t some diversion."

Beatrice and Doucebelle stayed with Margaret: Doucebelle from a sort of
inward sensation, she hardly knew what or why; Beatrice from a remark
made by Bruno the night before.

"It will not be long, now, at least," he had said.

The day wore slowly on, but it seemed just like twenty days which had
preceded it. Bruno paid his daily visit towards evening.

"Are the streets very full of holiday-makers?" asked Margaret.

"Very full, my daughter. There is a great crowd round the May-pole."

"I hope Eva will enjoy herself."

"I have no doubt she will."

"It seems so far off, now," said Margaret, dreamily. "As if I were
where I could hardly see it--somewhere above this world, and all the
things that are in the world. Father, have you any idea what there will
be in Heaven?"

"There will be Christ," answered Bruno. "And what may be implied in
`His glory, which God hath given Him,'--our finite minds are scarcely
capable of guessing. Only, His will is that His people shall behold it
and share it. It must be something that He thinks worth seeing--He, who
has beheld the glory of God before the worlds were."

"Father," said Margaret, with deep feeling, "it seems too much that _we_
should see it."

"True. But not too much that He should bestow it. He gives,--as He
forgives--like a king."

Like what king?--was the thought in Doucebelle's mind. Not like the one
of whom she knew any thing--who was responsible before God for that
death which was coming on so quietly, yet so surely.

Beatrice had left the room a few minutes before, and she was now
returning to it through the ante-chamber. The dusk was rapidly falling,
and, not knowing of any presence but her own, she was extremely startled
to find herself grasped by the shoulder, by a firm hand which evidently
had no intention of standing any trifling. She looked up into the face
of a stranger, and yet a face which was not altogether strange. It was
that of a tall, handsome man, with fair hair, and a stern, pained
compression of brow and lips.

"Is it true?" he said in a husky voice.

"Is what true?" Beatrice was too startled to think what he meant.

The grasp upon her shoulder tightened till a weaker woman would have
screamed.

"Belasez, do not trifle with me! Is she dying?"

And then, all at once, Beatrice knew who it was that asked her.

"It is too true, Sir Richard," she said sadly, pityingly, with almost a
reverential compassion