'Oh!' she uttered, in the sudden revulsion of feeling that the sight brought to her, 'is it you?' He quietly took her hands in his, and looked down at her. Had it been to save her life, she could not have helped betraying emotion. 'Are you glad to see me, Florence?' he softly whispered. She coloured even to tears. Glad! The time might come when she should be able to tell him so; but that time was not yet. 'Mrs. Hunter is glad of my return,' he continued, in the same low tone, sweeter to her ear than all music. 'She says I have been missed. Is it so, Florence?' 'And what have you been doing?' asked Florence, not knowing in the least what she said in her confusion, as she left his question unanswered, and drew her hands away from him. 'I have not been doing much, save the seeing a dear old friend laid in the earth. You know that Mrs. Thornimett is dead. She died before I got there.' 'Papa told us that. He heard from you two or three times, I think. How you must regret it! But why did they not send for you in time?' 'It was only the last day that danger was apprehended,' replied Austin. 'She grew worse suddenly. You cannot think, Florence, how strangely this gaiety'--he half turned to the room--'contrasts with the scenes I have left: the holy calm of her death-chamber, the laying of her in the grave.' 'An unwelcome contrast, I am sure it must be.' 'It jars on the mind. All events, essentially of the world, let them be ever so necessary or useful, must do so, when contrasted with the solemn scenes of life's close. But how soon we forget those solemn scenes, and live in the world again!' 'Austin,' she gently whispered, 'I do not like to talk of death. It reminds me of the dread that is ever oppressing me.' 'She looks so much better as to surprise me,' was his answer, unconscious that it betrayed his undoubted cognisance of the 'dread' she spoke of. 'If it would but last!' sighed Florence. 'To prolong mamma's life, I think I would sacrifice mine.' 'No, you would not, Florence--in mercy to her. If called upon to lose her you would grow reconciled to it; to do so, is in the order of nature. _She_ could not spare _you_.' Florence believed that she never could grow reconciled to it: she often wondered _how_ she should bear it when the time came. But there rose up before her now, as she spoke with Austin, one cheering promise, 'As thy day is, so shall thy strength be.' 'What should you say, if I tell you I have come into a fortune!' resumed Austin, in a lighter tone. 'I should say--But, is it true?' broke off Florence. 'Not true, as you and Mr. Hunter would count fortunes,' smiled Austin; 'but true, as poor I, born without silver spoons in my mouth, and expecting to work hard for all I shall ever possess, have looked upon them. Mrs. Thornimett has behaved to me most kindly, most generously; she has bequeathed to me two thousand pounds.'