confidence, as we did from infancy to the day she ceased to live!"

As Lucy said this, she rose, drew her shawl around her, and held out her
hand to take leave, for I had spoken of an intention to quit Clawbonny
early in the morning. The tears the dear girl shed might have been
altogether owing to our previous conversation, or I might have had a share
in producing them. Lucy used to weep at parting from me, as well as Grace,
and she was not a girl to change with the winds. But I could not part
thus: I had a sort of feeling that when we parted this time, it would
virtually be a final separation, as the wife of Andrew Drewett never could
be exactly that which Lucy Hardinge had now been to me for near
twenty years.

"I will not say farewell now, Lucy," I observed. "Should you not come to
town before I sail, I will return to Clawbonny to take leave of you. God
only knows what will become of me, or whither I shall be led, and I could
wish to defer the leave-takings to the last moment. You and your excellent
father must have my final adieus."

Lucy returned the pressure of my hand, uttered a hasty good-night, and
glided through the little gate of the rectory which by this time we had
reached. No doubt she fancied I returned immediately to my own house. So
far from this, however, I passed hours alone, in the church-yard,
sometimes musing on the dead, and then with all my thoughts bent on the
living. I could see the light in Lucy's window, and not till that was
extinguished did I retire. It was long past midnight.

I passed hours teeming with strange emotions among hose cedars. Twice I
knelt by Grace's grave, and prayed devoutly to God. It seemed to me that
petitions offered in such a place must be blessed. I thought of my mother,