ting blessing, and, lastly, written as a
postscript--with a blot as if it had been written with
hesitation--'Little children, keep yourselves from idols!'

It was not bitter weeping. It was rather the sense of utter vacancy and
hopelessness, with but one fixed purpose--that she would see his face
again, and be the nearest to him when he was laid in the grave. She
hastily wrote to the housekeeper and to the clergyman that she was
coming, and Miss Wells's kind opposition only gave her just wilfulness
and determination enough to keep her spirit from sinking.

So she travelled alone, and came to Hiltonbury in the sunset, as the
'last long wains' were slowly bearing their loads of wheat into the
farmyard, the waggoners walking dejectedly beside them. Mr. Saville had
come before her, and was at the door to receive her. She could not very
well bear the presence of any one, nor the talk of cold-blooded
arrangements. It seemed to keep away the dreamy living with Humfrey, and
was far more dreary than the feeling of desolateness, and when they
treated her as mistress of the house that was too intolerable. And yet
it was worth something, too, to be the one to authorize that harvest
supper in the big barn, in the confidence that it would be anything but
revelry. Every one felt that the day was indeed a Harvest Home.

The funeral, according to his expressed wishes, was like those of the
farmers of the parish; the coffin borne by his own labourers in their
white round frocks; and the labourers were the expected guests for whom
provision was made; but far and wide from all the country round, though
harvest was at the height, came farmers and squires, poor men and rich,
from the peer and county member down to the poor travelling hawker--all
had met the sunny sympathy of that smile, all had been aided and
befriended, all felt as if a prop, a castle of strength were gone.

Charlecotes innumerable rested in the chancel, and the last heir of the
line was laid beneath the same flag where he had been placed on that last
Sunday, the spot where Honor might kneel for many more, meeting him in
spirit at the feast, and looking to the time when the cry should be, 'Put
ye in the sickle, for the harvest is come.'

But ere she could look in thorough hope for that time, another page of
Honor's life must be turned, and an alloy, as yet unknown to herself,
must be purged from her heart. The last gleam of her youthful sunshine
had faded with H