, undertook himself
to drive his father over to see Emily, and gathered from the short
account Valentine gave whilst the horse was put too, that Fred Walker
had been taken ill during the night with a fainting fit. He had come
from India for his year's leave in a very poor state of health, and with
apprehended heart disease. Only ten days previously Emily had persuaded
him that it would be well to go to London for advice. But a fainting fit
had taken place, and the medical man called in had forbidden this
journey for the present. He had appeared to recover, so that there
seemed to be no more ground for uneasiness than usual; but this second
faintness had lasted long enough to terrify all those about him.

Grand was very fond of his late brother's stepdaughter; she had always
been his favourite, partly on account of her confiding ease and liking
for him, partly because of the fervent religiousness that she had shown
from a child.

The most joyous and gladsome natures are often most keenly alive to
impressions of reverence, and wonder, and awe. Emily's mind longed and
craved to annex itself to all things fervent, deep, and real. As she
walked on the common grass, she thought the better of it because the
feet of Christ had trodden it also. There were things which she--as the
angels--"desired to look into;" but she wanted also to do the right
thing, and to love the doing of it.

With all this half Methodistic fervour, and longing to lie close at the
very heart of Christianity, she had by nature a strange fearlessness;
her religion, which was full of impassioned loyalty, and her faith,
which seemed to fold her in, had elements in them of curiosity and awed
expectation, which made death itself appear something grand and happy,
quite irrespective of a simply religious reason. It would show her "the
rest of it." She could not do long without it; and often in her most
joyous hours she felt that the crown of life was death's most grand
hereafter.

CHAPTER XVII.

AN EASY DISMISSAL.

"Admired Miranda!
Indeed the top of admiration! worth
What's dearest to the world."

_The Tempest._

"Well, father, it's too true!"

"You don't say so?"

"Yes; he died, Dr. Mainby's housekeeper says, at five o'clock this
morning. The doctor was there all night, and he's now come home, and
gone to bed."

"One of the most unfortunate occurrences I ever heard of. Well, that
that is, is--and can't be helped. I'd ha