dience. The house 'rose' at me too, and the poor old
grandfather was appeased. But when we were back indoors I overheard him
saying: 'After all there's no help for it. She's dull with us--what
wonder! We can't cage our linnet, Rachel, and perhaps we shouldn't try. A
song-bird came to cheer us, but it will fly away. We are only old folks,
dear--it's no use crying.' And on going to his room that night he closed
his door and said his prayers in a whisper, that I might not hear him
when he sobbed.

"He hasn't left his bed since. I fear he never will More than once I have
been on the point of telling him there is no reason to think the deluge
would come if I _did_, go back to London; but I will never leave him now.
Yet I wish Aunt Rachel wouldn't talk so much of the days when I went away
before. It seems that every night, on his way to his own room, he used to
step into my empty one and come out with his eyes dim and his lips
moving. I am not naturally hard-hearted, but I can't love grandfather
like that. Oh, the cruelty of life!... I know it ought to be the other
way about;... but I can't help it.

"All the same I could cry to think how short life is, and how little of
it I can spare. 'Cling fast to me and hold me,' my heart is always
saying, but meantime London is calling to me, calling to me, like the
sea, and I feel as if I were a wandering mermaid and she were my ocean
home.

* * * * *

"Later.--Poor, poor grandfather! I was interrupted in the writing of my
letter this morning by another of those sudden alarms. He had fainted
again, and it is extraordinary how helpless the aunties are in a case of
illness. Grandfather knows it too; and after I had done all I could to
bring him round, he opened his eyes and whispered that he had something
to say to me alone. At that the poor old things left the room with tears
of woe and a look of understanding. Then fetching a difficult breath he
said, '_You_ are not afraid, Glory, are you?' and I answered him 'No,'
though my heart was trembling. And then a feeble smile struggled through
the wan features of his drawn face, and he told me his attack was only
another summons. 'I'll soon die for good,' he said, 'and you must be
strong and brave, my child, for death is the common lot, and then what is
there to fear?' I didn't try to contradict him--what was the good of
doing that? And after he had spoken of the coming time he talked quietly
of his past lif