then when I saw you. And I know now--they have told me. That
wretch, whose name I can never mention, even has said it: how you tried
to avert the quarrel, and would have taken it on yourself, my poor
child: but it was God's will that I should be punished, and that my dear
lord should fall."

"He gave me his blessing on his death-bed," Esmond said. "Thank God for
that legacy!"

"Amen, amen! dear Henry," said the lady, pressing his arm. "I knew it.
Mr. Atterbury, of St. Bride's, who was called to him, told me so. And I
thanked God, too, and in my prayers ever since remembered it."

"You had spared me many a bitter night, had you told me sooner," Mr.
Esmond said.

"I know it, I know it," she answered, in a tone of such sweet humility,
as made Esmond repent that he should ever have dared to reproach her. "I
know how wicked my heart has been; and I have suffered too, my dear.
But I knew you would come back--I own that. And to-day, Henry, in the
anthem, when they sang it, 'When the Lord turned the captivity of Zion,
we were like them that dream,' I thought yes, like them that dream--them
that dream. And then it went, 'They that sow in tears shall reap in joy;
and he that goeth forth and weepeth, shall doubtless come again with
rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him;' I looked up from the book and
saw you. I was not surprised when I saw you. I knew you would come, my
dear, and saw the gold sunshine round your head."

She smiled an almost wild smile as she looked up at him. The moon was up
by this time, glittering keen in the frosty sky. He could see, for the
first time now clearly, her sweet careworn face.

"Do you know what day it is?" she continued. "It is the 29th day of
December--it is your birthday! But last year we did not drink it--no,
no. My lord was cold, and my Harry was likely to die: and my brain
was in a fever; and we had no wine. But now--now you are come again,
bringing your sheaves with you, my dear." She burst into a wild flood
of weeping as she spoke; she laughed and sobbed on the young man's
heart, crying out wildly, "bringing your sheaves with you--your sheaves
with you!"

As he had sometimes felt, gazing up from the deck at midnight into the
boundless starlit depths overhead, in a rapture of devout wonder at
that endless brightness and beauty--in some such a way now, the depth
of this pure devotion quite smote upon him, and filled his heart with
thanksgiving. Gracious God, who was he, weak and fr