ut the revealing of this solemn secret between her
and the dead.

Then she went to bed, wearied and worn; and creeping close to her
slumbering mother, thanked God that there was one warm living bosom to
which she could cling, and which would never cast her out.

O mother! O daughter! who, when time has blended into an almost sisterly
bond the difference of years, grow together, united, as it were, in one
heart and one soul by that perfect love which is beyond even "honour"
and "obedience," because including both--how happy are ye! How blessed
she, who, looking on her daughter--woman grown--can say, "Child, thou
art bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh, as when I brought thee into
the world!" And thrice blessed is she who can answer, "Mother, I am all
thine own--I desire no love but thine--I bring to thee my every joy; and
my every grief finds rest on thy bosom."

Let those who have this happiness rejoice! Let those who only have
its memory pray always that God would make that memory live until the
eternal meeting, at the resurrection of the just!

CHAPTER XIX.

In one of the western environs of London is a region which, lying
between two great omnibus outlets, is yet as retired and old-fashioned
as though it had been miles and miles distant from the metropolis.
Fields there are few or none, certainly; but there are quiet, green
lanes (where in springtime you may pluck many a fragrant hawthorn
branch), and market-gardens, and grand old trees; while on summer
mornings you may continually hear a loud chorus of birds--especially
larks--though these latter "blithe spirits" seem to live perpetually in
the air, and one marvels how they ever contrive to make their nests in
the potato-grounds below. Perhaps they do so in emulation of their
human neighbours--authors, actors, artists, who in this place "most do
congregate," many of them, poor souls! singing their daily songs of life
out in the world, as the larks in the air; none knowing what a mean,
lowly, sometimes even desolate home, is the nest whence such music
springs.

Well, in this region, there is a lane * (a crooked, unpaved, winding,
quaint, dear old lane!); and in that lane there is a house; and in that
house there are two especially odd rooms, where dwelt Olive Rothesay and
her mother.

* _Was_. It is no more, now.

Chance had led them hither; but they both--Olive especially--thanked
chance, every day of their lives, for having brought them t