distress for the moment overcoming his expression of indignation.

"Why, I thought," said Stapleton, "that you had made up your mind to tell the old man."

"O certainly, certainly," said Raymond. "It's only due and right that he should be undeceived quite independently of all other considerations."

"Yes, of all other considerations," said Stapleton.

There was a peculiarity in Stapleton's manner as he spoke, which, had Raymond been more on his guard, might have startled him. Stapleton appeared to be greatly relieved by Raymond's assurance that he would tell Mr. Cleffain.

"I say, stop," cried Stapleton; "stay a moment. Don't let the old man see Eustace, because you know he's a desperate hand at getting round a fellow, and making his own story good. Take care of that, you know."

"All right," cried Raymond; "the old gentleman is easily managed in that sort of thing, you know."

The two boys parted, Raymond to tell his uncle the sad tale, and Stapleton to a conference with Burton. The story was told. The proofs were clear beyond doubt on Cox's evidence, Burton having now remembered that he had seen Eustace very early in the house that morning, and noticed his manner as evidently flurried, and his anxiety to avoid observation great; a part of the box, in which the ring had been contained, had been found near the gate of Mrs. Sherwood's cottage, which Stapleton, in his eager sifting of evidence, had discovered there. All proved the point. The servants were exonerated; the police countermanded; Mrs. Beaumont in violent hysterics; Mr. Beaumont in a state of magisterial indignation. The Lawyer came, and the will was made.

Mr. Cleffain was very peculiar. He hated a scene.

Eustace had sat with his hands folded for nearly ten minutes without speaking a word, his eyes fixed on the scene outside. His mother was accustomed to these long fits of silence, and therefore did not on this occasion think it needful to rouse him from it; twilight hovered over the wainscot at the bottom of the room, under the old sideboard, in that faded and yellow lustre in which twilight rejoices.

"Mother," said Eustace, without moving his eye from the quiet light on which it was resting, "I may not be with you long in this world; you know it is a very odd thing, but when I was with that man who died the other morning, and stayed with him till it was all over, although I once thought I never could be with any one dying, and still less be present at that last tremendous scene; you know, while I was there, and God helped me to witness and watch it all, I felt so strongly that He meant it to be a call to me. Nay, do not cry," said Eustace, getting off his chair, and kneeling down by his mother's side, and leaning his head on her shoulder, "you know it matters not how soon we go, if we go to Him; the shorter life the longer immortality. Oh, do not cry, dear mother; we have lived to love each other, but what has been the work of your life but to bring me to Him whom our souls love? I have longed to love, I have longed to know Him, mother, you know that. I do not know why it is, but I have a feeling in me that the time may be coming when He will call me home, and the other night brought it so strongly to my mind ;" and Eustace held back his head as he looked up into his mother's face.

"My child," said she, "whom God has given me, it will be hard to part; but His Will be done. If I feel hat you are gone before me I shall only hasten my ps."

"Mother," said Eustace, "do not you remember that hymn we sung last Sunday

'I worship thee, sweet Will of God,

And all Thy ways adore;

But every day I live

I seem to love Thee more and more?'

Oh, yes, the LORD's Will! the thing to feel is that we are in His hands; you know how you taught me to love Him, and I do love Him; and if He bids me I will go." And as he spoke there was something in his voice and in his face as he knelt there which prevented her from shedding another tear; she felt that God spoke through her child's lips.

"Eustace," said she, quietly, "may His will be done; and if my child, the companion of my long years of widowhood, be called by Him to fill the place He has prepared for him, His Will be done."

"Yes, mother, yes," said Eustace; "that is what I feel; I belong to Him; whatever He wants of me, let Him take. Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and what on earth that I can desire in comparison of Thee ?' "

They talked long together before they left the room, when they retired to rest they had not fully realised how soon the long parting was to take place.

The scarlet fever had been raging in the neighbourhood, and several children had caught it, and died of it. Eustace was in no such condition of health as to resist infection; when he woke next morning, after a restless night, he was unable to rise. It took no long time to ascertain that Eustace had fallen a victim to that complaint, so often fatal to children, but rarely so to those older. With Eustace it was likely to go ill. His constitution was delicate. How strange, and yet how beautiful, are the footfalls of the invisible world, which we

hear sometimes before the approach of God's great visits to us.

The fever was at once declared by Mrs. Sherwood's medical adviser to be most serious in the case of Eustace. I need not tire the reader with the account of his illness: it was brief, and his recovery was rapid. But what often is the effect of these diseases took place in the case of Eustace great exhaustion, and apparent symptoms of a rapid decline, led to his removal for the ensuing winter to the south coast. Bournemouth was decided on.

By Eustace's side, at morning, noon, and night, with deep affection and devotion, Evelyn Noel was to be found. His one object was to do his utmost to aid in the arrangement of the wedding garment for a friend that he loved dearer than any other earthly object; and that, while he was doing that, he might himself prepare for his own call, whenever it might be. That Eustace was soon to go to fill the place prepared for him in the land of blessed rest, Evelyn had long had no doubt. He was there night and day; and while there, although he had no companion except Mrs. Sherwood, he often throughout the twenty-four hours offered up prayers for him who was so soon to meet the LORD. They used to do this at each one of those hours in which the early Church, in days purer and holier than our own, used to offer them in connection with the different periods of our LORD's suffering.

Evelyn took the lead in these services; and often, while his heart was fixed on GOD, would his eye glance at him who had been the companion of many a past month, the dearest friend on earth to whom he could give that name. Most beautiful are these scenes with the dying, most touching these works of Christian friendship.

Eustace's illness took place soon after the events I have described in Mr. Cleffain's house; so that there need be no surprise in the mind of the reader that Mrs. Sherwood was quite ignorant of what had occurred so recently in Mr. Cleffain's family.

Mrs. Beaumont went on asserting that, though she was of course sorry that Mrs. Sherwood's son should be ill, because, if he were to die, his mother would be left alone, she nevertheless could not but look upon his illness and her sorrow as a direct providence from GOD; for what woman could have put forth pretensions more presumptuous than Mrs. Sherwood, and what youth could have acted more basely than Eustace ?

So saying, she got up and rang the bell, ordered coffee, and arranged her scarlet Indian shawl in negligent fashion over her shoulders.

CHAPTER XVI.

BOURNEMOUTH.

THEIR lodging at Bournemouth was facing the sea; and that evening the moon was shining over the wide and sheltered bay. Eustace was much exhausted with his journey; but the lovely scene refreshed and cheered him. The window was open, and the lulling plunge of the waves on the beach soothed the young sufferer.

"Lift me higher, Evelyn," said he. "Look! there is a little vessel going out of the dark into the light, and now it is passing the pathway of the light; it will be in