Mr George go with them?"

"Mr Vavasor!" shouted out George, making the old woman jump. She did
not understand his meaning in the least. "Yes, sir; the old Squire,"
she said.

"Will you come, George?" Kate asked.

"No; what should I go there for? Why should I pretend an interest in
the dead body of a man whom I hated and who hated me;--whose very
last act, as far as I know as yet, was an attempt to rob me? I won't
go and see him."

Kate went, and was glad of an opportunity of getting away from her
brother. Every hour the idea was becoming stronger in her mind that
she must in some way separate herself from him. There had come upon
him of late a hard ferocity which made him unendurable. And then he
carried to such a pitch that hatred, as he called it, of conventional
rules, that he allowed himself to be controlled by none of the
ordinary bonds of society. She had felt this heretofore, with a
nervous consciousness that she was doing wrong in endeavouring to
bring about a marriage between him and Alice; but this demeanour and
mode of talking had now so grown upon him that Kate began to feel
herself thankful that Alice had been saved.

Kate went up with her uncle and aunt, and saw the face of her
grandfather for the last time. "Poor, dear old man!" said Mrs
Greenow, as the easy tears ran down her face. "Do you remember, John,
how he used to scold me, and say that I should never come to good. He
has said the same thing to you, Kate, I dare say?"

"He has been very kind to me," said Kate, standing at the foot of the
bed. She was not one of those whose tears stand near their eyes.

"He was a fine old gentleman," said John Vavasor;--"belonging to days
that are now gone by, but by no means the less of a gentleman on that
account. I don't know that he ever did an unjust or ungenerous act to
any one. Come, Kate, we may as well go down." Mrs Greenow lingered to
say a word or two to the nurse, of the manner in which Greenow's body
was treated when Greenow was lying dead, and then she followed her
brother and niece.

George did not go into Penrith, nor did he see Mr Gogram till that
worthy attorney came out to Vavasor Hall on the morning of the
funeral. He said nothing more on the subject, nor did he break the
seals on the old upright desk that stood in the parlour. The two
days before the funeral were very wretched for all the party, except,
perhaps, for Mrs Greenow, who affected not to understand that her
nephew was in a