Margaret was weeping tranquilly--Ethel knelt down beside her, without daring at first to speak, but sending up intense mental prayers to Him, who alone could bear her or her dear father through their affliction.

Then she ventured to take her hand, and Margaret returned the caress, but began to blame herself for the momentary selfishness that had allowed her brother's loss and her father's grief to have been forgotten in her own. Ethel's "oh! no! no!" did not console her for this which seemed the most present sorrow, but the flow of tears was so gentle, that Ethel trusted that they were a relief. Ethel herself seemed only able to watch her, and to fear for her father, not to be able to think for herself.

The front door opened, and they heard Dr. May's step hesitating in the hall, as if he could not bear to come in.

"Go to him!" cried Margaret, wiping off her tears. Ethel stood a moment in the doorway, then sprang to him, and was clasped in his arms.

"You know it?" he whispered.

"Dr. Spencer told us. Did not you meet him?"

"No. I read it at Bramshaw's office. How--" He could not say the words, but he looked towards the room, and wrung the hand he held.

"Quiet. Like herself. Come."

He threw one arm round Ethel, and laid his hand on her head. "How much there is to be thankful for!" he said, then advancing, he hung over Margaret, calling her his own poor darling.

"Papa, you must forgive me. You said sending him to sea was giving him up."

"Did I. Well, Margaret, he did his duty. That is all we have to live for. Our yellow-haired laddie made a gallant sailor, and--"

Tears choked his utterance--Margaret gently stroked his hand.

"It falls hard on you, my poor girl," he said.

"No, papa," said Margaret, "I am content and thankful. He is spared pain and perplexity."

"You are right, I believe," said Dr. May. "He would have been grieved not to find you better."

"I ought to grieve for my own selfishness," said Margaret. "I cannot help it! I cannot be sorry the link is unbroken, and that he had not to turn to any one else."

"He never would!" cried Dr. May, almost angrily.

"I tried to think he ought," said Margaret. "His life would have been too dreary. But it is best as it is."

"It must be," said the doctor. "Where are the rest, Ethel? Call them all down."

Poor Mary, Ethel felt as if she had neglected her! She found her hanging over the nursery fire, alternating with old nurse in fond reminiscences of Harry's old days, sometimes almost laughing at his pranks, then crying again, while Aubrey sat between them, drinking in each word.

Blanche and Gertrude came from the schoolroom, where Miss Bracy seemed to have been occupying them, with much kindness and judgment. She came to the door to ask Ethel anxiously for the doctor and Miss May, and looked so affectionate and sympathising, that Ethel gave her a hearty kiss.

"Dear Miss Ethel! if you can only let me help you."

"Thank you," said Ethel with all her heart, and hurried away. Nothing was more in favour of Miss Bracy, than that there should be a hurry.

Then she could be warm, and not morbid.

Dr. May gathered his children round him, and took out the great Prayer-book. He read a psalm and a prayer from the Burial Service, and the sentence for funerals at sea. Then he touched each of their heads, and, in short broken sentences, gave thanks for those still left to him, and for the blessed hope they could feel for those who were gone; and he prayed that they might so follow in their footsteps, as to come to the same holy place, and in the meantime realise the Communion of Saints.

Then they said the Lord's Prayer, he blessed them, and they arose.

"Mary, my dear," he said, "you have a photograph."

She put the case into his hands, and ran away.

He went to the study, where he found Dr. Spencer awaiting him.

"I am only come to know where I shall go for you."

"Thank you, Spencer. Thank you for taking care of my poor girls."

"They took care of themselves. They have the secret of strength."

"They have--" He turned aside, and burst out, "Oh, Spencer! you have been spared a great deal. If you missed a great deal of joy, you have missed almost as much sorrow!" And, covering his face, he let his grief have a free course.

"Dick! dear old Dick, you must bear up. Think what treasures you have left."

"I do. I try to do so," said poor Dr. May; "but, Spencer, you never saw my yellow-haired laddie, with his lion look! He was the flower of them all! Not one of these other boys came near him in manliness, and with such a loving heart! An hour ago, I thought any certainty would be gain, but now I would give a lifetime to have back the hope that I might see my boy's face again! Oh, Spencer! this is the first time I could rejoice that his mother is not here!"

"She would have been your comforter," sighed his friend, as he felt his inability to contend with such grief.

"There, I can be thankful," Dr. May said, and he looked so. "She has had her brave loving boy with her all this time, while we little thought--but there are others. My poor Margaret--"

"Her patience must be blessed," said Dr. Spencer. "I think she will be better. Now that the suspense no longer preys on her, there will be more rest."

"Rest," repeated Dr. May, supporting his head on his hand; and, looking up dreamily--"there remaineth a rest--"

The large Bible lay beside him on the table, and Dr. Spencer thought that he would find more rest there than in his words. Leaving him, therefore, his friend went to undertake his day's work, and learn, once more, in the anxious inquiries and saddened countenances of the patients and their friends, how great an amount of love and sympathy that Dr. May had won by his own warmth of heart. The patients seemed to forget their complaints in sighs for their kind doctor's troubles; and the gouty Mayor of Stoneborough kept Dr. Spencer half an hour to listen to his recollections of the bright-faced boy's droll tricks, and then to the praises of the whole May family, and especially of the mother.

Poor Dr. Spencer! he heard her accident described so many times in the course of the day, that his visits were one course of shrinking and suffering; and his only satisfaction was in knowing how his friend would be cheered by hearing of the universal feeling for him and his children.

Ethel wrote letters to her brothers; and Dr. May added a few lines, begging Richard to come home, if only for a few days. Margaret would not be denied writing to Hector Ernescliffe, though she cried over her letter so much that her father could almost have taken her pen away; but she said it did her good.

When Flora came in the afternoon, Ethel was able to leave Margaret to her, and attend to Mary, with whom Miss Bracy's kindness had been inefficacious. If she was cheered for a few minutes, some association, either with the past or the vanished future, soon set her off sobbing again. "If I only knew where dear, dear Harry is lying," she sobbed, "and that it had not been very bad indeed, I could bear it better."

The ghastly uncertainty was too terrible for Ethel to have borne to contemplate it. She knew that it would haunt their pillows, and she was trying to nerve herself by faith.

"Mary," she said, "that is the worst; but, after all, God willed that we should not know. We must bear it like His good children. It makes no differences to them now--"

"I know," said Mary, trying to check her sobs.

"And, you know, we are all in the same keeping. The sea is a glorious great pure thing, you know, that man cannot hurt or defile. It seems to me," said Ethel, looking up, "as if resting there was like being buried in our baptism-tide over again, till the great new birth. It must be the next best place to a churchyard. Anywhere, they are as safe as among the daisies in our own cloister."

"Say it again--what you said about the sea," said Mary, more comforted than if Ethel had been talking down to her.

By and by Ethel discovered that the sharpest trouble to the fond simple girl was the deprivation of her precious photograph. It was like losing Harry over again, to go to bed without it, though she would not for the world seem to grudge it to her father.

Ethel found an opportunity of telling him of this distress, and it almost made him smile. "Poor Mary," he said, "is she so fond of it? It is rather a libel than a likeness."

"Don't say so to her, pray, papa. It is all the world to her. Three strokes on paper would have been the same, if they had been called by his name."

"Yes; a loving heart has eyes of its own, and she is a dear girl!"