my fault, and the penalty which would fall upon
Pim; Mr. Garforth promising every effort in his
power to secure a short term of imprisonment.
But the case was too clear; the abstraction of
the letter, Pim's guilty confusion when it was
demanded from him, his evasive answers, and
the discovery of it open in his own locked desk,
formed an unbroken and conclusive chain of
evidence. Mr. Garforth spoke eloquently for
him, and my father was roused to the exertion
of going to the sessions to testify of his long
and faithful services; but the sentence could
not be otherwise than it was—twelve months'
imprisonment as a felon in Shawbury jail.

They told me nothing about it at the time, for
I was too ill to bear the knowledge of it. Life
ebbed so low that for long it was doubtful
whether it would ever swell buoyantly again
with the full tide of youth and health. Even
after it had turned, with a fitful and wavering
increase of strength, Felicia spoke of Pim with
caution, and read fictitious letters to me, written
in his name by Mr. Garforth, for they dared not
tell me that Pirn could only write once a quarter,
so full of his quaint, pleasant, chattering
cheerfulness, that they seemed like Pim's own kindly
voice. I learned some of the secret of Felicia's
endurance in my helplessness, and in our
whispered conversations I told her of it feebly, how
the fire and impatience of my youth was quelled
for ever by the memory of my fault. Often, too,
when little Bell was lying in my arms, her warm
cheek nestling against mine, I used to wonder
to Felicia about her parentage and future life,
the more so as Mr. Garforth had ascertained
that the words in Mrs. Barnett's letter referred
to a nephew of her own at school in Shawbury.
Sometimes my incoherent fancies would weave
curious webs of romance for her, and Felicia's
patient, pitying eyes would shine down upon me
with a look of tenderness, which never beamed
from them upon any one else.

Not even upon Mr. Garforth, as I discovered
when I came down stairs, and he visited us
regularly every evening for an hour, always
manifesting towards Felicia a kind of sorrowful
esteem and thoughtfulness, while me he treated
like the fretful, unreasonable, childish invalid
that I was, soothing or laughing at me as my
mood required. It was he who went to see
Pim after the first six months of his imprisonment
were over, when I was not considered
strong enough to bear the wintry journey; and
it was he who stood beside us as our friend,
when the last oblivious sleep, which blotted out
all unkind remembrance of the lethargic past,
fell upon our poor father. He was with us,
with me alone, though we thought my father
was sleeping in his chair beside us, when, we
looked up, and found the eyelids weighed down,
and the nerveless hands folded in a slumber
from which there was no awaking.

That was a little while before the long
vacation, and Mr. Garforth secured for us the shelter
of our old home, until a new master should be
elected for Tamford Grammar School. Pim's
term would end a few days before we should
have to leave the school-house, and Felicia
and Mr. Garforth held private consultations,
from which I was excluded; though I guessed
their purport—that he had won, or would
win her at last, to be his wife. I said to
myself, and to little Bell, a hundred times a
day, how glad I should be to call Mr. Garforth
my brother. Yet why did my voice falter,
and my heart fail me? Why, with the shadow
of my father's death falling upon me, did I seem
dimly conscious of a less defined but deeper
shadow? Why did I feel every day that my
fault, which Mr. Garforth knew, must shut me
out for ever from his love and honour?

I was sitting at his old desk one evening,
thinking sadly enough of him and poor Pim,
with the long lines of evening sunlight slanting
through the high windows, as they had done
many summer afternoons upon the boys at their
tasks, when Mr. Garforth entered, after a
prolonged interview with Felicia. I understood
his animation, his rapid step of excitement, as
he paced the flagged floor to the place where I
was sitting, and, gently displacing me, took his
old monitor's post, and looked round with eyes
full of memory. I could see him as the head
boy, with command over his fellows, sweeter
and more absolute than any authority now; and
as the bashful boy-lover, courting yet shrinking
from the glance of the master's daughter. Those
days were come back again, he was living over the
past once more; while I stood beside him, scarcely
daring to glance at the abstracted man, with the
first keen, agitated conviction that I loved him.

"Sit down by me on the form, Bessie," he
said; "I have many things to say to you."

He moved a little way to make room for me,
and I obeyed him, without word or look.

"The old home is broken up," he continued,
softly, "and you will have to turn out of it,
little Bessie. Pim cannot return to Tamford—
never could if your father had lived; so he must
go to Edward in Canada at last."

I planted my feet firmly on the bar of the desk
to keep myself from trembling visibly.

"And Felicia will go with him," he resumed.

"Felicia!" I cried.

"Yes," he said, with an air of constraint;
"Colonel Clarke, the brother of Sir John Clarke,
in whose family she was governess, has left her
a legacy of one thousand pounds, which in
Canada will make her an independent woman."

"Oh, I understand it all now!" I exclaimed.
"My poor Felicia, my darling, patient Felicia;
she loved Colonel Clarke; they loved one
another. And is he dead?"

"He is," was the brief answer; and after a
pause he continued: " So Felicia and Pim will go
to Canada, but they consent to leave you behind,
if you can think of any friend you could stay
with happily. Think, Bessie. Could you be
happy with me?"

I could only bow down my head upon the
hand lying on the desk before me, murmuring the
word "Happy" over and over again, as our
child had done when she could only speak a few
lisping syllables.