CHAPTER XIV.

All is gone,-save a Voice
That never did yet rejoice.

'Tis sweet and low,-'tis sad and lone—

And biddeth us love the thing that's flown.

BARRY CORNWALL.

The morning dawned chilly and stragglingly. Heavy mists came drifting across even the feeble light of that winter's day. The atmosphere was bitter. The same gusts that drove the clouds across the dreary sky, beat at intervals against the casements of John Downing's cottage, like volleys of rain. The very earth seemed colder than usual under foot. He felt it so at least. For it was the first day that he had waked to the recollection that it covered the heads of all who had been dear to him in this world.

He arrayed himself, however, steadily in

his Sunday suit, his appropriate suit of black; and by degrees, as the dimness dispersed from his mind occasioned by the few hours of unnatural sleep in which, after watching through the night for the arrangement of his worldly concerns, he had been so fortunate as to lose all recollection of his sufferings; instead of becoming more sensitive to the blow that had fallen on him and the trials that still awaited him, the old man grew more and more composed. He was nearer to God. Nothing now interposed between him and his salvation. Time was growing shorter and shorter: so short, that all the ills it could bring, all the humiliations it could inflict, were as a speck of sand compared with those boundless shores of eternity on which he was about to anchor.

By the time John Downing had placed his hand a moment in that of his niece, and thanked her for her care of his morning meal, he was nearly as well prepared to fulfil his duties of the day, as on any other Sabbath of the year.

The state of the weather forbade all loiter

ing by the way. No person met him as he walked slowly up the lane, leaving Esther to close the house and follow him to morning service; so that there was nothing to disturb the pious penitence in which he mentally reproached himself with his former abject dread of the revilement of his neighbours. But if he had dared to put the love and approbation of this world in competition with the approval of his own conscience, -his conscience, the whispered voice of his Maker,—heavy had been his punishment, even in this world.

It was remembered afterwards, by one of old Jukes's grandchildren, who was idling near the porch, that John Downing, instead of crossing the churchyard, angle-wise, as had been his wont ever since the head of his son Jack was laid with that of his faithful wife, as if expressly to avoid the spot,—went calmly towards it, and stood for a moment with uplifted eyes beside the green mound. Perhaps the old man conceived that in his prayer to Heaven to "forgive him his trespasses," he could not be near enough to those through

whose sufferings it had been appointed him to suffer; or perhaps he might be thinking how soon the feet of the living would tread over his weary frame, under that withered sod.

When he crossed the porch, the sexton was tolling in, and the church three parts full. All the usual congregation of Hartington was assembled; save a few of the very old, and very suffering, unable to confront the boisterous inclemency of the weather. But the rough breezes caused the warm blood of the young only to circulate the more freely.

Christmas is a cheering time in country life a time when the bounties of the rich are dispensed to the poor in compensation of the niggardliness of nature; a time when the joyous are more glad, and even the sorrowful attempt to be joyous; and the country folks came plodding in to their devotions, by two and three, with faces brightened by exercise, and spirits lightened by the prospect of communion with that great Being in whose sight all men are brethren.

The elder of the little Larpents was sitting

with a demure face beside the knee of its proud grandmother, waiting for the shuffling of feet and clapping to of doors to subside, ere the service began. In the old chancelpew facing the pulpit, stood Sir Mark Colston, resting with one hand on the carved oaken knob which terminated its antique cornice, (the curtains of green serge, behind which poor old Sir Clement used to screen his humble devotions, having been removed as unsightly) the other being fast clenched by his side, as he watched the quiet entrance of Esther Harman, taking her slow and downcast way to a bench under the reading desk, her customary

seat.

Since their interview of the preceding evening, he had scarcely ceased from secret execrations against that unhappy girl. For, half-maddened by his insolent brutality, she had spoken out;-all her loathing, - all her contempt,—all her desire that his persecution of the unfortunate Luke and his family, might be repaid fourfold on his own head. The desire of vengeance against her was rankling in