It was always sweet for us to know this--it is very sweet still, Muriel, our beloved! We brought her within the house, but she persisted in sitting in her usual place, on the door-sill, "waiting" for her father.

It was she who first heard the white gate swing, and told us he was coming.
Ursula ran down to the stream to meet him.
When they came up the path, it was not alone--John was helping a lame old woman, and his wife carried in her arms a sick child, on whom, when they entered the kitchen, Mary Baines threw herself in a passion of crying.
"What have they been doing to 'ee, Tommy?
--'ee warn't like this when I left 'ee.

Oh, they've been killing my lad, they have!" "Hush!" said Mrs.Halifax; "we'll get him well again, please God.
Listen to what the master's saying." He was telling to the men who gathered round the kitchen-door the results of his journey.
It was--as I had expected from his countenance the first minute he appeared--fruitless.

He had found all things at Kingswell as stated.
Then he rode to the sheriff's; but Sir Ralph was absent, sent for to Luxmore Hall on very painful business.
"My friends," said the master, stopping abruptly in his narrative, "for a few hours you must make up your minds to sit still and bear it.
Every man has to learn that lesson at times.

Your landlord has--I would rather be the poorest among you than Lord Luxmore this night.