soul). "I thought it over in bed last night,
and I have made up my mind—"

"Tell me all about it, then, Miss Cicely," I
said; "but, first, how is that little pain?"

"I had it a long time last night," she says,
"but it is better this morning. I will give
up Cousin Richard to Cousin Alice, and she
shall be his little wife, and they will be very
happy together. Don't you think so, good
Mr. Dipchurch?"

As she said this, the sweet angel looked at
me so earnestly and sadly, that I could have
taken her up in my arms and cried heartily
over her.

"Yes," she said, beginning again to plait
the corner of her frock, "I think it will be
all for the best. When Cousin Richard comes
in for breakfast, I will go to him and tell him
all, and that Cousin Alice is much more
worthy of him."

That little pain of hers troubled me very
much, and I determined to let squire know
of it at once. Presently they all came in to
breakfast. Squire, and Lady Alice looking
haughtier than ever—all except Mr. Richard,
who was out riding. Squire looked
knowingly and laughed as he said he was gone
over to Arbour Court—perhaps might come
home to breakfast, perhaps might not—squire
rather thought he would not, and looked
knowing again.

He did come back then, but just as they
had finished. Miss Cicely, who was at the
window, called out that here was the
postman on his pony, coming down the long
avenue, and Cousin Richard riding beside
him. Not long after, I saw him in the oak
corridor, with a great open letter in his hand,
and looking very troubled.

"I must go to the wars at last, Dipchurch,"
he says, trying to be cheerful.

"Well, sir," I said, "nothing like honour
and glory: but I hope they have given you a
long day?"

"Only ten days, Dipchurch," he says with
a sigh, and went on muttering about a bubble
to the cannon's mouth.

Then it all came out; Mr. Richard was
engaged to be married to one of the young
ladies over at Arbour Court, and now it was
settled that they should hurry on the
marriage before he went.

There was great bustle and excitement at
The Grange that day. Every one about the
place having the story that Mr. Richard was
now going for a soldier, but was first to be
married to Miss Abbott. I thought the
Spanish donna, when she heard it would have
bitten her lip through with rage and
mortification; but she only tossed  back her head
as if she did'nt care, and said not a
word.

But for that sweet child, Miss Cicely, my
heart bled and bled again. She was so
grieved, and I believe took on quite as much
at the idea of her cousin's mortification. But
she loved Mr. Richard so, and fretted so when
he went. Not for that little notion she had
first taken into her head, but because he was
so free-hearted with her, and so good and
kind that—but I don't like thinking of those
times. She would sit on the grass as before,
talking to her dog. I have heard her say,
when passing softly behind her, 'You, poor
Pincher, you are the only one left that I love,
after papa, the only one—the only one.' This
she would say over and over again, while the
creature would look at her fondly, with his
heavy, blinking eyes, and whine, as if he
understood what she said.

Soon she began to complain of a certain
weariness and heavy feeling about the head,
and that first pain turned out (as I thought
it was) the warning of the old sickness
coming back again. Water-on-the-brain, they
called it.

As I said before, I don't like thinking
over those days, it gives me a dead weight
on my heart, and such a choking feeling in
my throat. I may as well say at once that,
before a fortnight was out, the little angel
was taken gently up to heaven, where, added
Mr. Dipchurch, huskily, it is my firm
persuasion she is now and ever shall be world
without end! From which happy country, it
is also my firm belief, there never came down
a purer soul.

"And Pincher, the dog?"

He went about for some days in a
restless sort of fashion, looking, I think, for his
little mistress, in all manner of places. I
once met him coming along, in his old
shambling way, through a place he never was
known to be found in before: and squire
met him there, too,—burst out crying over
him,—crying and sobbing as if his heart
would break.

I had to go away, up to London, a little after
that, on business, and when I came home
they told me that Pincher had been found
one morning under a rose-tree, which Miss
Cicely herself had planted. Lying there,
stretched out, his poor, white sheep's-face
resting on a bed of moss which grew about
the root of the tree.

CALM.

There is a time when Nature sadden'd lies,
Not slumbering, but undisturb'd, in night,
Gazing aloft with all her flowers' eyes
Into the tranquil heaven's liquid light.
Then shows the distant landscape clear and fair,
And softly thrills the lone bird's simple song;
Sere leaves float silently amid the air,
And distant sounds glide echoless along.

There is a silence falls upon the sea,
When the impassioned storm has onward swept,
As if the spirit of humanity
Had sunk in hopeful slumber as she wept.
Then scarce a crest upon the long, still waves,
In creamy foam comes bubbling o'er the shells.
Low music murmurs in the rocky caves,
And the expanse in radiant stillness dwells.