“There is no need for you to hurry back, my poor lad,” wrote his uncle. “The funeral is to take place to-morrow, and will be over when you get this letter. I saw your mother a fortnight before her death, and she then told me what she could never find the courage to tell you--that the end was very near. It came suddenly at the last, and I was out of the way at the time; but they tell me it was a calm and holy ending. Her last words were of you. She dwelt much on your goodness and devotion, Mrs. Bane tells me. The last two days were spent in prayer, poor innocent soul; and I, who stand in so much greater need of that kind of thing, can’t bring myself to it for half an hour! Poor soul! Bane thinks it was for you she was praying, she repeated your name so often--sometimes in her sleep, sometimes when she was lying in a languid state between sleeping and waking. But she did not wish you to be sent for. ‘It is better that he should be away,’ she said; ‘I think he knew that this day must soon come.’ “And now, my dear boy, try to bear up against this sorrow like a brave, true-hearted lad, as you are. I say nothing of what I feel myself, for there are some things which come with a bad grace from certain people. You know that I loved my sister; though, God knows, _I_ never knew how dearly till yesterday, when I saw the blinds down at Mrs. Bane’s, and guessed what had happened. Remember, Eustace, that so long as I can earn a crust, my sister Celia’s son shall be welcome to his share of it; and though I may be a disreputable acquaintance, I can be a faithful friend. If you are tired of that slow old Belgian city, come back to England. We will manage your establishment here somehow. The impracticable Daniel has a certain kind of influence; and though he rarely cares to use it on his own account,--being so bad a lot that he dare not give himself a decent character,--he will employ it to the uttermost for a spotless nephew. “Come, then, dear boy; a kind of heart-sickness has come over me, and I want to see the brightest face that I know in this world, and the only face that I love. Come, even if you must needs return to the whitewashed saloons of the Parthenée. There are letters and papers of your poor mother’s which it might be well for you to destroy. My profane hand shall not tamper with them.”