rcame all the
terrors of humanity, even death itself, and liveth for evermore,
sitting at Thy right hand, our God-brother, blessed to all ages.
Amen."

"Amen!" murmured the marquis, and, slowly lifting his hand from the
coverlid, he laid it on the head of Malcolm, who did not know it was
the hand of his father blessing him ere he died.

"Be good to her," said the marquis once more.

But Malcolm could not answer for weeping, and the marquis was not
satisfied. Gathering all his force, he said again, "Be good to her."

"I wull, I wull," burst from Malcolm in sobs; and he wailed aloud.

The day wore on, and the afternoon came. Still Lady Florimel had not
arrived, and still the marquis lingered.

As the gloom of the twilight was deepening into the early darkness of
the winter night he opened wide his eyes, and was evidently listening.
Malcolm could hear nothing, but the light in his master's face grew
and the strain of his listening diminished. At length Malcolm became
aware of the sound of wheels, which came rapidly nearer, till at last
the carriage swung up to the hall-door. A moment, and Lady Florimel
was flitting across the room.

"Papa! papa!" she cried, and, throwing her arm over him, laid her
cheek to his.

The marquis could not return her embrace: he could only receive her
into the depths of his shining, tearful eyes.

"Flory!" he murmured, "I'm going away. I'm going--I've got--to make
an--apology. Malcolm, be good--"

The sentence remained unfinished. The light paled from his
countenance: he had to carry it with him. He was dead.

Lady Florimel gave a loud cry. Mrs. Courthope ran to her assistance.
"My lady's in a dead faint," she whispered, and left the room to get
help.

Malcolm lifted Lady Florimel in his great arms and bore her tenderly
to her own apartment. There he left her to the care of her women and
returned to the chamber of death.

Meantime, Mr. Graham and Mr. Soutar had come. When Malcolm re-entered
the schoolmaster took him kindly by the arm and said, "Malcolm, there
can be neither place nor moment fitter for the solemn communication
I am commissioned to make to you: I have, as in the presence of your
dead father, to inform you that you are now marquis of Lossie; and
God forbid you should be less worthy as marquis than you have been as
fisherman!"

Malcolm stood stupefied. For a while he seemed to himself to be
turning over in his mind something he had heard read from a book, with
a