-'But I knew the spring would
bring her back. I knew it, and here she is; the light of the house;
little Lily, my treasure.'

And so he blessed and kissed her, and blessed her again, with all his
fervent soul, laying his old hand lightly on her fair young head; and
when she went up for the night, with gentle old Sally, and he heard her
room door shut, he closed his own, and kneeling down, with clasped
hands and streaming eyes, in a rapture of gratitude, he poured forth his
thanksgivings before the Throne of all Mercies.

These outpourings of gratitude, all premature, for blessings not real
but imagined, are not vain. They are not thrown away upon that glorious
and marvellous God who draws near to all who will draw near to Him,
reciprocates every emotion of our love with a tenderness literally
parental, and is delighted with his creatures' appreciation of his
affection and his trustworthiness; who knows whereof we are made, and
remembers that we are but dust, and is our faithful Creator. Therefore,
friend, though thou fearest a shadow, thy prayer is not wasted; though
thou rejoicest in an illusion, thy thanksgiving is not in vain. They are
the expressions of thy faith recorded in Heaven, and counted--oh!
marvellous love and compassion!--to thee for righteousness.

CHAPTER LXXX.

IN WHICH TWO ACQUAINTANCES BECOME, ON A SUDDEN, MARVELLOUSLY FRIENDLY IN
THE CHURCH-YARD; AND MR. DANGERFIELD SMOKES A PIPE IN THE BRASS CASTLE,
AND RESOLVES THAT THE DUMB SHALL SPEAK.

On Sunday, Mervyn, after the good doctor's sermon and benediction,
wishing to make enquiry of the rector touching the movements of his
clerk, whose place was provisionally supplied by a corpulent and
unctuous mercenary from Dublin, whose fat presence and panting delivery
were in signal contrast with the lank figure and deep cavernous tones of
the absent official, loitered in the church-yard to allow time for the
congregation to disperse, and the parson to disrobe and emerge.

He was reading an epitaph on an expansive black flag-stone, in the far
corner of the church-yard--it is still there--upon several ancestral
members of the family of Lowe, who slept beneath 'in hope,' as the
stone-cutter informed the upper world; and musing, as sad men will, upon
the dates and vanities of the record, when a thin white hand was lightly
laid upon his sleeve from behind; and looking round, in expectation of
seeing the rector's grave, simple, kindly countenance, he b