gged her dear boy's pardon for opening the letter--and she would write
to the young girl, if,--if she had time. Poor thing! was it not natural
that she should love her Arthur? And again she kissed him, and she
blessed him.

As they were talking the clock struck nine, and Helen reminded him how,
when he was a little boy, she used to go up to his bedroom at that hour,
and hear him say Our Father. And once more, oh, once more, the young man
fell down at his mother's sacred knees, and sobbed out the prayer which
the Divine Tenderness uttered for us, and which has been echoed by
twenty ages since by millions of sinful and humbled men. And as he spoke
the last words of the supplication, the mother's head fell down on her
boy's, and her arms closed round him, and together they repeated the
words "for ever and ever" and "Amen."

A little time after, it might have been a quarter of an hour, Laura
heard Arthur's voice call from within, "Laura! Laura!" She rushed into
the room instantly and found the young man still on his knees, and
holding his mother's hand. Helen's head had sunk back and was quite
pale in the room. Pen looked round, scared with a ghastly terror. "Help,
Laura, help!" he said, "she's fainted--she's----"

Laura screamed, and fell by the side of Helen. The shriek brought
Warrington and Major Pendennis and the servants to the room. The
sainted woman was dead. The last emotion of her soul here was joy to be
henceforth unchequered and eternal. The tender heart beat no more; it
was to have no more pangs, no more doubts, no more griefs and trials.
Its last throb was love; and Helen's last breath was a benediction.

The melancholy party bent their way speedily homewards, and Helen was
laid by her husband's side at Clavering, in the old church where she had
prayed so often. For a while Laura went to stay with Dr. Portman, who
read the service over his dear departed sister, amidst his own sobs and
those of the little congregation which assembled round Helen's tomb.
There were not many who cared for her, or who spoke of her when gone.
Scarcely more than of a nun in a cloister did people know of that pious
and gentle lady. A few words among the cottagers whom her bounty was
accustomed to relieve, a little talk from house to house at Clavering,
where this lady told how their neighbour died of a complaint in the
heart; whilst that speculated upon the amount of a property which the
widow had left; and a third wondered whethe