ls; or, if
not so this year, he would have been shooting elsewhere with the
prospect of these rich joys for years to come. As it was, he had
promised to stick to the shop, and was sticking to it manfully. Nor do I
think that he allowed his mind to revert to those privileges which might
have been his at all more frequently than any of my readers would have
done in his place. He was sticking to the shop; and, though he greatly
disliked the hot desolation of London in those days, being absolutely
afraid to frequent his club at such a period of the year, and though he
hated Walliker mortally, he was fully resolved to go on with his work.
Who could tell what might be his fate? Perhaps in another ten years he
might be carrying that Russian railway on through the deserts of
Siberia. Then there came to him suddenly tidings which disturbed all his
resolutions, and changed the whole current of his life.

At first there came a telegram to him from the country, desiring him to
go down at once to Clavering, but not giving him any reason. Added to
the message were these words: "We are all well at the parsonage"--words
evidently added in thoughtfulness. But before he had left the office,
there came to him there a young man from the bank at which his cousin
Hugh kept his account, telling him the tidings to which the telegram no
doubt referred. Jack Stuart's boat had been lost, and his two cousins
had gone to their graves beneath the sea! The master of the boat, and
Stuart himself, with a boy, had been saved. The other sailors whom they
had with them, and the ship's steward, had perished with the Claverings.
Stuart, it seemed, had caused tidings of the accident to be sent to the
rector of Clavering and to Sir Hugh's bankers. At the bank they had
ascertained that their late customer's cousin was in town, and their
messenger had thereupon been sent, first to Bloomsbury Square, and from
thence to the Adelphi.

Harry had never loved his cousins. The elder he had greatly disliked,
and the younger he would have disliked had he not despised him. But not
the less on that account was he inexpressibly shocked when he first
heard what had happened. The lad said that there could, as he imagined,
be no mistake. The message had come, as he believed, from Holland, but
of that he was not certain. There could, however, be no doubt about the
fact. It distinctly stated that both brothers had perished. Harry had
known, when he received the message from ho