sent to leave the room, but merely stretched himself upon a sofa in a distant part of the apartment, which was very large. As I took my place, my lady raised her eyes for one instant, and gazed at me with that fierce look of hers, but that was all. Not a sound disturbed the stillness of the room, except the heavy breathing of the suffering man, as I sat watching the terrible expression that seemed each instant to settle more and more deeply into every line of my lady's beautiful face, till I almost grew afraid to gaze at it, till my very blood seemed to freeze within my veius. I cannot tell exactly when it happened, but some time towards midnight, worn out with watching, I had fallen off into a doze. Suddenly, I awoke with a great start, and, in that same instant, I became conscious that something extraordinary was taking place on the other side of the bed. I was sitting in the heavy shadow of the curtain, but I peered cautiously round the edge of it. To my intense astonishment, I saw that the eyes of the dying man were open, I saw that he was conscious. I saw that my lady was speaking to him in a low tone of voice, but with a vehemence which shook her whole frame till she could scarcely stand. By the fragments of the words which I caught, I knew that she was striving to awaken him to still greater consciousness. With all her ambitious designs, all her hopes and fears concentrated in terrible energy upon that moment which must, of necessity, be of such intense interest to her, I gathered that she was urging him to endeavour to sign a deed, which she held ready in her hand, and which I had little doubt she would, in an instant more, if she succeeded in her purpose, call upon me and Eustace to witness. But I marked that he gave no sign. As my lady, holding her boy

before his eyes, urged him with burning words, I marked a troubled expression pass across his face. I saw him look wearily around the room, and, then I rose softly, and went over and laid my arm upon the shoulder of Eustace. He sprung to his feet in an instant, and, as I pointed to the bed, he seemed to understand it all. He ran over with hurried steps, threw himself upon his knees, and caught his father's hand. When the dying man saw who it was a faint smile passed for an instant across his face; a smile which told with unutterable eloquence the tale which my poor friend had so longed and yearned to hear; a smile which spoke of the love of years gone by; a smile which, whilst with a meaning that none might misunderstand it craved for pardon for the past, spoke above all, in that last flickering moment of his life, of nought but love, and peace, and reconciliation with his child. As Eustace rose from his knees, and, in the shadow of the great change that was upon him, kissed him reverently upon the brow, he opened his eyes once more, and, once more, looked lovingly upon them all-upon her, and upon Eustace, and upon his little boy-with a look that seemed to ask of them to love each other for his sake-with a look which seemed to say that all the shadows of the past had cleared at last-with a look which seemed to say that he left his wife and his little boy, his vast estates and his honoured name, with confidence in the keeping of the son from whom he had been so long estranged, the son whose eyes reflected back, with such a depth of earnest truth, his own last longing look of love, as, gently drifting from the troubled ocean of his life, he passed away beyond the everlasting shores.

A few days more, and the family vault in the gray, old churchyard, where so many of his fathers slept, was opened to receive another tenant. A few days more, and Sir Percy Percy was laid by the side of that long line of noble ancestors, whose name he had borne, and whose honour and renown he had so highly prized. A few days more, and the bells were clanging out with merry peal, to spread the tidings, far and wide through all the country round, that Sir Eustace lived and ruled at Percy Grange, the honoured lord and master of its vast domain.

CHAPTER XVII.

CONCLUSION.

URN we, at last, from the stormy ocean, tho seething waves, and the howling winds, amid which our course has lain so long, to where the sunlights twinkle with a gentle ray upon the rippling bosom of the calm and placid sea. Wave after wave has swept us on our way, drifting us ever nearer and nearer to those everlasting shores whose outline seems to be already breaking on our sight. Another wave or two, and the ocean of life, with its storms as with its calms, will be for us but a thing of the past, a thing to be forgotten and swallowed up in the immensity of the great evermore into which we shall have been launched.

Sitting in my chair, that I may write the closing pages of this simple narrative, and looking back from the shelter of the haven at which I have nearly arrived upon the ocean of my life, my heart begins to swell with grateful thankfulness to Him whose favouring hand has helped me on my way with such abundant succour, with a succour which has ever been the greatest when my need was sorest; whose face has smiled with such cheering hope upon me in my struggles with the stormy waves. I have been a very happy and a very favoured man. I have not

proposed to myself to tell much of my own story in this book. It has been my happy lot to minister to God's children through many passing years; my happy lot to lead many wanderers to his feet; my happy lot to labour for the glory of his holy name, and, everywhere, the gracious condescension which called me has crowned my poor efforts with an abundant and an overflowing blessing. For some season it was a great trouble to me that the mother, who was so dear to me on many titles, did not think as I thought, nor pray as I prayed, but it pleased my Master, in his own good time, to remove this affliction from me; and she, whose life had been so blameless, even whilst a wanderer outside the saving fold, ran rapidly in the way of holy perfection when God had enlarged her heart, and brought her into his Church; that, after edifying everyone with whom she came in contact during her life, she might die the death of a saint, leaving a memory to be held in benediction by all who knew her, a memory to be for ever shrined in the purest and the best affections of the son whose hand pens, with a love which few may guess, this simple tribute to the memory of one who is as dear to him to-day as when he knelt, long, long years ago, in childish and in loving innocence at that mother's feet.

I have been a happy man, too, on many other grounds. I think I need scarcely tell you, gentle reader, what a joy it was to me to see Sir Eustace Percy installed, without dispute, in all his rights as lord and master of the ancient title and the vast domains of Percy Grange. I think I need scarcely tell you of the pride with which I saw him act with a justice and a liberality, which, although they were no more than I expected from him, I may truly call