ess his hand,' and looking wistfully at the
Percy lifting the hand of Douglas dead, Evan's eyes filled with big
tears.

'He suffered very little,' returned Mrs. Mel, 'and his last words were
about you.'

'What were they?' Evan burst out.

'I will tell you another time. Now undress, and go to bed. When I talk
to you, Van, I want a cool head to listen. You do nothing but yawn
yard-measures.'

The mouth of the weary youth instinctively snapped short the abhorred
emblem.

'Here, I will help you, Van.'

In spite of his remonstrances and petitions for talk, she took off his
coat and waistcoat, contemptuously criticizing the cloth of foreign
tailors and their absurd cut.

'Have you heard from Louisa?' asked Evan.

'Yes, yes--about your sisters by-and-by. Now, be good, and go to bed.'

She still treated him like a boy, whom she was going to force to the
resolution of a man.

Dandy's sleeping-room was on the same floor as Evan's. Thither, when she
had quitted her son, she directed her steps. She had heard Dandy tumble
up-stairs the moment his duties were over, and knew what to expect when
the bottles had been in his way; for drink made Dandy savage, and a
terror to himself. It was her command to him that, when he happened to
come across liquor, he should immediately seek his bedroom and bolt the
door, and Dandy had got the habit of obeying her. On this occasion he
was vindictive against her, seeing that she had delivered him over to
his enemy with malice prepense. A good deal of knocking, and summoning
of Dandy by name, was required before she was admitted, and the sight of
her did not delight him, as he testified.

'I 'm drunk!' he bawled. 'Will that do for ye?'

Mrs. Mel stood with her two hands crossed above her apron-string, noting
his sullen lurking eye with the calm of a tamer of beasts.

'You go out of the room; I'm drunk!' Dandy repeated, and pitched forward
on the bed-post, in the middle of an oath.

She understood that it was pure kindness on Dandy's part to bid her go
and be out of his reach; and therefore, on his becoming so abusive as
to be menacing, she, without a shade of anger, and in the most unruffled
manner, administered to him the remedy she had reserved, in the shape of
a smart box on the ear, which sent him flat to the floor. He rose, after
two or three efforts, quite subdued.

'Now, Dandy, sit on the edge of the bed.'

Dandy sat on the extreme edge, and Mrs. Mel pursued:

'Now, Dandy