unceasing, weary walk, from room to room,
through house and garden. Oh! how I
wished for Deborah! I had no time for
crying, for now all seemed to depend on me.
I wrote for Deborah to come home. I sent
a message privately to that same Mr.
Hoibrook's house—poor Mr. Holbrook!—you
know who I mean. I don't mean I sent a
message to him, but I sent one that I could
trust, to know if Peter was at his house. For
at one time Mr. Holbrook was an occasional
visitor at the Rectory—you know he was
Miss Pole's cousin—and he had been very
kind to Peter, and taught him how to fish—
he was very kind to everybody, and I thought
Peter might have gone off there. But Mr.
Holbrook was from home, and Peter had
never been seen. It was night now; but
the doors were all wide open, and my father
and mother walked on and on; it was more
than an hour since he had joined her, and I
don't believe they had ever spoken all that
time. I was getting the parlour fire lighted,
and one of the servants was preparing tea,
for I wanted them to have something to eat
and drink and warm them, when old Clare
asked to speak to me.

"'I have borrowed the nets from the weir,
Miss Matey. Shall we drag the ponds
tonight, or wait for the morning?'

"I remember staring in his face to gather
his meaning; and when I did, I laughed out
loud. The horror of that new thought—our
bright, darling Peter, cold, and stark, and
dead! I remember the ring of my own
laugh now.

"The next day Deborah was at home before
I was myself again. She would not have
been so weak to give way as I had done; but
my screams (my horrible laughter had ended
in crying) had roused my sweet dear mother,
whose poor wandering wits were called back
and collected, as soon as a child needed her
care. She and Deborah sat by my bedside;
I knew by the looks of each that there had
been no news of Peter—no awful, ghastly
news, which was what I most had dreaded in
my dull state between sleeping and wakening.
The same result of all the searching had
brought something of the same relief to my
mother, to whom, I am sure, the thought
that Peter might even then be hanging dead in
some of the familiar home places, had caused
that never-ending walk of yesterday. Her soft
eyes never were the same again after that;
they had always a restless, craving look, as if
seeking for what they could not find. Oh!
it was an awful time; coming down like a
thunderbolt on the still sunny day, when the
lilacs were all in bloom."

"Where was Mr. Peter?" said I.

"He had made his way to Liverpool; and
there was war then; and some of the king's
ships lay off the mouth of the Mersey; and
they were only too glad to have a fine likely
boy such as him (five foot nine he was) come
to offer himself. The captain wrote to my
father, and Peter wrote to my mother. Stay!
those letters will be somewhere here."

We lighted the candle, and found the
captain's letter, and Peter's too. And we also
found a little simple begging-letter from
Mrs. Jenkyns to Peter, addressed to him at
the house of an old schoolfellow, whither
she fancied he might have gone. They had
returned it unopened; and unopened it had
remained ever since, having been inadvertently
put by among the other letters of that
time. This is it:—

"My dearest Peter,

         "You did not think we should be so
sorry as we are, I know, or you would never
have gone away. You are too good. Your
father sits and sighs till my heart aches to
hear him. He cannot hold up his head for
grief; and yet he only did what he thought
was right. Perhaps he has been too severe,
and perhaps I have not been kind enough;
but God knows how we love you, my dear
only boy. Dor looks so sorry you are gone.
Come back, and make us happy, who love you
so much. I know you will come back."

But Peter never came back. That spring
day was the last time he ever saw father or
mother. The writer of the letter—the last
—the only person who had ever seen what
was written in it, was dead long ago—and I,
a stranger, not born at the time when this
occurrence took place, was the one to open it.

The captain's letter summoned the father
and mother to Liverpool instantly, if they
wished to see their boy; and by some of the
wild chances of life, the captain's letter had
been detained somewhere, somehow. Miss
Matey went on:—  "And it was race-time,
and all the post-horses at Cranford were
gone to the races; but my father and mother
set off in our own gig,—and, oh! my dear,
they were too late—the ship was gone. And
now read Peter's letter to my mother."

It was full of love, and sorrow, and pride
in his new profession, and a sore sense of his
disgrace in the eyes of the people at Cranford;
but ending with a passionate entreaty that
she would come and see him before he left the
Mersey:—"Mother! we may go into battle. I
hope we shall, and lick those French; but I
must see you again before that time!"

"And she was too late," said Miss Matey;
"too late!"

We sat in silence, pondering on the full
meaning of those sad, sad words. At length
I asked Miss Matey to tell me how her
mother bore it.

"Oh! " she said, "she was patience itself.
She had never been strong, and this weakened
her terribly. My father used to sit looking
at her: far more sad than she was. He
seemed as if he could look at nothing else
when she was by; and he was so humble,—
so very gentle, now. He would, perhaps,
speak in his old way—laying down the law,
as it were—and then, in a minute or two, he