mounting her with an easy swing on to his
shoulder said to Charlotte,--

"Welcome, in the name of your dear, dead mother, Daisy Wilson, to your
new home, Niece Lottie."

The children raised a fresh shout.

"Oh, come, Daisy," said Harold; she struggled to the ground and the two
rushed in. Anne came down and took the baby, and Mr. and Mrs. Home had
no help for it but to follow in a blind kind of way. Uncle Sandy pushed
his niece down into one of the hall chairs.

"There!" he said; "don't, for Heaven's sake, you two unpractical,
unworldly people, begin to be angry with me. That place in Tremins Road
was fairly breaking my heart, and I could not stand it, and
'tis--well--I do believe 'tis let, and you _can't_ go back to it, and
this house is yours, Niece Charlotte, and the furniture. As to the rent,
I'll be answerable for that, and you won't refuse your own mother's
brother. The fact was, that attic where the children slept was too much
for me, so I had to do something. Forgive me if I practised a little bit
of deception on you both. Now, I'm off to an hotel to-night, but
to-morrow, if you're not too angry with your mother's brother, I'm
coming back for good. Kept a fine room for myself, I can tell you. Anne
shall show it to you. Trust Sandy Wilson to see to his own comforts. Now
good-bye, and God bless you both."

Away he rushed before either of the astonished pair had time to get in a
word.

"But I do think they'll forgive the liberty the old man took with them,"
were his last waking thoughts as he closed his eyes that night.

CHAPTER XLIX.

HE WEPT.

Mr. Harman was beginning to take the outward circumstances of his life
with great quietness. What, three months before, would have caused both
trouble and distress, now, was received with equanimity. The fact was,
he felt himself day by day getting so near eternity, that the things of
time, always so disproportionately large to our worldly minds, were
assuming to him their true proportions.

John Harman was being led by a dark road of terrible mental suffering to
his God; already he was drawing near, and the shadow of that forgiveness
which would yet encircle him in its perfect rest and peace was at hand.

Days, and even weeks, went by, and there was no news of Jasper. John
Harman would once have been sorely perplexed, but now he received the
fact of his brothers absence with a strange quietness, even apathy.
Charlotte's postponed marriage, a little tim