mbler--a man
who did all things ill, save billiards and pistol-shooting; his beauty
and his strength hurried to corruption, and his wealth to the senseless
DEBAUCHEE who hounded on his murderer to insult him. But I have heard
old Thornton tell, with proud tears, how my lord, though outraged and
insulted, with no course open to him but to give the villain the power
of taking his life, still fired in the air, and went down to the vault
of his forefathers without the guilt of blood upon his soul.

So died Lord Sandston, and with him all John's hopes of advancement. A
curate now on 50L. a-year; what hope had he of marrying? And now the
tearful couple, walking once more by the river in desolate autumn,
among the flying yellow leaves, swore constancy, and agreed to wait
till better times should come.

So they waited. John in his parish among his poor people and his
school-children, busy always during the day, and sometimes perhaps
happy. But in the long winter evenings, when the snow lay piled against
the door, and the wind howled in the chimney; or worse, when the wind
was still, and the rain was pattering from the eaves, he would sit
lonely and miserable by his desolate hearth, and think with a sigh of
what might have been had his patron lived. And five-and-twenty years
rolled on until James Brown, who was born during the first year of his
curateship, came home a broken man, with one arm gone, from the battle
of St. Vincent. And the great world roared on, and empires rose and
fell, and dull echoes of the great throes without were heard in the
peaceful English village, like distant thunder on a summer's afternoon,
but still no change for him.

But poor Jane bides her time in the old farm-house, sitting constant
and patient behind the long low latticed window, among the geraniums
and roses, watching the old willows by the river. Five-and-twenty times
she sees those willows grow green, and the meadow brighten up with
flowers, and as often she sees their yellow leaves driven before the
strong south wind, and the meadow grow dark and hoar before the breath
of autumn. Her father was long since dead, and she was bringing up her
brother's children. Her raven hair was streaked with grey, and her step
was not so light, nor her laugh so loud, yet still she waited and
hoped, long after all hope seemed dead.

But at length a brighter day seemed to dawn for them; for the bishop,
who had watched for years John Thornton's patient indus