ell of ten years' patient
kindness towards myself. I can tell--I can tell--"

Sam was the worst orator in the world. He broke down, sir. He knew what
he meant very well; and so I hope do you, reader, but he couldn't say
it. He had done what many of us do, tried to make a fine speech when
his heart was full, and so he failed.

But Alice didn't fail,--not she, though she never spoke a word. She
folded up her work; and going up to the good old man, took both his
hands in hers and kissed him on both his cheeks. A fine piece of
rhetorical action, wasn't it? And then they all crowded round him, and
shook hands with him, and kissed him, and God-blessed him, for their
kind, true, old friend; and prayed that every blessing might light upon
his noble head, till he passed through them speechless and wandered
away to his old friend, the river.

* * * * *

About the middle of this week, there arrived two of our former friends,
Frank Maberly and Captain Desborough, riding side by side. The Elders,
with the Doctor, were outside, and detained the Dean, talking to him
and bidding him welcome. But Captain Desborough, passing in, came into
the room where were assembled Alice, Sam, and Jim, who gave him a most
vociferous greeting.

They saw in a moment that there was some fun in the wind. They knew, by
experience, that when Desborough's eyes twinkled like that, some
absurdity was preparing, though they were quite unprepared for the
mixture of reality and nonsense which followed.

"Pace!" said Desborough, in his affected Irish accent; "be on this
house, and all in it. The top of the morning to ye all."

"Now," said Alice, "we are going to have some fun; Captain Desborough
has got his brogue on."

"Ye'll have some fun directly, Miss Brentwood," he said. "But there's
some serious, sober earnest to come first. My cousin, Slievedonad, is
dead."

"Lord Slievedonad?"

"The same. That small Viscount is at this moment in pur----. God
forgive me, and him too."

"Poor fellow!"

"That's just half. My uncle Lord Covetown was taken with a fit when he
heard of it, and is gone after him, and the Lord forgive him too. He
turned me, his own brother's son, out into the world with half an
education, to sink or swim; and never a kind word did he or his son
ever give me in their lives. It must have broken the old man's heart to
think how the estate would go. But as I said before, God forgive him."

"You must feel his loss, Captain Desborou