Mr. Benson caught the new look of shrinking shame in Leonard’s eye, as it first sought, then shunned, meeting his.  He was pained, too, by the sight of the little sorrowful, anxious face, on which, until now, hope and joy had been predominant.  The constrained voice, the few words the boy spoke, when formerly there would have been a glad and free utterance—­all this grieved Mr. Benson inexpressibly, as but the beginning of an unwonted mortification, which must last for years.  He himself made no allusion to any unusual occurrence; he spoke of Ruth as sitting, overcome by headache, in the study for quietness:  he hurried on the preparations for tea, while Leonard sat by in the great arm-chair, and looked on with sad, dreamy eyes.  He strove to lessen the shock which he knew Leonard had received, by every mixture of tenderness and cheerfulness that Mr. Benson’s gentle heart prompted; and now and then a languid smile stole over the boy’s face.  When his bedtime came, Mr. Benson told him of the hour, although he feared that Leonard would have but another sorrowful crying of himself to sleep; but he was anxious to accustom the boy to cheerful movement within the limits of domestic law, and by no disobedience to it to weaken the power of glad submission to the Supreme; to begin the new life that lay before him, where strength to look up to God as the Law-giver and Ruler of events would be pre-eminently required.  When Leonard had gone upstairs, Mr. Benson went immediately to Ruth, and said—­

“Ruth!  Leonard is just gone up to bed,” secure in the instinct which made her silently rise, and go up to the boy—­certain, too, that they would each be the other’s best comforter, and that God would strengthen each through the other.  Now, for the first time, he had leisure to think of himself; and to go over all the events of the day.  The half-hour of solitude in his study, that he had before his sister’s return, was of inestimable value; he had leisure to put events in their true places, as to importance and eternal significance.  Miss Faith came in laden with farm produce.  Her kind entertainers had brought her in their shandry to the opening of the court in which the Chapel-house stood; but she was so heavily burdened with eggs, mushrooms, and plums, that, when her brother opened the door, she was almost breathless.

“Oh, Thurstan! take this basket—­it is such a weight?  Oh, Sally, is that you?  Here are some magnum-bonums which we must preserve to-morrow.  There are guinea-fowl eggs in that basket.”

Mr. Benson let her unburden her body, and her mind too, by giving charges to Sally respecting her housekeeping treasures, before he said a word; but when she returned into the study, to tell him the small pieces of intelligence respecting her day at the farm, she stood aghast.

“Why, Thurstan, dear!  What’s the matter?  Is your back hurting you?”

He smiled to reassure her; but it was a sickly and forced smile.