’O no, surely I must have made some dreadful mistake, to have promoted such faults.’

’No, I have long known him not to be trustworthy.  It is an evil of long standing.’

‘Was it always so?’

‘I cannot tell,’ said he, sitting down beside her, and shading his brow with one hand; ’I have only been aware of it since he has been left alone.  When the twins were together, they were led by one soul of truth and generosity.  What this poor fellow was separately no one could know, while he had his brother to guide and shield him.  The first time I noticed the evil was when we were recovering.  Gilbert and Sophia were left together, and in one of their quarrels injured some papers of mine.  I was very weak, and had little power of self-control; I believe I terrified him too much.  There was absolute falsehood, and the truth was only known by Sophia’s coming forward and confessing the whole.  It was ill managed.  I was not equal to dealing with him, and whether the mischief began then or earlier, it has gone on ever since, breaking out every now and then.  I had hoped that with your care—­But oh! how different it would have been with his brother!  Albinia, what would I not give that you had but seen him! Not a fault was there; not a moment’s grief did he give us, till—­O what an overthrow of hope!’ And he gave way to an excess of grief that quite appalled her, and made her feel herself powerless to comfort.  She only ventured a few words of peace and hope; but the contrast between the brothers, was just then keen agony, and he could not help exclaiming how strange it was, that Edmund should be the one to be taken.

‘Nay,’ he said, ’was not he ripe for better things?  May not poor Gilbert have been spared that longer life may train him to be like his brother?’

‘He never will be like him,’ cried Mr. Kendal.  ’No! no!  The difference is evident in the very countenance and features.’

‘Was he like you?’

‘They said so, but you could not gather an idea of him from me,’ said Mr. Kendal, smiling mournfully, as he met her gaze.  ’It was the most beautiful countenance I ever saw, full of life and joy; and there were wonderful expressions in the eyes when he was thinking or listening.  He used to read the Greek Testament with me every morning, and his questions and remarks rise up before me again.  That text—­You have seen it in church.’

‘Because I live, ye shall live also,’ Albinia repeated.

’Yes.  A little before his illness we came to that.  He rested on it, as he used to do on anything that struck him, and asked me, “whether it meant the life hereafter, or the life that is hidden here?” We went over it with such comments as I could find, but his mind was not satisfied; and it must have gone on working on it, for one night, when I had been thinking him delirious, he called me, and the light shone out of those bright dark eyes of his as he said, joyfully, “It is both, papa!  It is hidden here, but it will shine out there,” and as I did not catch his meaning, he repeated the Greek words.’