for me to guard this as with religious care it was all that i had left myself and it was a treasure if i once shook the foundations of the sacred confidence and usage in virtue of which it was given to me it was lost and could never be recovered i set this steadily before myself the better i loved her the more it me never to forget it i walked through the streets and once more seeing my old adversary the butcher � now a with his staff hanging up in the shop � went down to look at the place where i had fought him and there the personal history and experience on miss shepherd and the eldest miss and all the idle loves and and of that time nothing seemed to have survived that time but and she ever a star above me was brighter and higher when i returned mr had come home from a garden he had a couple of miles or so out of the town where he now employed himself almost every day i found him as my aunt had described him we sat down to dinner with some half dozen little girls and he seemed but the shadow of his handsome picture on the wall the tranquillity and peace belonging of old to that quiet ground in my memory pervaded it again when dinner was done mr taking no wine and i desiring none we went up stairs where and her little charges sang and played and worked after tea the children left us and we three sat together talking of the by gone days my part in them said mr shaking his white head has much matter for regret � for deep regret and deep you well know but i would not it if it w ere in my power i could readily believe that looking at the face beside him i should with it he pursued such patience and devotion such fidelity such a child s love as i must not forget no even to forget myself i understand you sir i softly said i hold it � i have always held it � in veneration but no one knows not even you he returned how much she has done how much she has undergone how hard she has dear she had put her hand on his arm to stop him and was very very pale well well he said with a sigh as i then saw some trial she had borne or was yet to bear in with what my aunt had told me well i have never told you of her mother has any one never sir it s not much � though it was much to er she married me in opposition to her father s wish and he her she prayed him to forgive her before my came into this world he was a very hard man and her mother had long been dead he her he broke her heart leaned upon his shoulder and stole her arm about his neck she had an aft and gentle heart he said and it was broken i knew its tender nature very well no one could if i did not she loved me dearly but was never happy she was always laboring in secret under this distress and being delicate and downcast at the time of his last � for it was not the first by many � away and died she left me two weeks old and the grey hair that you recollect me with when you first came he kissed on her cheek my love for my dear child was a love but my mind was all then i say no more of that i am not speaking of myself but of her mother and of her if i give you any clue to what i am or to what i have been you will it i know what of david is i need not say i have always read of her poor mother s story in her character and so i tell it you to night when we three are again together after such great changes i have told it all his bowed head and her angel face and filial duty derived a more pathetic meaning from it than they had had before if i had wanted anything by which to mark this night of our i should have found it in this rose up from her father s side before long and going softly to her piano played some of the old airs to which we had often listened in that place have you any intention of going away again asked me as i was standing by what does my sister say to that i hope not then i have no such intention i think you ought not trot wood since you ask me she said mildly your growing reputation and success your power of doing good and if could spare my brother with her eyes upon me perhaps the time could not what i am you have made me you should know best made you yes my dear girl i said bending over her i tried to tell you when we met to day something that has been in my thoughts since died you remember when you came down to me in our little room � pointing upward oh she returned her eyes filled with tears so loving so confiding and so young can i ever forget as you were then my sister i have often thought since you have ever been to me ever pointing upward ever leading me to something better ever directing me to higher things she only shook her head through her tears i saw the same sad quiet smile and i am so grateful to you for it so bound to you that there is no name for the affection of my heart i want you to 