leeves. Then he took
up his knapsack, and went hastily to the sick room. His friend was lying
on his side, and looking very deathly, but he was speaking, and a wan
smile flitted over his lips. "Two knapsacks," he murmured, and, "Dear
old Wilks," and, "rum start." Miss Carmichael said: "Put yours here on
the table above his, where he can see them," and he obeyed. "Now, stand
beside them, and say 'Corry,' gently." The dominie could hardly do it
for a queer choking in his throat, but at last he succeeded in
pronouncing the abbreviation in an interrogative tone. "Wilks," wheezed
the sick man, "O Wilks, she called them pads!" and his eyes rested on
the knapsacks. "Stay with him," the nurse whispered, "while I call
Fanny." Soon Miss Halbert came, and, walking boldly but quietly up to
the bedside, asked: "Who are you calling she, you naughty boy that want
to leave us all?" With an effort, he answered: "I beg your pardon, Miss
Halbert, but you know you did call them pads." "Well, so they are, you
poor dear," she replied, bending over and kissing the white forehead,
for which it is to be hoped Mr. Perrowne absolved her; "but you must
stay here, for see, I have brought Marjorie to nurse you till you are
fit to carry a knapsack again." Then Miss Carmichael came forward, and
the patient became ceremoniously polite in a wheezing way, and was
ashamed of himself to be ill and give so much trouble; but he allowed
himself to be shaken up and receive his strengthening mixtures, and
behaved like a very feeble rational man with a little, but real, hold on
life. That was the turning point in the lawyer's career; and, when the
doctor descended from seeing him later in the morning, he announced that
the crisis was past, and that, with proper care, the Squire's
prospective nephew would live. Joy reigned once more in Bridesdale, from
Mr. Terry to Marjorie, and from the stately Mrs. Du Plessis to Maguffin
in the kitchen.

The only thing to mar the pleasure of that day was the inquest, and even
that brought an agreeable surprise. When Matilda Nagle was called, she
refused to acknowledge the name, insisting that she was Matilda Rawdon,
and producing from her pocket a much crumpled marriage certificate,
bearing the signature of a well-known clergyman who had exercised his
sacred office in a town within thirty miles of Toronto. This she had
taken from the library on the occasion of her last visit to Tillycot.
Old Mr. Newberry's face beamed with deli