t her
visitor wistfully.

"Your father," she said, then--"your father was unlike my Philip; but
I see things differently now. For me, all bounty is too late; but my
children--to-morrow they may have no mother. The law is with you,
but not justice! You will be rich and powerful;--will you befriend my
children?"

"Through life, so help me Heaven!" exclaimed Arthur, falling on his
knees beside the bed.

What then passed between them it is needless to detail; for it was
little, save broken repetitions of the same prayer and the same
response. But there was so much truth and earnestness in Arthur's voice
and countenance, that Catherine felt as if an angel had come there to
administer comfort. And when late in the day the physician entered,
he found his patient leaning on the breast of her young visitor, and
looking on his face with a happy smile.

The physician gathered enough from the appearance of Arthur and the
gossip of Mr. Perkins, to conjecture that one of the rich relations he
had attributed to Catherine was arrived. Alas! for her it was now indeed
too late!

CHAPTER XI.

"D'ye stand amazed?--Look o'er thy head, Maximinian!
Look to the terror which overhangs thee."
BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER: The Prophetess.

Phillip had been five weeks in his new home: in another week, he was to
enter on his articles of apprenticeship. With a stern, unbending gloom
of manner, he had commenced the duties of his novitiate. He submitted to
all that was enjoined him. He seemed to have lost for ever the wild and
unruly waywardness that had stamped his boyhood; but he was never seen
to smile--he scarcely ever opened his lips. His very soul seemed to have
quitted him with its faults; and he performed all the functions of his
situation with the quiet listless regularity of a machine. Only when the
work was done and the shop closed, instead of joining the family circle
in the back parlour, he would stroll out in the dusk of the evening,
away from the town, and not return till the hour at which the family
retired to rest. Punctual in all he did, he never exceeded that hour. He
had heard once a week from his mother; and only on the mornings in
which he expected a letter, did he seem restless and agitated. Till
the postman entered the shop, he was as pale as death--his hands
trembling--his lips compressed. When he read the letter he became
composed for Catherine sedulously concealed from her son the state of
h