aid.

'That is well,' he said. 'It is good to have a name that calls one to
live up to it! And what is more strange, I am sure Miss Charlecote once
had my mother's hair.'

'Beautiful ruddy gold?'

'Yes, yes; like no one else. I was wanting to do like poor Sandbrook.'
He looked up in her face, and stroked her hair as she was leaning over
him, and said, 'I don't like to miss my own curls.'

'Ah!' said Phoebe, half indignantly, 'he should know when those curls
were hidden away and grew silvery.'

'He told me those things in part,' said the young man. 'He has felt the
return very deeply, and I think it accounts for his being so much worse
to-night--worse than I have seen him since we were at Montreal.'

'Is he quite sensible?'

'Perfectly. I see the ladies do not think him so to-night; but he has
been himself from the first, except that over-fatigue or extra weakness
affect his memory for the time; and he cannot read or exert his
mind--scarcely be read to. And he is sadly depressed in spirits.'

'And no wonder, poor man,' said Phoebe.

'But I cannot think it is as they told us at Montreal.'

'What?'

'That the brain would go on weakening, and he become more childish. Now
I am sure, as he has grown stronger, he has recovered intellect and
intelligence. No one could doubt it who heard him three days ago
advising me what branch of mathematics to work up!'

'We shall hear to-morrow what Dr. F--- says. Miss Charlecote wrote to
him as soon as we had my brother's telegram. I hope you are right!'

'For you see,' continued the Canadian, eagerly, 'injury from an external
cause cannot be like original organic disease. I hope and trust he may
recover. He is the best friend I ever had, except Mr. Henley, our
clergyman at Lakeville. You know how he saved all our lives; and he
persuaded Mr. Currie to try me, and give me a chance of providing for my
little brothers and their mother better than by our poor old farm.'

'Where are they?' asked Phoebe.

'She is gone to her sister at Buffalo. The price of the land will help
them on for a little while there, and if I can get on in engineering, I
shall be able to keep them in some comfort. I began to think the poor
boys were doomed to have no education at all.'

'Did you always live at Lakeville?'

'No; I grew up in a much more civilized part of the world. We had a
beautiful farm upon Lake Ontario, and raised the best crops in the
neighbourhood. It was not ti