as paid
up; only it was too late for them two. Every penny was paid, so as folks
had nothing to say against the Old Bank. Only money won't bring a dead
man back to life again. I offered Phebe to make her my wife before I
knew it'ud be paid back; but she always said no, till I grew tired of
it, and married somebody else."

"And where is she now?" inquired Jean Merle.

"Oh! she's quite the fine lady," answered Simon. "Mrs. Roland Sefton,
Lord Riversdale's daughter that was, took quite a fancy to her, and had
her to live with her in London; not as a servant, you know, but as a
friend; and she paints pictures wonderful. My mother, who lives
housekeeper with Mr. Clifford, hears say she can get sixty pounds or
more for one likeness. Think of that now! If she'd been my wife what a
fortune she'd have been to me!"

"Has she sold this place?" asked Jean Merle.

"There it is," he replied; "she gave her father a faithful promise never
to part with it, or I'd have bought it myself. She comes here once a
year with Miss Hilda and Mr. Felix, and they stay a week or two; and
it's shut up all the rest of the time. I've got the key here if you'd
like to look inside at old Dummy's carving."

How familiar, yet how different, the interior of the cottage seemed! He
knew all these carvings, curious and beautiful, which lined the walls
and decorated every article of the old oak furniture. But the hearth was
cold, and there was no pleasant disorder about the small house telling
its story of daily work. In the deep recess of the window-frame, where
the western sun was already shining, stood old Marlowe's copy of a
carved crucifix, which he had himself once brought from the Tyrol, and
lent to him before finding a place for it in his own home. The sacred
head was bowed down so low as to be almost hidden under the shadow of
the crown of thorns. At the foot of the cross, in delicately small old
English letters, the old man had carved the words, "Come unto me all ye
that be weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." He remembered
pointing out the mistake that he had made to old Marlowe.

"I like it best," said the dumb man; "I have often been weary, but not
with labor; weary of myself, weary of the world, weary of life, weary of
everything but my Phebe. That is what Christ says to me."

Jean Merle could see the old man's speaking face again, and the fingers
moving less swiftly when spelling out the words to him, than when he was
talking