ike themselves their writing was!
Eustace's neat and clerkly, but weak and illegible; and Harold's as
distinct, and almost as large, as a schoolboy's copy, but with
square-turned joints and strength of limb unlike any boy's writing.

The dressing-bell broke up the council, and Harold snatched up his hat
to rush out and stretch his legs, but I could not help detaining him to
say:

"Oh, Harry, I am so sorry!"

"Why?" he said.

"What does it leave you, Harry?"

"Half the capital stock farm, twelve thousand sheep, and a tidy sum in
the Sydney bank," said Harold readily.

"Then I am afraid we shall lose you."

"That depends. I shall set Eustace in the way of doing what our
fathers meant; and there's Prometesky--I shall not go till I have done
his business."

I hardly knew what this meant, and could not keep Harold, whose long
legs were eager for a rush in the fresh air; and the next person I met
was Eustace.

"Aunt Lucy," he said, "that old fellow says you are going away. You
can't be?"

I answered, truly enough, that I had not thought what to do, and he
persisted that I had promised to stay.

"But that was with Harry," I said.

"I don't see why you should not stay as much with me," he said. "I'm
your nephew all the same, and Dora is your niece; and she must be made
a proper sister for me, who have been, &c."

I don't know that this form of invitation was exactly the thing that
would have kept me; but I had a general feeling that to leave these
young men and my old home would be utter banishment, that there was
nothing I so cared for as seeing how they got on, and that it was worth
anything to me to be wanted anywhere and by anyone; so I gave Eustace
to understand that I meant to stay. I rather wished Harold to have
pressed me; but I believe the dear good fellow honestly thought
everyone must prefer Eustace to himself; and it was good to see the pat
he gave his cousin's shoulder when that young gentleman, nothing loath,
exultingly settled down in the master's place.

Before long I found out what Harold meant about Prometesky's business;
for we had scarcely begun dinner before he began to consult Mr. Prosser
about the ways and means of obtaining a pardon for Prometesky. This
considerably startled Mr. Prosser. Some cabinets, he said, were very
lenient to past political offences, but Prometesky seemed to him to
have exceeded all bounds of mercy.

"You never knew the true facts, then?" said Harold.

"