The hall door opened, and Miss Agnace came out. She, too, was watching, it seemed. Dixen fell back into the shadow again. "My child, is it you? Where have you been? Not at Mrs Brandon's, for she has been here. We have been in such terror for you." "You need not have been," said Frederica. "Where is Selina? No, Miss Agnace, I am not going in there, for I am very tired." She paused a moment at the foot of the stairs, looking up. A kind, half-familiar face looked down on her from above. "Is it Col. Bentham?" said she, going up slowly. "And papa has come. Oh! papa! papa?" Was it her father's face she saw? It was such a face as her father's might have been in his youth, a nobler and better face than his had ever been to her knowledge, though no such thought came into Frederica's mind as she gazed. And who was this beside him, looking at her with Selina's eyes, smiling on her with Selina's smile, and calling her sister? Frederica grew pale, and trembled more and more. "Lena," she faltered. "Lena, is it that I am going to be ill again? or am I dreaming?" "Fred love," said Selina, putting her arms around her, "it is our elder brother Edgar, who has come, and our sister Cecilia, and poor papa--" But Frederica heard no more, for there was a mist before her eyes, and a buzzing in her ears, and by-and-by she found that Miss Agnace was bathing her face, and Selina was holding her hand, with a pale anxious face. Then she heard a strange voice say,-- "She must drink this, and go to bed at once and no one is to talk to her to-night." And that was almost the last thing she knew, till she awoke next morning with the sunshine on her face. It was well that the rest of the night came before the excitement of the day that awaited her. For poor Fred had yet to be told that she would never see her father on earth again. Col. Bentham told her first, and then her sister Cecilia told her about his last days; and as she listened, Frederica's thought was-- "Now he is with mama, and nothing will ever happen to make them grieve one another any more." This thought softened her grief, and made her tears flow gently, as Cecilia went on to tell how sorry he had been about some things; and how he had longed to return to his children and their mother, when it was no longer possible to do so; and how unwillingly he resigned himself to the sad necessity at last. She told them how his restlessness and impatience went away, and a great change came over him towards the end. He longed to live for his children's sake, but he ceased to be afraid of death, nay, he welcomed the messenger of the King as he drew near. "Papa must have known all along what mama only learned towards the last, that Jesus died to save His people," said Selina. "Was it that which made him not afraid?"