‘I didn’t know I could not; I didn’t mean to vex you, Sophy,’ continued the child.  ‘I’m come home now, and I wont try again.’

‘Oh!  Maurice, what would have become of you?’ She held out her hand to Ulick, the first time for months.

’And we’ve got a letter for you, proceeded Maurice.

Ulick would fain have withheld it, but he had not the choice.  She caught at it, still holding Maurice fast, and ere he could propose her opening it in the carriage while he walked home she had torn it open, and the same moment she had sunk down, seated on the path, with an arm round her brother.  ’Oh!  Maurice, it is well you are here!  You would not have found them—­it is over!’

She had found one brother to lose the other; but the relief of Maurice’s safety had so softened the blow, that her tears gushed forth freely.

The sense of Ulick’s presence restrained her, but raising her head, she missed him, and felt lonely, desolate, deserted, almost fainting, and in a strange place.

‘Is he dead?’ said Maurice, in a solemn low voice, and she wept helplessly, while the little fellow stood sustaining her weight like a small pillar, perplexed and dismayed.

‘Are you poorly, Sophy?  What shall I do?’ said he, as she almost fell back, but a stronger arm held her up.

‘Lean on me, dear Sophy,’ said Ulick, who had returned, bringing some water from a small house near at hand, and supported her and soothed her like a brother.

The mists cleared away, the sense of desertion was gone, and she rose, but could not stand without his arm, and he almost lifted her into the carriage, where her appealing eye and helpless gesture made him follow her, and take Maurice on his knee.  No one spoke; Maurice nestled close to his friend; awe-struck but weighed down by weariness and excitement.  The blow had in reality been given when he was forced to relinquish the hope of seeing his brother again, and the actual certainty of his death fell with less comparative force.  Perhaps he did not enter into the fact enough to ask for particulars.  After a short space Sophy recovered herself enough to take out the letter, and read it over with greater comprehension.

‘They were come!’ she said.

‘In time.  I am glad.’

’In time to bring him peace, my uncle says!  He knew mamma.  I could never have borne it if I had deprived him of her!’

‘Nor I,’ said Ulick, from his heart.  ’Did one but know the upshot of one’s idle follies!’

Sophy looked towards Maurice.

‘Asleep!’ said Ulick.  ’No wonder.  He has walked four miles!  He has a heart that might have been born in Ireland;’ and as he looked at the fair young face softened and sweetened by sleep, ’What an infant it is to have even fancied such an undertaking!’

‘Poor child!’ sighed Sophy.  ‘He will never be the same!’

‘Nay, grief at that age does not check the spirits for life.’