comfort.

Marion's condition during that night was very sad, though she
struggled to bear up against her sorrow in compliance with her
father's instructions. There was almost nothing said as she sat by
him while he ate his supper. On the next morning, too, she rose to
give him his breakfast, having fallen asleep through weariness a
hundred times during the night, to wake again within a minute or two
to the full sense of her sorrow. "Shall I know soon?" she said as he
left the house.

"Surely some one will know," he said; "and I will send thee word."

But as he left the house the real facts had already been made known
at the "Duchess of Edinburgh." One of the morning papers had a full,
circumstantial, and fairly true account of the whole matter. "It was
not his lordship at all," said the good-natured landlady, coming out
to him as he passed the door.

"Not Lord Hampstead?"

"Not at all."

"He was not killed?"

"It wasn't him as was hurt, Mr. Fay. It was another of them young
men--one Mr. Walker; only son of Watson, Walker, and Warren. And
whether he be dead or alive nobody knows; but they do say there
wasn't a whole bone left in his body. It's all here, and I was
a-going to bring it you. I suppose Miss Fay did take it badly?"

"I knew the young man," said the Quaker, hurrying back to his own
house with the paper,--anxious if possible not to declare to the
neighbourhood that the young lord was in truth a suitor for his
daughter's hand. "And I thank thee, Mrs. Grimley, for thy care. The
suddenness of it all frightened my poor girl."

"That'll comfort her up," said Mrs. Grimley cheerily. "From all we
hear, Mr. Fay, she do have reason to be anxious for this young lord.
I hope he'll be spared to her, Mr. Fay, and show himself a true man."

Then the Quaker returned with his news,--which was accepted by him
and by them all as trustworthy. "Now my girl will be happy again?"

"Yes, father."

"But my child has told the truth to her old father at last."

"Had I told you any untruth?"

"No, indeed, Marion."

"I said that I am not fit to be his wife, and I am not. Nothing is
changed in all that. But when I heard that he was--. But, father, we
will not talk of it now. How good you have been to me, I shall never
forget,--and how tender!"

"Who should be soft-hearted if not a father?"

"They are not all like you. But you have been always good and gentle
to your girl. How good and how gentle we cannot always see;-