"No, I think nothing of the kind! I believe that our darling Grace is alive; and I believe it tenfold since I saw these things! I am not very old in the ways of the world; and my judgment has always been wrong throughout. But my faith is the same as the grand old Squire's, though forty years of life behind him. I firmly believe that, blindly as we ourselves have managed everything, all will be guided aright for us; and happiness, even in this world, come. Because, though we have done no great good, we have done harm to no one; and the Lord in heaven knows it! Also, He knows that we trust in Him, so far as the trouble allows us. Very well; I will take these stockings home. You shall hear from me on Monday. I believe that our Grace is alive; and God will enable me to deliver her! Please Him, I will never leave off till then!" The young man looked so grand and strong in his faith, and truth, and righteousness, that the elderly lady said no word, but let her eyes flow, and kissed him. He placed the stockings in an inner pocket, carelessly wrapped in their paper; and he rode home apace to please his mother; and having a cold on him from all his wettings, he perspired freely; and at every stretch of his galloping horse he was absorbing typhus fever. CHAPTER XXIV. SUO SIBI BACULO. In April, when the sunny buds were showing forth their little frills; and birds, that love to hop sideways and try the toleration of the sprays that they are picking at, were almost too busy to chirp, and hung as happily as possible upside down, shaking the flutter of young green lace; while at the same time (for it is a season of great coincidence) pigs reared aloft little corkscrew tails, and scorning their nose-rings, employed them as thimbles for making a punch in the broidery of turf; also when--if the above is not enough--ducks and geese, and cocks and hens, and even the dogs (who regard green grass as an emetic mainly) were all, without knowing it, beginning to wag themselves as they walked or waddled, and to shine in the sun, and to look very large in their own eyes and those of their consorts; neither was there any man who could ride a horse, without knowing how--unless he first had starved him;--at this young jump of the year and of life, Grace Oglander wanted to go for a walk. She had not by any means been buried in the haunted quarry; neither had she as yet required burial in any place. On the contrary, here she walked more blooming and lovely than even her custom was; and the spring sun glistening upon the gold letters of her tombstone at Beckley, ordered by her good Aunt Fermitage--the same sun (without any strain of his eyes at all likely to turn him to a Strabo) was pleasantly making and taking light in the fluctuations of her growing hair.