e stood up, she turned so dizzy, and tottered so much,
that she was glad to sit down again immediately.

"You must rest here. I will go to him," said Mr Benson. He left her;
and when he was gone, she leaned her head on the back of the chair,
and cried quietly and incessantly; but there was a more patient,
hopeful, resolved feeling in her heart, which all along, through all
the tears she shed, bore her onwards to higher thoughts, until at
last she rose to prayers.

Mr Benson caught the new look of shrinking shame in Leonard's eye, as
it first sought, then shunned, meeting his. He was pained, too, by
the sight of the little sorrowful, anxious face, on which, until now,
hope and joy had been predominant. The constrained voice, the few
words the boy spoke, when formerly there would have been a glad and
free utterance--all this grieved Mr Benson inexpressibly, as but the
beginning of an unwonted mortification, which must last for years.
He himself made no allusion to any unusual occurrence; he spoke of
Ruth as sitting, overcome by headache, in the study for quietness:
he hurried on the preparations for tea, while Leonard sat by in the
great arm-chair, and looked on with sad, dreamy eyes. He strove
to lessen the shock which he knew Leonard had received, by every
mixture of tenderness and cheerfulness that Mr Benson's gentle heart
prompted; and now and then a languid smile stole over the boy's face.
When his bedtime came, Mr Benson told him of the hour, although
he feared that Leonard would have but another sorrowful crying of
himself to sleep; but he was anxious to accustom the boy to cheerful
movement within the limits of domestic law, and by no disobedience to
it to weaken the power of glad submission to the Supreme; to begin
the new life that lay before him, where strength to look up to God
as the Law-giver and Ruler of events would be pre-eminently required.
When Leonard had gone upstairs, Mr Benson went immediately to Ruth,
and said,

"Ruth! Leonard is just gone up to bed," secure in the instinct which
made her silently rise, and go up to the boy--certain, too, that
they would each be the other's best comforter, and that God would
strengthen each through the other.

Now, for the first time, he had leisure to think of himself; and to
go over all the events of the day. The half-hour of solitude in his
study, that he had before his sister's return, was of inestimable
value; he had leisure to put events in their true pl