avage, alone. The glorious palace he had raised for his
happiness crumbled into vast ruins; hope was dead and putrid; and only
the results of wild actions, achieved on false assumptions, faced him.
Now, rising out of his brief midsummer madness, the man saw a ghost; and
he greeted it with groan as bitter as ever wrung human heart.

Miller Lyddon sat that night alone until Mr. Blee returned to supper.

"Gert news! Gert news!" he shouted, while yet in the passage; "sweatin'
for joy an' haste, I be!"

His eyes sparkled, his face shone, his words tripped each other up by
the heels.

"Be gormed if ban't a 'mazin' world! She've left nought--dammy--less
than nought, for the house be mortgaged sea-deep to Doctor, an' theer's
other debts. Not a penny for nobody--nothin' but empty bottles--an' to
think as I thought so poor o' God as to say theer weern't none! What a
ramshackle plaace the world is!"

"No money at all? Mrs. Lezzard--it can't be!" declared Mr. Lyddon.

"But it is, by gum! A braave tantara 'mongst the fam'ly, I tell 'e. Not a
stiver--all ate up in a 'nuity, an' her--artful limb!--just died on the
last penny o' the quarter's payment. An' Lezzard left at the work'us
door--poor auld zawk! An' him fourscore an' never been eggicated an'
never larned nothin'!"

"To think it might have been your trouble, Blee!"

"That's it, that's it! That's what I be full of! Awnly for the watchin'
Lard, I'd been fixed in the hole myself. Just picture it! Me a-cussin'
o' Christ to blazes an' lettin' on theer wasn't no such Pusson; an' Him,
wide awake, a-keepin' me out o' harm's way, even arter the banns was
called! Theer's a God for 'e! Watchin' day an' night to see as I comed
by no harm! That's what 't is to have laid by a tidy mort o'
righteousness 'gainst a evil hour!"

"You 'm well out of it, sure enough."

"Ess, 't is so. I misjudged the Lard shocking, an' I'm man enough to up
and say it, thank God. He was right an' I was wrong; an' lookin' back, I
sees it. So I'll come back to the fold, like the piece of silver what
was lost; an' theer'll be joy in heaven, as well theer may be. Burnish
it all! I'll go along to church 'fore all men's eyes next Lard's Day
ever is."

"A gude thought, tu. Religion's a sort of benefit society, if you look
at it, an' the church be the bank wheer us pays in subscriptions
Sundays."

"An' blamed gude interest us gets for the money," declared Mr. Blee.
"Not but what I've drawed a bit heavy on my