truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, if you want an inscription for my urn, let it be, Herein are the ashes of one who loved Florinda Andover better than his life, but who loved his exemplary mother better than either, and so sacrificed both, rather than give her one moment's uneasiness.' And now, Mother mine, good bye, and GOD ever bless you. You now know all, and never shall know less than the exact truth from your

"Grateful and affectionate son.

"HARCOURT PENRHYN."

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE SICK CHILD. THE FADING FLOWER.

THE broad lands around Baron's Court were looking their loveliest, under the rich glow of a September sun, but the shutters of two of the upper windows of the house were closed in two different gables, and silence reigned throughout it-that cold, rigid silence, which waits on death rather than on quiet and repose; and truly sorrow was there dreading, because expecting, the arrival of death. Poor little Charley had the scarlet fever, and though Mrs. Lewyn (the old lady who had been at Mr. Lethbridge's meeting) had kindly offered to take May and Linda, nothing could induce them to leave their little brother. The other invalid was Miss Kempenfelt, who had taken to her bed from sheer fright, and was enacting her favourite role of the Malade Imaginaire; and, like all such, was giving more trouble than a whole hospital of wounded soldiers. Mrs. Penrhyn did her uttermost, not only to keep the two sisters as much as possible out of the poor little sufferer's room, but, when they were not in the fresh air, to keep them employed in ministering to Miss Charity's ever-growing and evervarying wants, upon a sort of principle of counter-irritation; and the plan succeeded admirably, as it diverted at least Linda's violent grief for her brother's illness to frequent and violent indignation against her aunt's unreasonableness. Twice a day only Mrs. Penrhyn allowed the girls to see their brother, and then she made them wear respirators, and slip over their dress a loose wrapper that was well sprinkled with chloride of lime. As she was going up the back-stairs to the school room, to take May and Linda to Charley, she found Linda crying violently on the landing.

"What is the matter, dear?" said she, drawing her kindly towards her.

"Aunt Charity," sobbed she, "has been scolding me because

the guard was not on her fire, and a great coal fell out into the fender and disturbed her, as if I could help that."

Well, but had she told you to have the guard put on ?" Why, yes she did, and I told Anne to put it on.' "You should have put it on yourself, Linda, or seen that Anne did so. It is a very great fault in any one, but more especially in children and servants, not to do exactly what they are told, and do it when they are told; it is this transferring orders from one to another, telling John to tell Tom to tell Harry to tell James, that causes all the neglect, mismanagement, and confusion in the world. The Spaniards have a true proverb:-'If you want a thing go for it if you don't, send;' and if you want a thing to be done, see that it is done, and don't trust to any one else, who may follow your example and roll on the order still farther till it is no where to be found, like a shuttlecock sent over the wall.'

"Ah! you always take part with Aunt Charity," re-sobbed Linda.

Only for your sake; for believe me, my dear child, you cannot too soon give yourself the habit of executing scrupulously and conscientiously whatever you undertake to do for others, for though a thing may appear the most puerile trifle to you, it may be of the most vital importance to them. For instance, suppose your Aunt Charity's life had depended upon her getting a quiet and uninterrupted sleep after an opiate?"

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Well, if it had," broke in Linda, "it would not have been my fault that a coal had fallen out of the fire and made a noise. I could not help that."

I think you might, if, instead of letting your own temper be chafed at the peevishness and irritation which is almost inseparable from illness, you would rather compassionate the invalid for this irritability, which is not one of the least of their sufferings, and study how you could obviate giving them any cause for it.'

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Surely, Mrs. Pemble, if I studied till doomsday I could not prevent cinders falling into the grate and making a noise."

