“Oh!  Miles—­dear Miles, how happy I am to see you again,” the precious girl said, taking my hand with the warmth and frankness of a sister.  “My father and myself have been very uneasy about you; my father, indeed, has walked towards the rectory, thinking you may have gone thither.”

“I have been with you, and Grace, and your father, my good Lucy, ever since we parted.  I am more myself now, however, and you need feel no further concern on my account.  I thank you from the bottom of my heart for that which you have already felt, and will give you no further concern.”

The manner in which Lucy now burst into tears betrayed the intensity of the feelings that had been pent up in her bosom, and the relief she found in my assurances.  She did not scruple, even, about leaning on my shoulder, so long as the paroxysm lasted.  As soon as able to command herself, however, she wiped her eyes, again took my hand with confiding affection, looked anxiously towards me as she said, soothingly—­

“We have met with a great loss, Miles; one that even time cannot repair.  Neither of us can ever find another to fill the place that Grace has occupied.  Our lives cannot be lived over again; we cannot return to childhood; feel as children; love as children; live as children; and grow up together, as it might be, with one heart, with the same views, the same wishes, the same opinions; I hope it is not presuming on too great a resemblance to the departed angel, if I add, the same principles.”

“No, Lucy; the past, for us, is gone for ever.  Clawbonny will never again be the Clawbonny it was.”

There was a pause, during which I fancied Lucy was struggling to repress some fresh burst of emotion.

“Yet, Miles,” she presently resumed, “we could not ask to have her recalled from that bliss which we have so much reason to believe she is even now enjoying.  In a short time Grace will be to you and me a lovely and grateful image of goodness, and virtue, and affection; and we shall have a saddened, perhaps, but a deep-felt pleasure in remembering how much we enjoyed of her affection, and how closely she was united to us both in life.”

“That will be indeed a link between us two, Lucy, that I trust may withstand all the changes and withering selfishness of the world!”

“I hope it may, Miles,” Lucy answered, in a low voice; and, as I fancied at the moment, with an embarrassment that I did not fail to attribute to the consciousness she felt of Andrew Drewett’s claims on all such intimate association of feeling.  “We, who have known each other from children, can scarcely want causes for continuing to esteem and to regard each other with affection.”