“Approach, my father,” said the visionary form, in a voice so musical that it thrilled through his frame—­“approach, and let what you now hear be for ever graven upon your heart.  Do not lament me more, but rather rejoice that I am removed from trouble, and in the enjoyment of supreme felicity.  Such a state you will yourself attain.  You have run the good race, and will assuredly reap your reward.  Comfort my dear mother, my brothers, my little sister, with the assurance of what I tell you, and bid them dry their tears.  I can now read the secrets of all hearts, and know how true was Leonard Holt’s love for me, and how deep and sincere is his present sorrow.  But I am not permitted to appear to him as I now appear to you.  Often have I heard him invoke me in accents of the wildest despair, and have floated past him on the midnight breeze, but could neither impart consolation to him nor make him sensible of my presence, because his grief was sinful.  Bid him be comforted.  Bid him put a due control upon his feelings.  Bid him open his heart anew, and he shall yet be happy, yet love again, and have his love requited.  Farewell, dear father!”

And with these words the curtains of the bed closed.  The grocer stretched out his arm to draw them aside, and in the effort awoke.  He slept no more that night, but dwelt with unutterable delight on the words he had heard.  On rising, his first object was to seek out Leonard, and to relate his vision to him.  The apprentice listened in speechless wonder, and remained for some time lost in reflection.

“From any other person than yourself, sir,” he said, at length, “I might have doubted this singular story, but coming from you, I attach implicit credence to it.  I will obey your sainted daughter’s injunctions; I will struggle against the grief that overwhelms me, and will try to hope that her words may be fulfilled.”

“You will do wisely,” rejoined Mr. Bloundel.  “After breakfast we will walk together to the farmhouse you spoke of at Kensal Green, and if its owner should prove willing to receive my family for a few weeks, I will remove them thither at once.”

Leonard applauded his master’s resolution, expressing his firm conviction that Farmer Wingfield would readily accede to the proposal, and the rest of the family having by this time assembled, they sat down to breakfast.  As soon as the meal was over, Mr. Bloundel intrusted the care of the shop to Stephen and Blaize, and accompanied by Leonard, set forth.  On the way to the west end of the town, the grocer met one or two of his old friends, and they welcomed each other like men risen from the grave.  Their course took them through Saint Giles’s, where the plague had raged with the greatest severity, and where many houses were still without tenants.

“If all had acted as I have done,” sighed the grocer, as he gazed at these desolate habitations, “how many lives, under God’s providence, would have been saved!”