while the three watchers found a moment’s sad rest after their long vigil, new hopes and thoughts of life already began to play about them unawares. The world will not stand still even to see the act of death accomplished; and the act of death itself, if Arthur was right in his hopes, had not that already opened its brighter side upon the solitary soul which had gone forth alone? The day after everything was finally over was Sunday--the gayest and brightest of summer festal days. Colin and Lauderdale, who had on the day before carried their friend to his grave, met each other sadly at the table, where it was so strange to take up again the common thread of life as though Arthur Meredith had never had any share in it. It was Sunday under its brightest aspect; the village was very gay outside, and neither of them felt capable of introducing their sombre shadows into the flowery and sunny festa, the gaiety of which jarred upon their sadness; and they had no heart to go about their usual occupations within. When they had swallowed their coffee together, they withdrew from each other into different corners, and tried to read, which was the only employment possible. Lauderdale, for his part, in his listlessness and fatigue, went to rummage among some books which a former occupant had left, and brought from among them--the strangest choice for him to make--a French novel, a kind of production utterly unknown to him. The chances are, he had forgotten it was Sunday; for his Scotch prejudices, though he held them lightly in theory, still held him fast in practice. When, however, he had pored over it vaguely for half an hour (for reading French was a laborious amusement to the imperfectly instructed scholar), Colin was roused out of studies which he, too, pursued with a very divided attention, by a sudden noise, and saw the little yellow volume spin through the air out of his friend’s vigorous fingers, and drop ignominiously in a corner. “Me to be reading stuff like that!” said Lauderdale, with grim accents of self disgust; “and him maybe near to see what a fool is doing!” As he said this, he got up from his chair, and began to pace about the quiet, lonely room, violently endeavouring to recover the composure which he had not been able to preserve. Though he was older and stronger than the others, watching and grief had told upon his strength also; and, in the glory of the summer morning which blazed all round and about, the soul of this wayfaring man grew sick within him. Something like a sob sounded into the silence. “I’m no asking if he’s happy,” Lauderdale burst forth; “I cannot feel as if I would esteem him the same if he felt nothing but joy to get away. You’re a’ infidels and unbelievers alike, with your happiness and your heaven. I’m no saying that it’s less than the supreme joy to see the face he hoped to see--but joy’s no inconsistent with pain. Will you tell me the callant, having a heart as you know he had, can think of us mourning for