ing against his shoulder, and
then suddenly the thought of what might have been swept over her, a
bitterness of grief which she had never known before seemed to crush
her down. She burst out into passionate crying, such tears as she had
never shed.

'Oh, Bernard! Oh, Bernard!' she sobbed, 'we have not got him for you;
if you had come--if you had come before--but he is not here any more.'

There was a sound of doors opening, of voices outside; the peal of the
church bells rose and fell on the breeze. Angel felt herself drawn
into her brother's arms. His voice sounded above her:

'Angel, don't cry so; look up, dear, listen--there are wonders on sea
as well as on land; you must listen and hope, and----'

But at that moment there was a shriek in the hall--Betty's voice, and
then a clamour of crying and laughing and questioning, a door burst
open, a pair of arms round Angel's neck, a curly head against her
cheek, and over all the triumphant tones of Kiah Parker's voice as he
stumped with his wooden leg upon the floor.

'Don't you be afeard. Our young ladies ain't the sort as dies of joy,
bless 'em, bless 'em all, every one of 'em!' and round the group he
hobbled in a sort of Indian war-dance, till Nancy, who couldn't get
into the circle and wanted to say something, called out between
laughing and crying:

'Oh, Uncle Kiah, do mind the polished floor!'

And all the time the bells rang their cheery peal for what brave
English hearts had done.

It was very early the next morning, when only the birds, who scarcely
seem to sleep at all in springtime, and the busiest people in Oakfield
were up, that Peter Rogers might have been seen setting a ladder
against Sir Godfrey's oak-tree and preparing to go up it. Mr. Collins
came to the inn door while he was doing it.

'Holloa! Pete, my man, and what may you be after?' he exclaimed.

'Just running a bit of a flag up on the old tree, Mr. Collins, with
your good leave.'

Mr. Collins rubbed his hands with great satisfaction.

'And that's quite right to be sure, and very suitable to the occasion,
Pete,' he said. 'Bless your heart, who ever looked to see this day
when you went up that same tree to get Mr. Godfrey down; and a very
near thing too, so it was?'

'To think of me ever having to help Mr. Godfrey down,' laughed Pete, as
he lashed the flag-staff to the topmost bough; 'why, if one's to
believe Uncle Kiah, he can a'most run up the mast with his eyes shut,
and sta