And there, stretched upon that mean bed, never to rise up, or whistle to hawk or hound, lay the generous, reckless Algernon Hurdlestone.  His face wore a placid smile; his grey hair hung in solemn masses round his open, candid brow; and he looked as if he had bidden the cares and sorrows of time a long good-night, and had fallen into a deep, tranquil sleep.

A tall man stood beside the bed, gazing sadly and earnestly upon the face of the deceased.  Anthony did not heed him—­the arrow was in his heart.  The sight of his dead uncle—­his best, his dearest, his only friend—­had blinded him to all else upon earth.  With a cry of deep and heart-uttered sorrow, he flung himself upon the breast of the dead, and wept with all the passionate, uncontrollable anguish which a final separation from the beloved wrings from a devoted woman’s heart.

“Poor lad! how dearly he loved him!” remarked a voice near him, addressing the person who had occupied the room when Anthony first entered.  It was Mr. Grant, the rector of the parish, who spoke.

“I hope this sudden bereavement will serve him as a warning to amend his own evil ways,” returned his companion, who happened to be no other than Captain Whitmore, as he left the apartment.

The voice roused Anthony from his trance of grief, and stung by the unmerited reproach, which he felt was misplaced, even if deserved, in an hour like that, he raised his dark eyes, flashing through the tears that blinded them, to demand of the Captain an explanation.  But the self-elected monitor was gone; and the unhappy youth again bowed his head, and wept upon the bosom of the dead.

“Anthony, be comforted,” said the kind clergyman, taking his young friend’s hand.  “Your poor uncle has been taken in mercy from the evil to come.  You know his frank, generous nature—­you know his extravagant habits and self-indulgence.  How could such a man struggle with the sorrows and cares of poverty, or encounter the cold glances of those whom he was wont to entertain?  Think, think a moment, and restrain this passionate grief.  Would it be wise, or kind, or Christian-like, to wish him back?”

Anthony remembered his interview with his father—­the wreck of the last hope to which his uncle had clung; and he felt that Mr. Grant was right.

“All is for the best.  My loss is his gain—­but such a loss—­such a dreadful loss!—­I know not how to bear it with becoming fortitude!”

“I will not attempt to insult your grief by offering common-place condolence.  These are but words, of course.  Nature says, weep—­weep freely, my dear young friend; but do not regret his departure.”

“How did he die?—­dear kind uncle!  Was he at all prepared for such a sudden unexpected event?”