“Yes, grandpa, I will,” Grey said, in a tearful voice, as he involuntarily wound his arms around the woman he was to be good to.  “I will always care for Aunt Hannah, and love her above all women.  Don’t you worry about that.  She shall live with me when I am a man, and we will go to Europe together.”

“Yes, to Carnarvon, perhaps,” Mr. Jerrold interposed, and then said, suddenly:  “Do you remember the day you caught and kissed my old hands, and did me so much good?  Would you mind kissing them again?—­this one; it burns so and aches!” and he raised his thin, right hand, winch Grey took in his own, and kissed reverently and lovingly, saying as he did so: 

“Poor, tired hand, which has done so much hard work, but never a bad act.”

“Oh, oh!  My boy, my boy, you hurt me!” grandpa cried, as he snatched his hand from Grey, who looked at him wonderingly and said: 

“I am sorry.  I did not mean to hurt you.  Is your hand sore?”

“Sore?  Yes, sorer than you know or guess; so sore that it aches down to my very heart.”

“Come, Grey, I think it is time we were off.  Father is getting tired and excited.  You will see him again to-morrow,” Hannah said, and her father rejoined: 

“To-morrow!  Who knows?  To-day is all we can call our own, and I will bless my boy to-day.  Kneel down, Grey, and let me put both hands on your head.”

With a feeling of awe Grey knelt beside the bed, while his grandfather laid his hands on his head and said: 

“May God bless my boy Grey, and make him a good man—­not like me, the chief of sinners, but Christlike and pure, so that he may one day reach the eternal home where I hope to meet him, through the merits of the blood of Jesus, which cleanseth from all sin—­all sin, even mine.  God bless my boy!”

It seemed like a funeral, and Grey’s eyes were full of tears as he rose from his knees and said: 

“Good-by, grandpa.  We must go now, but I will come again to-morrow, and stay all day and all the next, for I do not go back to Andover till Monday, and next summer I will spend all my vacation with you.  Good-by;” and stooping, he kissed the white forehead and quivering lips, around which a smile of peace was setting.

Then, he left the room, never dreaming that it was good-by forever.

Once in the open air, with his Aunt Hannah by his side, the cloud which in the sick-room had settled upon him lifted, and he talked and laughed merrily as they drove swiftly toward Grey’s Park where dinner was waiting for them.

CHAPTER VI.

MISS BETSEY McPHERSON