"The boy grew like his father in mind and person; the
girl so like her mother, that when the old man had her on
his knee, and looked into her mild blue eyes, he felt as if
awakening from a wretched dream, and his daughter were
a little child again. The wayward boy soon spurned the
shelter of his roof, and sought associates more congenial
to his taste. The old man and the child dwelt alone
together.

"It was then, when the love of two dead people who
had been nearest and dearest to his heart, was all trans-
ferred to this slight creature; when her face, constantly
before him, reminded him from hour to hour of the too
early change he had seen in such another--of all the suffer-
ing he had watched and known, and all his child had under-
gone; when the young man's profligate and hardened
course drained him of money as his father's had, and even
sometimes occasioned them temporary privation and dis-
tress; it was then that there began to beset him, and to be
ever in his mind, a gloomy dread of poverty and want. He
had no thought for himself in this. His fear was for the
child. It was a spectre in his house, and haunted him night
and day.

"The younger brother had been a traveller in many
countries, and had made his pilgrimage through life alone.
His voluntary banishment had been misconstrued, and he
had borne (not without pain) reproach and slight for doing
that which had wrung his heart, and cast a mournful
shadow on his path. Apart from this, communication be-
tween him and the elder was difficult, and uncertain, and
often failed; still it was not so wholly broken off but that
he learnt--with long blanks and gaps between each interval
of information--all that I have told you now.

"Then, dreams of their young, happy life--happy to him
though laden with pain and early care--visited his pillow
yet oftener than before; and every night, a boy again, he
was at his brother's side. With the utmost speed he could
exert, he settled his affairs; converted into money all the
goods he had; and, with honourable wealth enough for
both, with open heart and hand, with limbs that trembled
as they bore him on, with emotion such as men can hardly
bear and live, arrived one evening at his brother's door!"

The narrator, whose voice had faltered lately, stopped.

"The rest," said Mr. Garland, pressing his hand, "I
know."

-511-