ving the room Panky sidled up to my father and said,
"There is a point, Mr. Higgs, which you can settle for me, though I feel
pretty certain how you will settle it. I think that a corruption has
crept into the text of the very beautiful--"

At this moment, as my father, who saw what was coming, was wondering what
in the world he could say, George came up to him and said, "Mr. Higgs, my
mother wishes me to take you down into the store-room, to make sure that
she has put everything for you as you would like it." On this my father
said he would return directly and answer what he knew would be Panky's
question.

When Yram had shewn what she had prepared--all of it, of course,
faultless--she said, "And now, Mr. Higgs, about our leave-taking. Of
course we shall both of us feel much. I shall; I know you will; George
will have a few more hours with you than the rest of us, but his time to
say good-bye will come, and it will be painful to both of you. I am glad
you came--I am glad you have seen George, and George you, and that you
took to one another. I am glad my husband has seen you; he has spoken to
me about you very warmly, for he has taken to you much as George did. I
am very, very glad to have seen you myself, and to have learned what
became of you--and of your wife. I know you wish well to all of us; be
sure that we all of us wish most heartily well to you and yours. I sent
for you and George, because I could not say all this unless we were
alone; it is all I can do," she said, with a smile, "to say it now."

Indeed it was, for the tears were in her eyes all the time, as they were
also in my father's.

"Let this," continued Yram, "be our leave-taking--for we must have
nothing like a scene upstairs. Just shake hands with us all, say the
usual conventional things, and make it as short as you can; but I could
not bear to send you away without a few warmer words than I could have
said when others were in the room."

"May heaven bless you and yours," said my father, "for ever and ever."

"That will do," said George gently. "Now, both of you shake hands, and
come upstairs with me."

* * * * *

When all three of them had got calm, for George had been moved almost as
much as his father and mother, they went upstairs, and Panky came for his
answer. "You are very possibly right," said my father--"the version you
hold to be corrupt is the one in common use amongst ourselves, but it is
only a translation, and ver