Inglis, who has been closeted with Mr. Blake in
the library, enters, and then the conversation changes. The old
school-days are talked over, pranks and punishments described amidst
shouts of laughter; and by-and-by the talk drifts on to Ada Irvine and
the prize essay.

"Have you ever heard of or seen Ada lately?" asks Dick curiously. "I
suppose she is quite a young lady and a great beauty now."

"Agnes Drummond called the other day," replies Winnie quietly, "and
said she had met Ada last week at a friend's house. It seems she is
just as haughty and proud as ever; but, O Dick, I am sure you will be
sorry when I tell you that all her beauty is gone. The whole face is
completely marred by small-pox, which she caught when abroad with her
father."

"Serves her jolly well right," cries Dick, the old man in his nature
coming to the front. "A girl who can act as she acted deserves a
righteous punishment. I don't suppose she has ever eaten humble pie to
you girls yet?"

"No, and never will," puts in Nellie. "She persists to this day in
saying Win gained Mr. Corbett's medal through Aunt Judith's help, and
that I never learned a single lesson without assistance."

"Hark!" says Captain Inglis, "there is the carriage.--Edith, my dear,
it is time we were going home." So the merry party breaks up, and soon
the silence of midnight settles over the city.

Slowly the wind lulls itself to rest; the storm is over; the
rain-clouds sweep back from the sky, and the stars gleam forth with
softened brilliancy over the sleeping world; while the fair, placid
moon, rising from a mist of vapours, shines down on the sodden earth,
and lingering near a quiet churchyard lays her tearful beams, fondly,
tenderly, on a peaceful grave marked only by a marble cross and the
simple words,--"Aunt Judith."

THE END.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Aunt Judith, by Grace Beaumont

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