round him wistfully. He then approached, slowly and hesitatingly,
an oblong tablet, on which were graven, in letters yet fresh and new,
these words:--

TO THE
MEMORY OF ONE CALUMNIATED AND WRONGED
THIS BURIAL-STONE IS DEDICATED
BY HER SON.

Such, with the addition of the dates of birth and death, was the tablet
which Philip Morton had directed to be placed over his mother's bones;
and around it was set a simple palisade, which defended it from the
tread of the children, who sometimes, in defiance of the beadle, played
over the dust of the former race.

"Thy son!" muttered the stranger, while the child stood quietly by
his side, pleased by the trees, the grass, the song of the birds, and
reeking not of grief or death,--"thy son!--but not thy favoured son--thy
darling--thy youngest born; on what spot of earth do thine eyes look
down on him? Surely in heaven thy love has preserved the one whom on
earth thou didst most cherish, from the sufferings and the trials that
have visited the less-favoured outcast. Oh, mother--mother!--it was not
his crime--not Philip's--that he did not fulfil to the last the trust
bequeathed to him! Happier, perhaps, as it is! And, oh, if thy memory be
graven as deeply in my brother's heart as my own, how often will it warn
and save him! That memory!--it has been to me the angel of my life!
To thee--to thee, even in death, I owe it, if, though erring, I am not
criminal,--if I have lived with the lepers, and am still undefiled!" His
lips then were silent--not his heart!

After a few minutes thus consumed he turned to the child, and said,
gently and in a tremulous voice, "Fanny, you have been taught to
pray--you will live near this spot,--will you come sometimes here and
pray that you may grow up good and innocent, and become a blessing to
those who love you?"

"Will papa ever come to hear me pray?"

That sad and unconscious question went to the heart of Morton. The child
could not comprehend death. He had sought to explain it, but she had
been accustomed to consider her protector dead when he was absent from
her, and she still insisted that he must come again to life. And that
man of turbulence and crime, who had passed unrepentant, unabsolved,
from sin to judgment: it was an awful question, "If he should hear her
pray?"

"Yes!" said he, after a pause,--"yes, Fanny, there is a Father who will
hear you pray; and pray to Him to be merciful