"I think you might even do that with a little invention; but rien sans peine, you know. Now if the next time you go into your aunt's room, you will take a piece of tape and measure first the size of the grate within the fender, and then the breadth and depth of the opening that goes under the grate, we will get a tin made to fit over the whole-that is, to slide in, under the grate; and by having this tin filled, or rather half filled, every morning with damp sawdust or sand, the cinders falling, will, or can, make no noise; and, moreover, the noise so worrying to an invalid, of having the grate cleaned, and the cinders raked up every morning, will be also avoided; as they can all be carried away, ready collected in this tin, which when they are thrown out, is replenished with fresh wet sand or sawdust, and put back again."

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I do believe," said Linda, throwing her arms round Mrs. Pen

rhyn's neck, "that if one wanted one of the stars out of the sky, you would invent something by which one might get it.”

6

"I fear, my little Linda, that is rather beyond me; so I must say to you, as Lord Albemarle did to his lady-love, Don't wish for a star, for I cannot give it to you.'

"Talking of stars, do you know, Mr. Lethbridge lent me Humbolt's Kosmos; and, though I thought I should find it so dry, I'm so much interessted in it.'

"So what, Linda ?"

"I forget, I mean interested; but Miss Prosser used always to say interessted with a great stress on the res, as if it had two ss's."

"No doubt; and Miss Prosser, you tell me, used to say kewcumber; and I mean to, or I don't mean to; and talk of expecting that a thing had been; and called going in a carriage riding. But Miss Prosser had kept a school in a provincial town where people do speak in that way, as indeed cabmen, maid-servants, and a certain race of authors do in London; but as you are a gentlewoman, Linda, and therefore likely to associate with ladies and gentlemen, you should try and break yourself of those intense vulgarisms, as nothing annoys your grand-papa so much."

"I will, dear; and I am better than I was-now am I not?" Why, yes; but best is beyond better, and that is what I want you to be in all things."

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I don't think any one but you and grand-papa can be that. I'm sure Aunt Charity never will. And what do you think she fancies now? Why, that she has got the quinsey; but I told her it was only the whimsey."

"How

"That was very pert of you," laughed Mrs. Pemble. ever, have the goodness to recollect that the whimsey is the most troublesome and exigeante of all complaints; so mind that you attend to it properly."

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May has gone to Charley's room; may I not go too, now?" "I was just going for you; but May should not have gone by herself. I hope she did not forget the chloride of lime and the respirator."

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was.

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I think she did; indeed, I am almost sure she went just as she

Naughty child; one would really think she did it on purpose, and was trying to catch the infection."

"I almost think she is, for latterly she seems so pale, so dull, nothing seems to amuse her; and she never sits with me as she used to do. Indeed, Mrs. Pemble, I don't think May is well."

I have long feared that she was not; still she persists in saying that there is nothing the matter with her."

Upon softly opening the nursery door they saw Mrs. Andrews, the nurse, standing at one side of poor little Charley's bed, and May kneeling at the other, with her cheek upon the pillow close +

the poor little sufferer's face, who was rolling about his head, from which all the golden curls had been cut, flinging about his arms, and rambling in the wildest manner. Mrs. Penrhyn threw up her hands and shook her head deprecatingly at May, who then rose up slowly, and covered her eyes (which seemed more burning than his) in her handkerchief."

"Poor little dear! Dr. Marsh thinks him better, ma'am," said Mrs. Andrews in a low voice, "though he do run on so ;" and here the child repeated the burden of his ravings

"Some say the owl is a baker's daughter; but that's not true, she's Swiftpaws' daughter, and Fluff's son. And May and Linda took all the kingcups out of the meadow. But I'm to have wings -Mrs. Pemble said I should-to go to the top of Snowdon and see how the sun makes the flowers, and I'm to ride back on grandpapa's charger. And if I'm good I'm to sit at church with all the stars-Mr. Lethbridge said so. Won't that be grand? And Fluff and Swiftpaws are to stay till I come back with Tamar and Taffy Lloyd. And Aunt Charity is to marry Mr. Twitcher, and then the owl will be the baker's daughter. But May and Linda sha'n't give her even a single cowslip, because she would not give the poor old woman any bread; and that's what comes of being a baker's daughter! Owl! owl! don't howl, or your head will swell as big as the bread put it into the oven, when the fairy cheated the baker's daughter."

