where the
wicked may trouble her no more. It is three days now since she
departed from this world of sorrow."

"Oh, had she but lived to see this day," said Ralph Penrose, "her cares
would have been over!"

"Her prayers are answered," said Father Cyril. "Come with me, my son
Eustace, if you would take a last look of her who loved and trusted you
so well."

Eustace followed him to the chamber where the Lady Eleanor Lynwood lay
extended on her bed. Her features were pinched and sharpened, and bore
traces of her long, wasting sufferings, but they still looked lovely,
though awful in their perfect calmness. Eustace knelt and recited the
accustomed prayers, and then stood gazing on the serene face, with a
full heart, and gathering tears in his eyes, for he had loved the
gentle Eleanor with the trusting affection of a younger brother. He
thought of that joyous time, the first brilliant day of his lonely
childhood, when the gay bridal cavalcade came sweeping down the hill,
and he, half in pleasure, half in shyness, was led forth by his mother
to greet the fair young bride of his brother. How had she brightened
the dull old Keep, and given, as it were, a new existence to himself, a
dreamy, solitary boy--how patiently and affectionately had she tended
his mother, and how pleasant were the long evenings when she had
unwearily listened to his beloved romances, and his visions of
surpassing achievements of his own! No wonder that he wept for her as
a brother would weep for an elder sister.

Father Cyril, well pleased to perceive that the kindly tenderness of
his heart was still untouched by his intercourse with the world, let
him gaze on for some time in silence, then laying his hand on his arm
said, "She is in peace. Mourn not that her sorrows are at an end, her
tears wiped away, but prepare to fulfil her last wishes, those prayers
in answer to which, as I fully believe, the Saints have sent you at the
very moment of greatest need."

"Her last wishes?" said Eustace. "They shall be fulfilled to the
utmost as long as I have life or breath! Oh! had I but come in time to
hear them from herself, and give her my own pledge."

"Grieve not that her trust was not brought down to aught of earth,"
said Father Cyril. "She trusted in Heaven, and died in the sure belief
that her child would be guarded; and lo, his protector is come, if, as
I well believe, my son Eustace, you are not changed from the boy who
bade us farewell t