pain, and there she lay,
all calmness, comforting us all, and making papa and Edward promise to
forgive me--me, who only wished they would kill me! And the next day he
came; he was just going to sail, and they thought nothing would hurt her
then. I saw him while he was waiting, and never did I see such a fixed
deathly face. But they said she found words to cheer and soothe him."

"And what became of him?"

"We do not know. As long as Lady Alison lived (his aunt) she let us hear
about him, and we knew he was recovering from his wound. Then came her
death, and then my father's, and all the rest, and we lost sight of the
Beauchamps. We saw the name in the Gazette as killed at Lucknow, but
not the right Christian name nor the same rank; but then, though the
regiment is come home, we have heard nothing of him, and though she has
never spoken of him to me, I am sure Ermine believes he is dead, and
thinks of him as part of the sunshine of the old Beauchamp days--the
sunshine whose reflection lasts one's life."

"He ought to be dead," said Grace.

"Yes, it would be better for her than to hear anything else of him! He
had nothing of his own, so there would have been a long waiting, but his
father and brother would not hear of it, and accused us of entrapping
him, and that angered my father. For our family is quite good, and we
were very well off then. My father had a good private fortune besides
the Rectory at Beauchamp; and Lady Alison, who had been like a mother
to us ever since our own died, quite thought that the prospect was good
enough, and I believe got into a great scrape with her family for having
promoted the affair."

"Your squire's wife?"

"Yes, and Julia and Ermine had come every day to learn lessons with her
daughters. I was too young; but as long as she lived we were all like
one family. How kind she was! How she helped us through those frightful
weeks!"

"Of your sister's illness? It must have lasted long?"

"Long? Oh longer than long! No one thought of her living. The doctors
said the injury was too extensive to leave any power of rallying; but
she was young and strong, and did not die in the torture, though people
said that such an existence as remained to her was not worth the anguish
of struggling back to it. I think my father only prayed that she might
suffer less, and Julia stayed on and on, thinking each day would be the
last, till Dr. Long could not spare her any longer; and then Lady
Alison nur