"As for you, my boy, you are not going to refuse, for your own part, to be benefited by your old uncle’s money, in that hot-spirited way of yours?" Mr. Desborough asked, half anxious, half amused. Teddie cleared his throat. "No, no," he assured the dying man, "we will take it and use it. But, I say, uncle, hang the money," he burst out. "Don’t talk like this. You have got years to live yet. You get well and let us all go on in the good old way. Why, mother and Hazel were saying how they hoped you would spend Christmas with us, and we—they—think an awful lot of you. Don’t go and die yet." A gleam of pure and genuine happiness passed over the face on the pillow. He was not to die, then, quite unmourned; and as for this warm-hearted boy and his little pet, Hazel, and his niece Helen, for the matter of that, he could believe that they would rather keep the crusty old relative among them than be possessed of his money, incredible as it seemed. "I should like to see Helen," he said suddenly, and he looked wistfully at his young nephew. "Do you think she could come?" "I have already telegraphed to her," Teddie replied; "she could be here by about five o’clock, I think." At about that time Helen arrived, eager to be of use, if only to help to comfort the last hours of the poor life that was slipping away. She sat by his bed and talked softly to him in her gentle, affectionate way, careful not to agitate or excite him, keeping all painful subjects from his thoughts. Once, despite her endeavours, he began to blame himself, and Helen was infinitely touched at the yearning and distress his eyes expressed, at the bitterness his words evinced, for the long years of estrangement from her and her children. "Do not blame yourself too much," she said tenderly. "I, too, was wrong. I ought to have pushed my way into your heart and forced you to love me, instead of allowing you to shut me out. My only excuse, dear uncle, lies in the fact that I was poor and you were rich, and I shrank from the possible construction that might have been put upon my behaviour by others, had I seemed to force my friendship upon you. Now I see that such shrinking was morbid and selfish. So, dear uncle, don’t be troubled any more. We understand each other now, and freely do we forgive one another. Is it not so?" He made no answer, but feebly returned the pressure of her hand. "All is well with you," she murmured presently, as she noted the weary droop of his eyelids. "All is well and happy. We all love you. Think only of that—we all love you, we all love you." She murmured the words again and again. They seemed to soothe the dying man, as a lullaby might soothe a little child, who had awakened, distressed, from a bad dream. His eyes closed, a tranquil expression spread over his worn features, and he sank into sleep, still grasping his niece’s hand.