regret.

It is better to die than to live!

It is sweeter to sleep than to grieve!"