e; but
I'd never believe it was that way that Con Cregan's son was to die!"

I need scarcely remark that I saw no inducement for prolonging this
conversation, wherein all the facts quoted were already familiar,
and all the speculations the reverse of flattery; and I was far more
agreeably occupied in discussing the eggs and milk the old lady had
placed before me, when the door opened, and the curate entered. A
deep cavernous cough and a stooped figure announcing the signs of some
serious chest disease, were all I had time to observe; when, with the
politeness of a gentleman, he advanced toward" me. The first sound of
his voice was enough, and I cried out, "Lyndsay! my oldest and best
friend,--don't you know me?"

"I am ashamed to say that I do not," said he, faltering, while he still
held my hand, and gazed into my face.

"Not yet?" asked I again, smiling at the embarrassment of his
countenance.

"Not even yet," said he. "Tell me, I beseech you, where did we meet?"

"Come here," said I, leading him to the door, and pointing to the
wide-stretching moor that lay before us; "it was there,--yonder, where
you see that heavy cloud-shadow stealing along,--yonder we first met. Do
you know me now?"

He started; his pale cheek grew paler, and he fell upon my neck in a
burst of tears. Who shall ever know the source, or what the meaning?
They were not of joy, still less of sorrow,--they were the outbreak of a
hundred emotions. Old memories of happy days, never to come back; boyish
triumphs, successes, failures; moments of ecstasy--of bitter anguish;
his own bleak, joyless existence, perhaps, contrasting with mine; and
then at last the fell consciousness of the malady in which he was but
lingering out life.

"And here are you, and here!" cried he, in a voice which his faltering
accents made scarce intelligible; "who should say that we were to meet
thus?" Then, as if his words had conveyed a meaning of which he was
ashamed, he blushed deeply, and said, "And oh, my friend! how truly you
told me that life had its path for each, if we but knew how to choose
it."

I must not say how the hours were passed, nor how it was nightfall ere
either of us guessed it. Lyndsay insisted upon hearing every adventure
that had befallen me, questioning me eagerly as I went, how each new
feature of prosperity had "worked with me," and whether gold had yet
hardened my heart, and taught me indifference to the poor.

I told him of my love, and w