ior. I knew but little of
him."

"Did you ever hear what became of him?"

"Well, it was something strange," Everope continued. "Let me see. His
family quarrelled with him. There was some story about his being
murdered."

"Exactly so," said Sinson. "And we are now close to the scene. It was
in this cottage that he lodged--just observe it--and some half mile
from here along the cliff his body was found, nearly knocked to pieces
on the beach."

The spendthrift's attention was excited by the tale, which also
recalled those early days at college, when precocious dissipation and
riot laid the seed of future ruin. Towards what abyss had he been
travelling ever since? He seemed to turn round, and gaze backwards up
a long slope, from the extremity of which his childhood looked down
upon him still smiling and hopeful, but whereon at every pause in the
descent he saw countenances more and more louring, and forms toiling
upwards with averted faces. And now before him at a little distance,
the incline was lost in darkness and clouds, and thitherward he was
incessantly impelled, and there was nothing to stay his descent.

Sinson left him at his country quarters, merely saying, that they
would return to London the following day, and that there Everope
should learn the object of the journey. He himself repaired to the
habitation of his grandmother.

The old woman was sitting in a rocking chair beside the fire, swinging
herself backwards and forwards, and murmuring a hymn. She was little
sensible to emotion now-a-days, but she rejoiced to behold her Michael
again, and to perceive, what was evident even to her eyes, that he was
a much finer person than when he went away. As he entered the lodge in
the dusk of the evening, she ceased singing, and settled herself on
her chair steadily, in order to look at him.

"Hither to me, my boy," said the old crone, stretching her shrivelled
arm to reach a low stool and set it by her side; "come thee here to
me. 'Tis dimly like, and my eyes get something old."

Michael, who had his reasons for humouring her, lighted a candle, and
seated himself on the floor at her feet. She drew his head to her lap,
and passed her hand lightly over his face, and then looked at him
with eyes that were still bright and black, however she might complain
of their decaying power.

"Ay," she said, with a smile, "he's just the same always, my Michael.
And hast been to show thyself to Cecily, my boy?"

"No, gran