se cold features
changed,--now frowning heavily, now smiling blandly on me. I watched
them, till in my eager gaze the lips seemed to move and the cheek to
flush. How hard is it to believe in death! how difficult to think that
"there is a sleep that knows no waking!" I knelt down beside the bed
and prayed. I prayed that now, as all of earth was nought to him who was
departed, he would give me the affection he had not bestowed in life.
I besought him not to chill the heart that in its lonely desolation had
neither home nor friend. My throat sobbed to bursting as in my words I
seemed to realize the fulness of my affliction. The door opened behind
me as with bent-down head I knelt. A heavy footstep slowly moved along
the floor; and the next moment the tottering figure of old Lanty stood
beside me, gazing on the dead man. There was that look of vacancy in his
filmy eye that showed he knew nothing of what had happened.

"Is he asleep. Master Tommy?" said the old man, in a faint whisper.

My lips trembled, but I could not speak the word.

"I thought he wanted the 'dogs' up at Meelif; but I 'm strained here
about the loins, and can't go out myself. Tell him that, when he wakes."

"He'll never wake now, Lanty; he's dead!" said I, as a rush of tears
half choked my utterance.

"Dead!" said he, repeating the word two or three times,--"dead! Well,
well! I wonder will Master George keep the dogs now. There seldom comes
a better; and 'twas himself that liked the cry o' them."

He tottered from the room as he spoke, and I could hear him muttering
the same words over and over, as he crept slowly down the stair.

I have said that this painful stroke of fortune was as a dream to me;
and so for three days I felt it. The altered circumstances of everything
about me were inexplicable to my puzzled brain. The very kindness of the
servants, so unusual to me, struck me forcibly. They felt that the time
was past when any sympathy for me had been the passport to disfavor, and
they pitied me.

The funeral took place on the third morning. Mr. Basset having
acquainted my brother that there was no necessity for his presence, even
that consolation was denied me,--to meet him who alone remained of all
my name and house belonging to me. How I remember every detail of that
morning! The silence of the long night broken in upon by heavy footsteps
ascending the stairs; strange voices, not subdued like those of all in
our little household, but loud a