e not worse, are you?" he said quickly. "What a fool
I am to chatter so; it makes you ill."

"No, no, Eric, talk on; you can't think how I love to hear you. Oh, how
very beautiful these primroses are! Thank you for bringing them." And
he again fixed on them the eager dreamy look which had startled Eric--as
though he were learning their colour and shape by heart.

"I wish I hadn't brought them though," said Eric; "they are filling your
mind with regrets. But, Eddy, you'll be well by the holidays--a month
hence, you know--or else I shouldn't have talked so gladly about them."

"No, Eric," said Russell sadly, "these dear flowers are the last spring
blossoms that I shall see--_here_ at least. Yes, I will keep them, for
your sake, Eric, till I die."

"Oh, don't talk so," said Eric, shocked and flustered; "why, everybody
knows and says that you're getting better."

Russell smiled and shook his head. "No, Eric, I shall die. There stop,
dear fellow, don't cry," said he, raising his hands quietly to Eric's
face; "isn't it better for me so? I own it seemed sad at first to leave
this bright world and the sea--yes, even that cruel sea," he continued,
smiling; "and to leave Roslyn, and Upton, and Monty, and, above all, to
leave _you_, Eric, whom I love best in all the world. Yes, remember,
I've no home, Eric, and no prospects. There was nothing to be sorry for
in this, so long as God gave me health and strength; but health went for
ever into those waves at the Stack, where you saved my life, dear
gallant Eric; and what could I do now? It doesn't look so happy to
_halt_ through life. O Eric, Eric, I am young, but I am dying--dying,
Eric," he said solemnly, "my brother--let me call you brother--I have no
near relations, you know, to fill up the love in my yearning heart, but
I _do_ love _you_. I wish you were my brother," he said, as Eric took
his hand between both his own. "There, that comforts me; I feel as if I
_were_ a child again, and had a brother; and I _shall_ be a child again
soon, Eric, in the courts of a Father's house."

Eric could not speak. These words startled him he never dreamt
_recently_ of Russell's death, but had begun to reckon on his recovery,
and now life seemed darker to him than ever.

But Russell was pressing the flowers to his lips.

"The grass withereth," he murmured, "the flower fadeth, and the glory of
his beauty perisheth; but--but the word of the Lord endureth for ever."
And here