es became moist.

"Dear old father!" he murmured; "the noblest man that ever breathed."

It was a fine face he saw. Rather serious on the whole, but still with
a smile lurking around the lips and shining in the eyes. The face of a
good--almost a great man. No one could associate it with meanness or
impurity. An intellectual face too, with a broad forehead and large,
speaking eyes. A face which suggested conscientiousness, which
proclaimed the fact that its owner must do whatever conscience told him
to do, no matter what it might cost.

It seemed to Bob as he looked that his father smiled on him.

"Yes, it is what he would most desire," reflected the young fellow.
"It was the passion of his life, and it shall be mine."

He went to a bookcase, and took therefrom a small volume. It was
entitled _Thoughts on the Boer War_, by Robert Nancarrow, M.D.

The young man opened it, and began to read; but his mind was too full
of his plans to concentrate his attention.

"Father would love Nancy," he reflected, and then he arose from his
chair and went close to the picture. "He does love her," he reflected.
"He is alive, he knows, and he is pleased. I feel as though he were
here now, and giving me his blessing on my love, and on my work."

The house was very silent. Every one had long since gone to bed, and
not a sound was to be heard. The night was almost windless too, and
not even the murmur of the waves in the Bay of St. Ia, which could be
faintly heard outside, reached him. He felt himself alone with his
father.

"Good night, father," he said aloud, still looking the picture. "I
love her as my life, and I am very happy. I have your blessing,
haven't I?"

Again it seemed to him that his father smiled on him. He was sure he
saw the quiet humour in his eyes which he remembered so well.

Bob was in a strange humour that night. The day had been eventful
beyond all the days of his life. He had entered into a happiness of
which he had never dreamed before; he had seen visions of the future of
which hitherto he had been blind. He had been carried away by his love
and his enthusiasm; his nature had been moved to its depths. Now the
memory of it all, the quietness of the house, caused thoughts to come
to his mind, and moved him to feelings to which he had been a stranger.

"It's what you would wish me to do, father, isn't it?" he still
continued aloud. "To go into Parliament, and then work and fight for
the