worst suspense now that we know you have
left her quieter and better. I will ask no more
questions,—at least," she added, after a pause,
" I will only ask one."—She stopped; and
her eyes wandered inquiringly towards
Leonard. He had hitherto been listening with
silent interest to all that had passed; but he
now interposed gently, and advised his wife
to wait a little before she ventured on saying
anything more.

"It is such an easy question to answer,"
pleaded Eosamond. " I only wanted to hear
whether she has got my message—whether
she knows that I am waiting and longing
to see her, if she will but let me come?"

"Yes, yes," said the old man, nodding to
Rosamond with an air of relief. " That
question is easy; easier even than you think,
for it brings me straight to the beginning of
all that I have got to say." He had been
hitherto walking restlessly about the room;
sitting down one moment, and getting up the
next. He now placed a chair for himself,
midway between Rosamond—who was
sitting, with the child, near the window—and
her husband, who occupied the sofa at the
lower end of the room. In this position,
which enabled him to address himself
alternately to Mr. and Mrs. Frankland without
difficulty, he soon recovered composure
enough to open his heart unreservedly to
the interest of his subject.

"When the worst was over and past," he
said, addressing Rosamond—"when she could
listen and when I could speak, the first words
of comfort that I said to her were the words
of your message. Straight she looked at me,
with doubting, fearing eyes. ' Was her
husband there to hear her? ' she says. ' Did he
look angry? did he look sorry? did he change
ever so little, when you got that message
from her ? ' And I said, ' No: no change,
no auger, no sorrow, nothing like it.' And
she said again, ' Has it made between them
no misery? has it nothing wrenched away of
all the love and all the happiness that binds
them the one to the other ? ' And once more
I answer to that, 'No! no misery, no wrench.
See now! I shall go my ways at once to the
good wife, and fetch her here to answer for the
good husband with her own tongue.' While
I speak those words there flies out over all
her face a look—no, not a look—a light,
like a sunflash. While I can count one, it
lasts; before I can count two, it is gone; the
face is all dark again; it is turned away
from me on the pillow, and I see the hand
that is outside the bed begin to crumple up
the sheet. ' I shall go my ways, then, and
fetch the good wife,' I say again. And she
says, ' No! not yet. I must not see her, I
dare not see her till she knows—' and there
she stops, and the hand crumples up the
sheet again, and softly, softly, I say to her,
' Knows what? ' and she answers me, ' What
I, her mother, cannot tell her to her face, for
shame.' And I say, ' So, so, my child! tell
it not, then—tell it not at all.' She shakes
her head at me, and wrings her two hands
together, like this, on the bed-cover. ' I must
tell it,' she says. 'I must rid my heart of all
that has been gnawing, gnawing, gnawing
at it, or how shall I feel the blessing that
the seeing her will bring to me, if my
conscience is only clear?' Then she stops a
little, and lifts up her two hands, so, and cries
out loud, ' Oh, will God's mercy show me no
way of telling it that will spare me before
my child! " And I say, 'Hush, then! there
is a way. Tell it to Uncle Joseph, who is the
same as father to you! Tell it to Uncle
Joseph, whose little son died in your arms,
whose tears your hand wiped away, in the
grief-time long ago! Tell it, my child, to
me ; and I shall take the risk, and the shame
(if there is shame) of telling it again. I, with
nothing to speak for me but my white hair;
I, with nothing to help me but my heart that
means no harm—I shall go to that good and
true woman, with the burden of her mother's
grief to lay before her; and, in my soul of
souls I believe it, she will not turn away! ' "

He paused, and looked at Rosamond. Her
head was bent down over her child; her
tears were dropping slowly, one by one, on
the bosom of his little white dress. Waiting
a moment to collect herself before she spoke,
she held out her hand to the old man, and
firmly and gratefully met the look he fixed
on her. ' O, go on, go on! " she said. " Let
me prove to you that your generous
confidence in me is not misplaced!"

"I knew it was not, from the first, as
surely as I know it now! " said Uncle Joseph.
"And Sarah, when I had spoken to her, she
knew it too. She was silent for a little; she
cried for a little; she leant over from the
pillow and kissed me here, on my cheek, as I
sat by the bedside; and the*i she looked
back, back, back, in her mind, to the Long
Ago, and very quietly, very slowly, with her
eyes looking into my eyes, and her hand
resting so in mine, she spoke the words to
me that I must now speak again to you, who
sit here to-day as her judge, before you go to
her to-morrow, as her child."

"Not as her judge! " said Rosamond. " I
cannot, I must not hear you say that."

"I speak her words, not mine," rejoined
the old man gravely. " Wait, before you bid
me change them for others—wait, till you
know the end."

He drew his chair a little nearer to
Rosamond, paused for a minute or two, to arrange
his recollections, and to separate them one
from the other; then resumed:

"As Sarah began with me," he said, " so I,
for my part, must begin also,—which means
to say, that I go down now through the years
that are past, to the time when my niece
went out to her first service. You know that
the sea-captain, the brave and good man
Treverton, took for his wife an artist on the
stage—what they call, play-actress, here ? A