ttering white ashes.

Clive looked sadly at me. "He was often so at Boulogne, Arthur," he
whispered; "after a scene with that--that woman yonder, his head would
go: he never replied to her taunts; he bore her infernal cruelty without
an unkind word--Oh! I pay her back, thank God I can pay her! But who
shall pay her," he said, trembling in every limb, "for what she has made
that good man suffer?"

He turned to his father, who still sate lost in his meditations. "You
need never go back to Grey Friars, father!" he cried out.

"Not go back, Clivy? Must go back, boy, to say Adsum, when my name is
called. Newcome! Adsum! Hey! that is what we used to say--we used to
say!"

"You need not go back, except to pack your things, and return and live
with me and Boy," Clive continued, and he told Colonel Newcome rapidly
the story of the legacy. The old man seemed hardly to comprehend it.
When he did, the news scarcely elated him; when Clive said "they could
now pay Mrs. Mackenzie," the Colonel replied, "Quite right, quite
right," and added up the sum, principal and interest, in which they were
indebted to her--he knew it well enough, the good old man. "Of course we
shall pay her, Clivy, when we can!" But in spite of what Clive had said
he did not appear to understand the fact that the debt to Mrs. Mackenzie
was now actually to be paid.

As we were talking, a knock came to the studio door, and that summons
was followed by the entrance of the maid, who said to Clive, "If you
please, sir, Mrs. Mackenzie says, how long are you a-going to keep the
dinner waiting?"

"Come, father, come to dinner!" cries Clive; "and, Pen, you will come
too, won't you?" he added; "it may be the last time you dine in such
pleasant company. Come along," he whispered hurriedly. "I should like
you to be there, it will keep her tongue quiet." As we proceeded to the
dining-room, I gave the Colonel my arm; and the good man prattled to
me something about Mrs. Mackenzie having taken shares in the Bundelcund
Banking Company, and about her not being a woman of business, and
fancying we had spent her money. "And I have always felt a wish that
Clivy should pay her, and he will pay her, I know he will," says the
Colonel; "and then we shall lead a quiet life, Arthur; for, between
ourselves, some women are the deuce when they are angry, sir." And again
he laughed, as he told me this sly news, and he bowed meekly his gentle
old head as we entered the dining-room.

Th