e
poor, who believed in her fairy charms."

"And least of all, it appears, the man she was to have married."

"He?--Melville? How can you wrong him so? His grief was
intense--overpowering--for the time."

"For the time! what time?" muttered Kenelm, in tones too low for the
pastor's ear.

They moved on silently. Mr. Emlyn resumed,--

"You noticed the text on Lily's gravestone--'Suffer the little children
to come unto me'? She dictated it herself the day before she died. I was
with her then, so I was at the last."

"Were you--were you--at the last--the last? Good-day, Mr. Emlyn; we
are just in sight of the garden gate. And--excuse me--I wish to see Mr.
Melville alone."

"Well, then, good-day; but if you are making any stay in the
neighbourhood, will you not be our guest? We have a room at your
service."

"I thank you gratefully; but I return to London in an hour or so. Hold,
a moment. You were with her at the last? She was resigned to die?"

"Resigned! that is scarcely the word. The smile left upon her lips was
not that of human resignation: it was the smile of a divine joy."

CHAPTER XII.

"YES, sir, Mr. Melville is at home in his studio."

Kenelm followed the maid across the hall into a room not built at the
date of Kenelm's former visits to the house: the artist, making Grasmere
his chief residence after Lily's death, had added it at the back of
the neglected place wherein Lily had encaged "the souls of infants
unbaptized."

A lofty room, with a casement partially darkened, to the bleak north;
various sketches on the walls; gaunt specimens of antique furniture,
and of gorgeous Italian silks, scattered about in confused disorder;
one large picture on its easel curtained; another as large, and half
finished, before which stood the painter. He turned quickly, as Kenelm
entered the room unannounced, let fall brush and palette, came up to him
eagerly, grasped his hand, drooped his head on Kenelm's shoulder, and
said, in a voice struggling with evident and strong emotion,--

"Since we parted, such grief! such a loss!"

"I know it; I have seen her grave. Let us not speak of it. Why
so needlessly revive your sorrow? So--so--your sanguine hopes are
fulfilled: the world at last has done you justice? Emlyn tells me that
you have painted a very famous picture."

Kenelm had seated himself as he thus spoke. The painter still stood with
dejected attitude on the middle of the floor, and brushed his hand
over