ns, and
hear all about it, and oh!"--her eyes lighted up--"perhaps some day, I
may hear the bell."

Richard's tap interrupted them. "Had he heard?"

"I have." The deepened colour in his cheek betrayed how much he felt, as
he cast an anxious glance towards Margaret--an inquiring one on Ethel.

"She is so pleased," was all Ethel could say.

"I thought she would be," said Richard, approaching. "Captain Gordon
seemed quite vexed that no special token of remembrance was left to
her."

Margaret smiled in a peculiar way. "If he only knew how glad I am there
was not." And Ethel knew that the church was his token to Margaret, and
that any "fading frail memorial" would have lessened the force of the
signification.

Ethel could speak better to her brother than to her sister. "Oh,
Richard! Richard! Richard!" she cried, and a most unusual thing with
both, she flung her arms round his neck. "It is come at last! If it
had not been for you, this would never have been. How little likely it
seemed, that dirty day, when I talked wildly, and you checked me!"

"You had faith and perseverance," said Richard, "or--"

"You are right," said Margaret, as Ethel was about to disclaim. "It
was Ethel's steadiness that brought it before Alan's mind. If she had
yielded when we almost wished it, in the time of the distress about Mrs.
Green, I do believe that all would have died away!"

"I didn't keep steady--I was only crazy. You and Ritchie and Mr.
Wilmot--" said Ethel, half crying; then, as if unable to stay, she
exclaimed with a sort of petulance, "And there's Harry playing all sorts
of rigs with Aubrey! I shan't get any more sense out of him to-day!"

And away she rushed to the wayfaring dust of her life of labour, to find
Aubrey and Daisy half-way up the tulip tree, and Harry mischievously
unwilling to help them down again, assuring her that such news deserved
a holiday, and that she was growing a worse tartar than Miss Winter. She
had better let the poor children alone, put on her bonnet, and come with
him to tell Mr. Wilmot.

Whereat Ethel was demurring, when Dr. May came forth, and declared he
should take her himself.

Poor Mr. Wilmot laboured under a great burden of gratitude, which no one
would receive from him. Dr. May and Ethel repudiated thanks almost with
terror; and, when he tried them with the captain, he found very doubtful
approval of the whole measure, so that Harry alone was a ready acceptant
of a full meed of acknowl