ed the burden and heat of the day. When one thinks of his
blameless youth, and the manly endurance with which he met and faced his
trouble, one can only be thankful that he has been taken out of a life
that would have been only one long struggle and disappointment, and has
entered so early into his rest.'

'Father is right,' murmured Audrey, as she read this. 'Every morning I
wake I thank God that he has ceased to suffer.'

Audrey went every day to see Mollie, and to spend a few minutes by
Cyril's coffin. She went with Michael to Highgate to choose his last
resting-place, and no other hands but hers arranged the flowers that
decked the chamber of death. Mrs. Blake remained in her own room, and
refused to see anyone. Biddy's account of her mistress was very
unsatisfactory.

'She does not sleep unless I give her the doctor's soothing stuff,' she
confessed one day, when Audrey questioned her very closely, 'and
sometimes I cannot coax her to take it. "I don't want to sleep, Biddy,"
that is all her cry. "If I sleep I must wake, and the waking is too
terrible." Unless Blessed Mary and the saints help my mistress,'
continued Biddy, wiping the tears from her withered cheeks, 'I think she
will go out of her mind. She spends half the night in that room. Early
this morning I missed her, and found her lying in a dead faint beside
the coffin. She does not eat, and I never see her shed a tear. She sits
rocking herself and moaning as though she were in pain, and then she
starts up and walks the room till it turns one giddy to see her. I dare
not leave her a moment. If she would only see a doctor! but, poor soul,
she will do nothing now to please her old Biddy.'

'I must see her,' exclaimed Audrey, horrified at this description of
wild, unchastened grief. 'Biddy, will you take this note to her?' and
Biddy, nothing loath, carried off the slip of paper.

Audrey had only pencilled a few words:

'My poor friend, let me come to you; ours is the same sorrow. For
Cyril's sake, do not refuse me.'

But Biddy came back the next moment shaking her head very sorrowfully.

'I can do nought with her,' she said hastily. 'She sends her love, Miss
Ross, but she will see no one--no one. I have done the best I can for
you, but I dare not anger her,' finished the old woman, moving sadly
away. 'Why, she has not seen Master Kester, though he came to her door
last night! We must leave her alone until she comes round to her right
mind.'

'Do you th