Then came the terrible awaking, the first unconscious exclamation--"Dear nurse, I have had such dreadful dreams!" The sober sense of waking grief--the struggle to think calmly and resignedly of all--the partial success--the sudden fresh outburst of sorrow. So the day dragged on; and at the same hour at which Kate had last heard that voice, which had ever spoken fondly to her, a heavy travelling carriage, drawn by four posters, laden with numerous trunks and imperials, dashed in hot haste down the quiet little street. It stopped at the house of mourning; and the next moment, a tall lady, wrapped in a travelling cloak of velvet and costly furs, throwing back her veil, grasped Mrs. O'Toole's hand; and, after a piercing glance at the honest, troubled face before her, exclaimed-- "I am too late!" "Not to comfort mee darlint, glory be to God! Yer come at last, me lady! He said you would be here this day." "Kate, Miss Vernon, where is she?" said Lady Desmond, in clear, firm tones, that sounded as if command was natural to them; and passing on to the stairs. "No, no! me sweet child is here." And Mrs. O'Toole opened the parlour door, Kate, at the moment, entering from the inner room. She stopped, for an instant, while Lady Desmond advanced rapidly, and clasped her to her heart, straining her closely in her arms. "Oh! Georgy," cried Kate, amid her sobs, "you will never hear his voice again--he is gone! gone before a gleam of hope or prosperity brightened the sad evening of his life; before I could see him as he was, before the bitter dregs of the cup of adversity had lost their bitterness by use. And I could do nothing for him, nothing! Oh, when we parted last, who, who could have thought, that it would have ended thus?" And she pointed expressively to the small, mean room, now dimly lighted, by the candles, which Mrs. O'Toole scrupulously kept burning after evening closed. Lady Desmond, grasping Kate's hand nervously, walked to the bed-side, and holding back the folds of her veil, bent reverently over the dead, for a moment, in silence, then drawing back, broke into an agony of hysterical tears, that startled Kate, by its vehemence, and brought nurse rapidly to her side. "I feel as if guilty of his death," she repeated. "Why, why, did I delay my return?" "Oh, hush, dearest Georgy, hush," whispered Kate, somewhat calmed, by witnessing the remorseful emotion of her cousin. "I was wrong to speak as I did; it was the sharpness of sorrow made me utter such words; God forgive them, for in my inmost heart I feel that He never punishes, He only sends messengers after us to keep us in the right path; the poverty was nothing; and even this! we shall yet understand it all!"