urce of endless trouble to his
mother during her reign at the old house; yet none the less did it
seem to her a heart-breaking thing to have to part from him.

The light about them grew more dim as the fire burned with a steady
glow instead of with dancing flames. Rachel had lighted a lamp, yet
it did little to illumine the great room. The sick man lay as
though asleep.

Presently the mother spoke in a whisper to her daughter.

"Fetch Tom," she said.

Rachel knew what that meant, and her heart beat to suffocation. She
crept from the room, and returned with her brother, and they stood
side by side at one side of the bed, whilst their mother knelt at
the other.

Once the dying man opened his eyes, and looked from one to another
of those about him, though whether he saw them they did not know.
Then his eyes closed, he gave a sigh, and turned upon his pillows.

The Squire of Gablehurst had passed to his last account.

CHAPTER II. OUT INTO THE WORLD.

"You had better let me go, mother. I shall do no good here."

Tom stood before his mother with a flush upon his handsome face--a
flush that was one partly of shame, partly of anger, with a dash of
excitement and eagerness thrown in.

His mother was in tears. She had been uttering words of reproach
and sorrow; for after a period of wonderful steadiness immediately
succeeding his father's death, young Tom had broken out into his
wild ways again, and her fond hopes of seeing him grow into her
comfort and stay were dashed ruthlessly to the ground again. The
impression made upon him by the death of the Squire was growing dim
now. His old companions were tempting him back to their ranks, and
he had neither strength of purpose nor the resolute desire to
resist their overtures.

"You had better let me go. You know my father said it. I have never
done any good here, and I never shall. I want to see the world, and
I see nothing here. Gablehurst and Gablethorpe are too narrow for
me. I will go to foreign lands, and come back to you with a better
record to show. I think I could make a fine soldier, but in this
miserable little place a man has no scope."

"A man has scope to become a good landlord, a kind master, a
God-fearing head of his household," said the mother, with a sigh in
her voice.

But Tom interrupted impatiently:

"That is all very well when one is the master. Perhaps when I come
back I can be all that myself; but now I am a dummy--a nobody, and
they a