"Well," said he, soon recovering his good humour, "since you are
certainly better to-day without the draught, discontinue it also to-
morrow. I will make an alteration for the day after." So that night
Madame Dalibard visited in vain her niece's chamber: Helen had a
reprieve.




CHAPTER XXIII.

THE SHADES ON THE DIAL.

The following morning was indeed eventful to the family at Laughton; and
as if conscious of what it brought forth, it rose dreary and sunless.
One heavy mist covered all the landscape, and a raw, drizzling rain fell
pattering through the yellow leaves.

Madame Dalibard, pleading her infirmities, rarely left her room before
noon, and Varney professed himself very irregular in his hours of rising;
the breakfast, therefore, afforded no social assembly to the family, but
each took that meal in the solitude of his or her own chamber. Percival,
in whom all habits partook of the healthfulness and simplicity of his
character, rose habitually early, and that day, in spite of the weather,
walked forth betimes to meet the person charged with the letters from the
post. He had done so for the last three or four days, impatient to hear
from his mother, and calculating that it was full time to receive the
expected answer to his confession and his prayer. He met the messenger
at the bottom of the park, not far from Guy's Oak. This day he was not