"Poor little fellow!" said May; "that explanation you gave us some time ago about Ophelia's saying 'the owl's a baker's daughter' is running in his head. Mrs. Andrews thought he had been frightened by an owl, he has gone on so all night about it."

Mrs. Penrhyn removed the linen from his temples, which were now burning hot again, and re-steeped it in iced-water and chloride of lime, and for a moment that seemed to ease him, and he raved less; and as she felt his little, hot, galloping pulse, she said to Mrs. Andrews, Have the goodness to go down and ask for a cupfull of fresh yeast, and bring it here with a dessert-spoon. I'll take it upon myself to give to him, it can do no harm, and I have seen it work such miracles in all cases of fever that I will try it."

Mrs. Andrews soon returned with the yeast, and Mrs. Penrhyn gave the child a dessert-spoonful, after which she took his little burning hand in hers and continued to feel his pulse. Gradually his ravings became fewer and fainter, his eyelids began to droop, and in about ten minutes he had dropped into a profound sleep. "It is probable," said Mrs. Pemble to the nurse, as she gently laid down the little hand she had been holding, "that he may sleep for some hours; it is also possible, that on waking, he may feel hungry, and ask for something to eat. If so, be sure and give it to him. He may have a bit of chicken and some jelly, or blancmange, or anything of that kind that he fancies; only first be sure

and give him another dessert-spoonful of yeast, and another again at bed-time; and if I should not happen to be here when he wakes, have the goodness to send for me.'

And so saying she beckoned to the two girls to follow her out of the room, taking care to sprinkle it plentifully with chloride of lime as she went. They had no sooner reached the school-room than Linda flung herself on the sofa, and burst into a passion of tears, sobbing out she was now quite sure that Charley would die, for when Nanny Markham's child was ill last year Tamar Lloyd had said whenever a sick child talked either of angels or wings, they would surely die, and Johnny Markham had died.

"For shame, Linda! instead of putting your trust in GoD'S mercy; and, even if it should be as you fear, submitting to His will, you go pinning your faith and making yourself wretched on the strength of a parcel of old women's fables. If it should be GOD's will to take your poor little brother, though I hope and trust it will be His great mercy not to do so, you should seek your consolation in the remembrance of the great favour GoD shews to some privileged souls, in recalling them back to heaven, while they are still, from the fewness of their years, innocent and untainted with any of this world's pollution; and so check your selfish regrets in the recollection that you alone suffer-that to him all must be gain, glory, and endless joy. Still, to grieve to a certain extent, is not only allowable, but commendable, as you would be both unnatural and unfeeling if you did not do so. Why, even were your sister to go on a visit, where she would be very happy, you would feel lonely and desolate without her, and would of course grieve for the loss of her presence and companionship; but if, notwithstanding her great augmentation of happiness and welfare, you would not be consoled for her absence, why then your sorrow would degenerate into selfishness, and would cease to deserve sympathy. Bring me that book bound in russia off the third shelf, and I will read you an admirable letter on this very subject, written by Benjamin Franklin, on the death of his brother John, addressed to his brother's daughter-in-law." "Ah, here it is!" added Mrs. Penrhyn, turning over the leaves :

"Dear Child,

"I condole with you. We have lost a most dear and valuable relation! but it is the will of God that these mortal bodies should be laid aside when the soul is to enter into real life; 'tis rather an embryo state, a preparation for living. A man is not completely born till he be dead. Why then should we grieve that a new child be born among the immortals-a new member added to their happy society. We are but spirits. That bodies should be lent us while they can afford us pleasure, assist us in acquiring knowledge, or doing good to our fellow-creatures, s a kind, benevolent act of GoD. When they become unfit for