the widow's
answer was made up of a great number of incoherent ejaculations,
embraces, and other irrelative matter. But the two women slept well
after that talk; and when the night-lamp went out with a splutter, and
the sun rose gloriously over the purple hills, and the birds began
to sing and pipe cheerfully amidst the leafless trees and glistening
evergreens on Fairoaks lawn, Helen woke too, and as she looked at the
sweet face of the girl sleeping beside her, her lips parted with a
smile, blushes on her cheeks, her spotless bosom heaving and falling
with gentle undulations, as if happy dreams were sweeping over it--Pen's
mother felt happy and grateful beyond all power of words, save such as
pious women offer up to the Beneficent Dispenser of love and mercy--in
Whose honour a chorus of such praises is constantly rising up all round
the world.

Although it was January and rather cold weather, so sincere was Mr.
Pen's remorse, and so determined his plans of economy, that he would not
take an inside place in the coach, but sate up behind with his friend
the Guard, who remembered his former liberality, and lent him plenty of
great-coats. Perhaps it was the cold that made his knees tremble as he
got down at the lodge-gate, or it may be that he was agitated at the
notion of seeing the kind creature for whose love he had made so selfish
a return. Old John was in waiting to receive his master's baggage, but
he appeared in a fustian jacket, and no longer wore his livery of drab
and blue. "I'se garner and stable man, and lives in the ladge now," this
worthy man remarked, with a grin of welcome to Pen, and something of a
blush; but instantly as Pen turned the corner of the shrubbery and
was out of eye-shot of the coach, Helen made her appearance, her face
beaming with love and forgiveness--for forgiving is what some women love
best of all.

We may be sure that the widow, having a certain other object in view,
had lost no time in writing off to Pen an account of the noble, the
magnanimous, the magnificent offer of Laura, filling up her letter with
a profusion of benedictions upon both her children. It was probably the
knowledge of this money-obligation which caused Pen to blush very much
when he saw Laura, who was in waiting in the hall, and who this time,
and for this time only, broke through the little arrangement of which we
have spoken, as having subsisted between her and Arthur for the last few
years; but the truth is, the