ver was--I never saw a creature like her.'

'Oh, noble! noble!' sobbed poor Dan.

The doctor took him by the arm, and so into the solemn room.

'I think you'd like to see her, Dan?'

'I would--I would indeed, Sir.'

And there was little Lily, never so like the lily before. Poor old Sally
had laid early spring flowers on the white coverlet. A snow-drop lay by
her pale little finger and thumb, just like a flower that has fallen
from a child's hand it its sleep. He looked, at her--the white angelic
apparition--a smile, or a light upon the face.

'Oh, my darling, my young darling, gone--"He is not a man as I am, that
I should answer him."'

But poor Dan, loudly crying, repeated the noble words of Paul, that have
spoken down to us through the sorrows of nigh two thousand years--

'For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are
alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them
which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a
shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and
the dead in Christ shall rise first.'

And so there was a little pause, and the old man said--

'It was very good of you to come to me, my good young friend, in my
helplessness and shipwreck, for the Lord hath hid himself from me; but
he speaks to his desolate creature, my good Dan, through your gracious
lips. My faith!--I thought I had faith till it was brought to the test,
and then it failed! But my good friend, Loftus, was sent to help me--to
strengthen the feeble knees.'

And Dan answered, crying bitterly, and clasping the rector's hand in
both of his--

'Oh, my master, all that ever I knew of good, I learned from you, my
pastor, my benefactor.'

So, with a long, last look, Dan followed the old man to the study, and
they talked long there together, and then went out into the lonely
garden, and paced its walks side by side, up and down.

CHAPTER LXXXV.

IN WHICH CAPTAIN DEVEREUX HEARS THE NEWS; AND MR. DANGERFIELD MEETS AN
OLD FRIEND AFTER DINNER.

'On the night when this great sorrow visited the Elms, Captain Richard
Devereux, who had heard nothing of it, was strangely saddened and
disturbed in mind. They say that a distant death is sometimes felt like
the shadow and chill of a passing iceberg; and if this ominous feeling
crosses a mind already saddened and embittered, it overcasts it with a
feeling akin to despair.

Mrs. Irons knocked at