ing but eat and drink, and fall asleep afterwards, and then wake up
to eat and drink and fall asleep again. Mrs. Verner"--exalting his
voice--"here's Lionel."

Mrs. Verner partially woke up. Her eyes opened sufficiently to observe
Jan; and her mind apparently grew awake to a confused remembrance of
facts. "He's gone to London," said she to Jan. "You won't catch him:"
and then she nodded again.

"I did catch him," shouted Jan. "Lionel's here."

Lionel sat down by her, and she woke up pretty fully.

"I am grieved at this news for your sake, Mrs. Verner," he said in a
kind tone, as he took her hand. "I am sorry for Frederick."

"Both my boys gone before me, Lionel!" she cried, melting into
tears--"John first; Fred next. Why did they go out there to die?"

"It is indeed sad for you," replied Lionel. "Jan says Fred died of
fever."

"He has died of fever. Don't you remember when Sibylla wrote, she said
he was ill with fever? He never got well. He never got well! I take it
that it must have been a sort of intermittent fever--pretty well one
day, down ill the next--for he had started for the place where John
died--I forget its name, but you'll find it written there. Only a few
hours after quitting Melbourne, he grew worse and died."

"Was he alone?" asked Lionel.

"Captain Cannonby was with him. They were going together up to--I
forget, I say, the name of the place--where John died, you know. It was
nine or ten days' distance from Melbourne, and they had travelled but a
day of it. And I suppose," added Mrs. Verner, with tears in her eyes,
"that he'd be put into the ground like a dog!"

Lionel, on this score, could give no consolation. He knew not whether
the fact might be so, or not. Jan hoisted himself on to the top of a
high bureau, and sat in comfort.

"He'd be buried like a dog," repeated Mrs. Verner. "What do they know
about parsons and consecrated ground out there? Cannonby buried him, he
says, and then he went back to Melbourne to carry the tidings to
Sibylla."

"Sibylla? Was Sibylla not with him when he died?" exclaimed Lionel.

"It seems not. It's sure not, in fact, by the letters. You can read
them, Lionel. There's one from her and one from Captain Cannonby."

"It's not likely they'd drag Sibylla up to the diggings," interposed
Jan.

"And yet almost as unlikely that her husband would leave her alone in
such a place as Melbourne appears to be," dissented Lionel.

"She was not left alone," said Mrs.