this was
not permanent insanity, but a passing effect of the injury; and they
weathered that dreadful time till the frantic fits ceased, and there
was only the dull, silent, stoniness of look and manner, lasting on
after his health had entirely returned, and he had begun mechanically
to attend to the farm and stock, and give orders to the men.

The final cure was the message that Dora was lost in the Bush. Harold
had the keen sagacity of a black fellow, and he followed up the track
with his unwearied strength until, on the third day, he found her,
revived her with the food he had brought with him, and carried her
home. There was only just nourishment enough to support her, and he
took none himself, so that when he laid her down beside her father, he
was so spent that, after a mouthful or two, he slept for twenty hours
without moving, as he had never rested since the accident; and when he
woke, and Dora ran up and stroked his face, it was the first time he
had been seen to smile. Ever since he had been himself again, though
changed from the boy of exuberant spirits, and the youth of
ungovernable inclinations, into a grave, silent man, happier apparently
in Dora's vehement affection than in anything else, and, at any rate,
solaced, and soothed by the child's fondness and dependence upon him.
This was two years ago, and no token of mental malady had since shown
itself.

My poor brother Eustace! My heart yearned to have been able to comfort
him. His tender nature had been all along the victim of others, and he
was entirely shattered by these last miseries; an old man when little
more than forty, and with heart disease so much accelerated by distress
and agitation, that he did not live a month after Dora's adventure; but
at least he had the comfort of seeing Harold's restoration, and being
able to commit the other two to his charge, being no doubt aware that
his son was at the best a poor weak being, and that Harold's nature
would rise under responsibility which would call out its generosity.

Harold had never touched liquor since the day of his child's death, nor
spoken of it; but when his dying uncle begged him to watch over his
young cousins, he took up the Bible that lay on the bed, and,
unsolicited, took a solemn oath to taste nothing of the kind for the
rest of his life.

Afterwards the three had lived on together at Boola Boola. Then had
come the tidings of the inheritance supposed to be Harold's, and with
t