ess of these pages to relate. I am at my desk; looking idly at all
the leaves of writing which my pen has filled, and asking myself if there
is more yet to add, before I have done.

There is more--not much.

Oscar and Lucilla claim me first. Two days after they were restored to
each other at Sydenham, they were married at the church in that place. It
was a dull wedding. Nobody was in spirits but Mr. Finch. We parted in
London. The bride and bridegroom returned to Browndown. The rector
remained in town for a day or two visiting some friends. I went back to
my father, to accompany him, as I had promised, on his journey from
Marseilles to Paris.

As well as I remember, I remained a fortnight abroad. In the course of
that time, I received kind letters from Browndown. One of them announced
that Oscar had heard from his brother.

Nugent's letter was not a long one. It was dated at Liverpool, and it
announced his embarkation for America in two hours' time. He had heard of
a new expedition to the Arctic regions--then fitting out in the United
States--with the object of discovering the open Polar sea, supposed to be
situated between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. It had instantly struck him
that this expedition offered an entirely new field of study to a
landscape painter in search of the sublimest aspects of Nature. He had
decided on volunteering to join the Arctic explorers--and he had already
raised the necessary money for his outfit by the sale of the only
valuables he possessed--his jewelry and his books. If he wanted more, he
engaged to apply to Oscar. In any case, he promised to write again,
before the expedition sailed. And so, for the present only, he would bid
his brother and sister affectionately farewell.--When I afterwards looked
at the letter myself, I found nothing in it which referred in the
slightest degree to the past, or which hinted at the state of the
writer's own health and spirits.

I returned to our remote Southdown village; and occupied the room which
Lucilla had herself prepared for me at Browndown.

I found the married pair as tranquil and as happy in their union as a man
and woman could be. The absent Nugent dwelt a little sadly in their minds
at times, I suspect, as well as in mine. It was perhaps on this account,
that Lucilla appeared to me to be quieter than she used to be in her
maiden days. However, my presence did something towards restoring her to
her old spirits--and Grosse's speedy arriva