d rolls nearly off its violent
convolutions, and his master, looking oddly at him, flings the door
open, and goes rapidly down the stair.

He is at the foot of it, just as a voice within the little office, of
which the door is open, is saying, "and for doing so, I say thank you,
and God bless you, in my mother's name and mine."

"Whose voice is that?" calls out Harry Warrington, with a strange cry in
his own voice.

"It's the ghost's, mas'r!" says Gumbo, from behind; and Harry runs
forward to the room,--where, if you please, we will pause a little
minute before we enter. The two gentlemen who were there, turned their
heads away. The lost was found again. The dead was alive. The
prodigal was on his brother's heart,--his own full of love, gratitude,
repentance.

"Come away, James! I think we are not wanted any more here," says the
Colonel. "Good-night, boys. Some ladies in Hill Street won't be able to
sleep for this strange news. Or will you go home and sup with 'em, and
tell them the story?"

No, with many thanks, the boys would not go and sup to-night. They had
stories of their own to tell. "Quick, Gumbo, with the trunks! Good-bye,
Mr. Amos!" Harry felt almost unhappy when he went away.

CHAPTER L. Contains a Great deal of the Finest Morality

When first we had the honour to be presented to Sir Miles Warrington at
the King's drawing-room, in St. James's Palace, I confess that I, for
one--looking at his jolly round face, his broad round waistcoat, his
hearty country manner,--expected that I had lighted upon a most eligible
and agreeable acquaintance at last, and was about to become intimate
with that noblest specimen of the human race, the bepraised of songs and
men, the good old English country gentleman. In fact, to be a good old
country gentleman is to hold a position nearest the gods, and at the
summit of earthly felicity. To have a large unencumbered rent-roll, and
the rents regularly paid by adoring farmers, who bless their stars at
having such a landlord as his honour; to have no tenant holding back
with his money, excepting just one, perhaps, who does so in order to
give occasion to Good Old Country Gentleman to show his sublime charity
and universal benevolence of soul; to hunt three days a week, love the
sport of all things, and have perfect good health and good appetite in
consequence; to have not only good appetite, but a good dinner; to sit
down at church in the midst of a chorus of blessings