m that their first duty was obedience to their
guardians. It was a hard parting both for teacher and pupils. It cost
George Hendrick no slight effort to dismiss his two favourite scholars,
nor could he at once see his duty plain in the matter. As for the
children they were broken-hearted and rebellious; but the quiet,
sympathetic tenderness of their friend at length reconciled them to
their lot. Except on this point, McAravey was far more considerate
with the children than formerly. He was now a good deal in the house,
having become very asthmatic, and often shielded Elsie and Jim from
Mrs. McAravey's harsh tongue.

The effect of what they had gone through was no less evident in the
children, though they were very differently affected. Jim never
recovered the panic of that March day. Nothing could induce him to go
near the shore alone, and the very sight of the sea excited the lad.
It was otherwise with Elsie. That solitary interview with the dead had
sobered her. The dead woman's face was seldom absent from her
thoughts. Elsie had grown to love it, and to regard it as something
mysterious and superhuman. She had never before seen so refined and
beautiful a countenance; and there was something in the rigid aspect of
death that quieted and awed, while it did not the least terrify the
child. As the months went by, and the actual event began to fade in
the distance, the pale sweet face, with the dripping brown hair drawn
back from it, became more and more of an ideal for veneration and love.
Thus, while Jim could never be induced to pass near the sandy cove
alone, Elsie ceased to have any special association with the actual
scene of the occurrence. But in her moments of passion or heedlessness
she ever saw before her the dead face--kind, but so calm and firm, that
it repressed in an instant her most impetuous outbursts.

As the autumn drew on it became evident that Michael McAravey was
dying. That he knew it himself was gathered from the fact that more
than once, during the summer, he had walked over to Ballycastle to
attend Mass. There seemed a weight on the old man's mind, which he was
unable or unwilling to shake off. 'Lisbeth, who for years had suffered
severely from "rheumatics," and who had made up her mind that she was
to die before the "old man," was but an indifferent nurse. Elsie,
however, more than took her place. Michael had become much attached to
the child, and as he daily grew weaker he ca