e.

'Ah! it was not the best of times to choose for the communication; but
it was kindly meant. I never expected to see Fleet take so much
trouble for any one. But you are done up, Tom, with your night
journey.'

'Not at all,' he answered, briskly, 'if I can do anything for you.
Could not I go down to the hospital?'

'Why, if I were not to be back till five,' began Dr. May, considering,
and calling him into the hall to receive directions, from which he came
back, saying, 'There! now then, Ethel, we had better look over things,
and get them in train.'

'You are so tired, Tom.'

'Not too much for that,' he said. But it was a vain boast; he was too
much fatigued to turn his mind to business requiring thought, though
capable of slow, languid reading and sorting of papers.

Aubrey's legacy was discovered with much difficulty. In fact, it had
never been heard of, nor seen the light, since its presentation, and
was at last found in a lumber closet, in a strong box, in Indian
packing. It was a compromise between an epergne and a candelabrum,
growing out of the howdah of an unfortunate elephant, pinning one tiger
to the ground, and with another hanging on behind, in the midst of a
jungle of palm-trees and cobras; and beneath was an elaborate
inscription, so laudatory of Aubrey Spencer, M. D., that nobody
wondered he had never unpacked it, and that it was yellow with
tarnish--the only marvel was, that he had never disposed of it; but
that it was likely to wait for the days when Aubrey might be a general
and own a side-board.

The other bequests were far more appreciated. Tom had known of the
book in hand, was certain of its value to the faculty, and was much
gratified by the charge of it, both as a matter of feeling and of
interest. But while he looked over and sorted the mass of curious
notes, his attention was far more set on the desk, that reverently,
almost timidly, Ethel examined, well knowing why she had been selected
as the depositary of these relics. There they were, some embrowned by
a burn in the corner, as though there had been an attempt to destroy
them, in which there had been no heart to persevere. It was but
little, after all, two formal notes in which Professor Norman Mackenzie
asked the honour of Mr. Spencer's company to dinner, but in handwriting
that was none of the professor's--writing better known to Ethel than to
Tom--and a series of their father's letters, from their first
separation till