when the horses had been taken from the carriage, and he
had walked back to life and Little Christchurch instead of making his
way to his last home, and to find deposition with all the glory of a
great name.

"It is very kind of you. Come in. Eva is not at home."

"I have just parted with her at my own house. So she and Jack are to
make a match of it. I need not tell you how more than contented I
shall be that my son should have such a wife. Eva to me has been
always dear, almost as a daughter. Now she is like my own child."

"I am sure that I can say the same of Jack."

"Yes; Jack is a good lad too. I hope he will stick to the business."

"He need not trouble himself about that. He will have Little
Christchurch and all that belongs to it as soon as I am gone. I had
made up my mind only to allow Eva an income out of it while she was
thinking of that fellow Grundle. That man is a knave."

I could not but remember that Grundle had been a Fixed-Periodist, and
that it would not become me to abuse him; and I was aware that though
Crasweller was my sincere friend, he had come to entertain of late an
absolute hatred of all those, beyond myself, who had advocated his
own deposition.

"Jack, at any rate, is happy," said I, "and Eva. You and I,
Crasweller have had our little troubles to imbitter the evenings of
our life."

"You are yet in the full daylight."

"My ambition has been disappointed. I cannot conceal the fact from
myself,--nor from you. It has come to pass that during the last year
or two we have lived with different hopes. And these hopes have been
founded altogether on the position which you might occupy."

"I should have gone mad up in that college, Neverbend."

"I would have been with you."

"I should have gone mad all the same. I should have committed
suicide."

"To save yourself from an honourable--deposition!"

"The fixed day, coming at a certain known hour; the feeling that it
must come, though it came at the same time so slowly and yet so fast;
every day growing shorter day by day, and every season month by
month; the sight of these chimneys--"

"That was a mistake, Crasweller; that was a mistake. The cremation
should have been elsewhere."

"A man should have been an angel to endure it,--or so much less than
a man. I struggled,--for your sake. Who else would have struggled as
I did to oblige a friend in such a matter?"

"I know it--I know it."

"But life under such a weight became impos