The pretty little room, fragrant with sweet flowers from the greenhouse, was decorated with all the refinement of womanly taste, and its glass doors opened on the pleasant garden.  It was long, long since Eric had ever seen anything like it, and he had never hoped to see it again.  “Oh dearest aunty,” he murmured, as he rested his weary head upon her lap, while he sat on a low stool at her feet, “Oh aunty, you will never know how different this is from the foul, horrible hold of the ’Stormy Petrel,’ and its detestable inmates.”

When Eric was dressed once more as a gentleman, and once more fed on nourishing and wholesome food, and was able to move once more about the garden by Fanny’s side, he began to recover his old appearance, and the soft bloom came back to his cheek again, and the light to his blue eye.  But still his health gave most serious cause for apprehension; weeks of semi-starvation, bad air, sickness, and neglect, followed by two nights of exposure and wet, had at last undermined the remarkable strength of his constitution, and the Trevors soon became aware of the painful fact that he was sinking to the grave, and had come home only to die.

Above all, there seemed to be some great load at his heart which he could not remove; a sense of shame, the memory of his disgrace at Roslyn, and of the dark suspicion that rested on his name.  He avoided the subject, and they were too kind to force it on him, especially as he had taken away the bitterest part of their trial in remembering it, by explaining to them that he was far from being so wicked in the matter of the theft as they had at first been (how slowly and reluctantly!) almost forced to believe.

“Have you ever heard—­oh, how shall I put it?—­have you ever heard, aunty, how things went on at Roslyn after I ran away?” he asked, one evening, with evident effort.

“No, love, I have not.  After they had sent home your things, I heard no more; only two most kind and excellent letters—­one from Dr. Rowlands, and one from your friend, Mr. Rose—­informed me of what had happened about you.”

“O, have they sent home my things?” he asked, eagerly.  “There are very few among them that I care about, but there is just one——­”

“I guessed it, my Eric, and, but that I feared to agitate you, should have given it you before;” and she drew out of a drawer the little likeness of Vernon’s sweet childish face.

Eric gazed at it till the sobs shook him, and tears blinded his eyes.

“Do not weep, my boy,” said Mrs. Trevor, kissing his forehead.  “Dear little Verny, remember, is in a land where God himself wipes away all tears from off all eyes.”

“Is there anything else you would like?” asked Fanny, to divert his painful thoughts.  “I will get you anything in a moment.”

“Yes, Fanny, dear, there is the medal I got for saving Russell’s life, and one or two things which he gave me;—­ah, poor Edwin, you never knew him!”