otherless child! My sweet daughter!"

Then after a pause Eleonora said, "Indeed, I'll try to deserve
better; but oh! pray forgive me, if I cost him much more pain and
patience than I am worth."

"He thinks you well worth anything, and perhaps I do," said Mrs
Poynsett, who was conquered, won over, delighted more than by either
of the former brides, in spite of all antecedents.

"Then will you always trust me?" said Eleonora, with clasped hands,
and a wondrous look of earnest sincerity on her grave open brow and
beautiful pensive dark blue eyes.

"I _must_, my dear."

"And indeed I don't think I could help holding to _him_, because he
seems my one stay and hope here; and now I know it is all right with
you, indeed it is such happiness as I never knew."

She laid her head down again in subdued joy and rest: but the pause
was broken by Frank's return; and a moment after, in darted the Peri
in her pink cashmere costume, with a glow transforming her usually
colourless face. "Dear, dear Frank, I'm so glad!" she cried,
bestowing her kiss; while he cried in amazement, "Is it Rose? Is
there a fancy ball?"

"Only Aladdin's Cave. I'm just out of it; and while Jenny is
keeping up games, and Edith is getting up a charade, I could dash in
to see that Frank was all there, and more too. The exam, is safe,
eh?"

"I trust so," said Frank; "the list will not come just yet; but I am
told I am certain of a pass--indeed, that I stand high as to
numbers."

"That's noble!--Now, Mrs. Poynsett, turn him out as soon as he has
eaten his dinner. We want any one who can keep up a respectable
kind of a row. I say, will you two do Ferdinand and Miranda playing
at chess? You look just like it."

"Must we go?" asked Frank, reluctantly; and there was something in
the expression of his face, a little paler than usual, that reminded
his mother that the young man had for the first time seen sudden and
violent death that day, and that though his present gladness was so
great, yet that he had gone through too much in body and mind for
the revels of the evening not either to jar, or to produce a
vehement reaction, if he were driven into them. So she answered by
pleading the eleven miles' walk; and the queen of the sports was
merciful, adding, "But I must be gone, or Terry will be getting up
his favourite tableau of the wounded men of Clontarf, or Rothesay,
or the Black Bull's Head, or some equally pleasing little incident."

"Is it goi