‘Well, Dr. Davory, the house is melancholic, I will not deny,’ said Mrs. Wincher, with a philosophical air. ‘My sperits are not what they was when I came here. Bond-street was so gay; and if it was but a back-kitchen I lived in, I could hear the rumbling of carriage-wheels going all day very lively. Of course this house is dull for a young person like Missy; but as to gettin’ her away while her grandpa’s ill, it’s more nor you, nor all the king’s hosses and all the king’s men, would do, Dr. Davory.’ ‘I’m afraid you’re right,’ replied Lucius, with a sigh. He went up to Mr. Sivewright’s room, and found his patient waiting for him, and in a somewhat restless and anxious condition. The blinds were drawn, and the heavy old-fashioned shutters half-closed, excluding every ray of the afternoon sunlight. This had been Lucille’s careful work, while the old man slept. ‘Open those shutters and draw up the blinds!’ exclaimed Mr. Sivewright impatiently. ‘I don’t want the darkness of the grave before my time.’ ‘I thought you were never coming!’ he added presently, with an aggrieved air, as Lucius admitted the sunshine. ‘And yet I am an hour earlier than I was yesterday.’ ‘The day has seemed longer than yesterday. Every day is longer than the last,’ complained the old man; ‘my snatches of sleep are shorter, my limbs more weary; the burden of life grows heavier as I near the end of my journey.’ ‘Nay, sir,’ remonstrated Lucius, in a cheery tone, ‘there is no need for such despondent talk as that. You are ill, and suffer the weariness of a prolonged illness, but you are in no immediate danger.’ ‘No immediate danger!’ repeated the patient contemptuously. ‘You will not admit that I am in immediate danger till you hear the death-rattle in my throat. I feel that I am on my death-bed, and desire to do all that a dying man should do to square his account with the world he is about to leave.’ ‘And I hope, sir, you have some thought about that better world to which you are going,’ answered Lucius seriously. Homer Sivewright sighed, and was silent for some moments ere he replied to this remark. ‘Let me settle my affairs in this world first,’ he said, ‘and then you may try to enlighten me about the next if you can. I have found this life so hard that it is scarcely strange if I have little hope in the life that is to come after it. But you can preach to me about that by and by. I want to talk to you about the girl who is to be your wife.’ ‘There is no subject so near to my heart.’ ‘I suppose not,’ answered Mr. Sivewright, groping with a slow feeble hand under his pillow, from beneath which he presently produced a key. ‘Take this key and open yonder desk, the _bonheur du jour_, and look in the third drawer on the left side.’ Lucius obeyed. ‘What do you see there?’ ‘A packet of letters tied with green ferret, and a miniature in a morocco-case,’ answered Lucius.