hen he
heard it, not a tear started in his eye, not a murmur escaped his lips.
One request, and one only, did the dying boy prefer; and that was, that
Leonard Dobbin should be admitted to his room as often as he wished to
see him. And this was very often; as James had only intervals of
wakefulness, it became necessary that the old man should be always at
hand, so as to be ready at any hour of the day or night, and at length
he slept in a closet off the sick boy's room. And with Leonard came the
old worn Bible. The good old labourer was afraid, with his rough hands,
to touch the richly bound and gilt volume that was brought up from the
library; he knew every page in his own well-thumbed old book, and in
that he read, and from that he discoursed. The minister of the parish
came now and again; but when he heard of what use old Leonard had been
to the young squire, he said that God could use the uneducated man as
well as the one that was well-learned, and he rejoiced that by any
instrumentality, however humble, God had in grace and mercy wrought upon
the soul of this wayward boy.

At length the period of the young squire's life came to be numbered, not
by days, but hours, and his father sat by his dying bed.

"Papa," said the dying boy, "I shall soon be gone, and when I am dying I
shall want to think of Christ and of holy things alone;--you will do, I
know, what I want when I am gone."

Squire Courtenay pressed his son's hand, and told him he would do
anything, everything he wished.

"You remember that grandmamma left me some money when she died; give
Leonard Dobbin as much every year as will support him; and give him my
gray pony that he may be carried about, for he is getting too old to
work; and"--and it seemed as though the dying boy had to summon up all
his strength to say it--"bury me, not in our own grand vault, but by
Jacob Dobbin's grave; and put up a monument in our church to Jacob, and
cut upon it a broken rose; and let the rose bush be planted close to
where poor Jacob lies--"

The young squire could say no more, and it was a long time before he
spoke again; when he did, it was evident that he was fast departing to
another world. With the little strength at his command, the dying boy
muttered old Leonard's name; and in a moment the aged Christian, with
his Bible in his hand, stood by the bedside.

"Read, read," whispered Aggie the nurse; "he is pointing to your
Bible,--he wants you to read; and read quick