all his
tenderness, felt that it must be respected, and turned the conversation.

'I have been calling at the Castle,' he said, 'with Ernescliffe, and
the governor showed me a curious thing, a volume of Archbishop Usher,
which had been the Duke of Lauderdale's study after he was taken at
Worcester. He has made a note in the fly-leaf, "I began this book at
Windsor, and finished it during my imprisonment here;" and below are
mottoes in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. I can't construe the Hebrew. The
Greek is oisteon kai elpisteon (one must bear and hope), the Latin is
durate. Will you accept your predecessor's legacy?'

'I think I read about him in an account of the island,' said Leonard,
with a moment's awakened intelligence; 'was he not the L. of the Cabal,
the persecutor in "Old Mortality?"'

'I am afraid you are right. Prosperity must have been worse for him
than adversity.'

'Endure' repeated Leonard, gravely. 'I will think of that, and what he
would mean by hope now.'

The Doctor came home much distressed; he had been unable to penetrate
the dreary, resolute self-command that covered so much anguish; he had
failed in probing or in healing, and feared that the apathy he had
witnessed was a sign that the sustaining spring of vigour was failing
in the monotonous life. The strong endurance had been a strain that
the additional grief was rendering beyond his power; and the crushed
resignation, and air of extinguished hope, together with the
indications of failing health, filled the Doctor with misgivings.

'It will not last much longer,' he said. 'I do not mean that he is
ill; but to hold up in this way takes it out of a man, especially at
his age. The first thing that lays hold of him, he will have no
strength nor will to resist, and then--Well, I did hope to live to see
God show the right.'

CHAPTER XXIV

We twa hae wandered o'er the braes,
And pu'ed the gowans fine;
I've wandered many a weary foot
Sin auld lang syne.

These years had passed quietly at Stoneborough, with little change
since Mary's marriage. She was the happy excellent wife that she was
made to be; and perhaps it was better for Ethel that the first
severance had been so decisive that Mary's attentions to her old home
were received as favours, instead of as the mere scanty relics of her
former attachment.

Mr. Cheviot, as the family shook down together, became less afraid of
Ethel, and did not think it so needful to