e you time to send word so
that they will be prepared for your coming.'

How often do we look for that to-morrow which never comes? How often do
we find that its looked-for rosy tints are none other than the
gloom-laden grey of the present?

Before the morrow's sun was high in the heavens Stephen was hurriedly
summoned to her aunt's bedside. She lay calm and peaceful; but one side
of her face was alive and the other seemingly dead. In the night a
paralytic stroke had seized her. The doctors said she might in time
recover a little, but she would never be her old active self again. She
herself, with much painful effort, managed to convey to Stephen that she
knew the end was near. Stephen, knowing the wish of her heart and
thinking that it might do her good to gratify her wish, asked if she
should arrange that she be brought to Lannoy. Feebly and slowly, word by
word, she managed to convey her idea.

'Not now, dear one. I shall see it all in time!--Soon! And I shall
understand and rejoice!' For a long time she lay still, holding with her
right hand, which was not paralysed, the other's hand. Then she
murmured:

'You will find happiness there!' She said no more; but seemed to sleep.

From that sleep she never woke, but faded slowly, softly away.

Stephen was broken-hearted. Now, indeed, she felt alone and desolate.
All were gone. Father, uncle, aunt!--And Harold. The kingdoms of the
Earth which lay at her feet were of no account. One hour of the dead or
departed, any of them, back again were worth them all!

Normanstand was now too utterly lonely to be endurable; so Stephen
determined to go, for a time at any rate, to Lannoy. She was becoming
accustomed to be called 'my lady' and 'your ladyship,' and the new
loneness made her feel better prepared to take her place amongst new
surroundings.

In addition, there was another spur to her going. Leonard Everard,
knowing of her absolute loneliness, and feeling that in it was a
possibility of renewing his old status, was beginning to make himself
apparent. He had learned by experience a certain wisdom, and did not put
himself forward obtrusively. But whenever they met he looked at her so
meekly and so lovingly that it brought remembrances which came with
blushes. So, all at once, without giving time for the news to permeate
through the neighbourhood, she took her way to Lannoy with a few
servants.

Stephen's life had hitherto been spent inland. She