or him now, as I never
could when he was living. Poor man! It was an ill world to him, but
he is out of it now.

Your loving and repentant mother,

'SISTER MONICA MARY.'

Audrey went over to Brail constantly during the autumn and winter months
that followed Mat's death. Sometimes Mollie accompanied her, but oftener
she was alone. Nothing cheered Thomas O'Brien more than the society of
his favourite. He loved to talk to her of the dear ones who had passed
within the veil, and to Audrey herself the visits were very soothing.

She liked those solitary walks under the gray November skies, or when
the December sun hung redly behind the distant hedgerows. How often she
had walked there when Cyril had met her half-way, or she had come upon
him lingering in the lanes, with Zack bounding beside him. It was in the
Brail lanes that he first told her of his love, when she had sent him
sorrowfully away from her; but somehow, as she walked there now, between
hedgerows white with hoar frost, she thought less of him than of
Michael; but as yet no message had been sent to recall the wanderer
home.

CHAPTER L

BOOTY'S MASTER

'And she to him will reach her hand,
And gazing in his eyes will stand,
And know her friend and weep for glee,
And cry, "Long, long, I've looked for thee."'

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

Kester had spent his Christmas holidays at Woodcote; Audrey loved to
have him with her. Somehow he seemed to belong to Michael, and the boy
warmly returned her affection.

'Do you know that Mr. Abercrombie is coming home in March?' he said to
her the day before he went back to Brighton; 'he is quite well now, and
Captain Burnett says he is in a fever to get back to England. Do you
think Captain Burnett will come, too?' and Kester looked anxiously in
her face.

Audrey could not satisfy Kester on this point; nevertheless, she felt a
secret hope stirring in her heart that Michael would not stay away much
longer. After all, was it likely that he would wait for the message when
he must know how impossible it would be for her to send it? He had been
away seven months, and by this time he must be growing homesick.

Almost the same thought occurred to Michael as, early in March, he sat
in the loggia of an old Florentine palace, where he and his friend had a
suite of rooms.

How long had he been away