The stranger's rivetted regard seemed to attract the young Charlie's also, for he now turned his eyes upon the slumberer, and then, as if equally attracted by the angelic sweetness of her expression at that moment, or wishing to demonstrate to the intruder the privileged position he held with respect to the object of their joint attention, he slid still nearer to Mary's pillow, and gently kissed her cheek; then, again looking up, something remarkable in the stranger's mien and countenance--something mournful and tender, yet altogether more noble and beautiful than he had perhaps ever seen before upon the face of man, seemed to inspire favour and confidence in his innocent breast; for the little fellow smiled benignantly and trustfully, as, holding out his hand, he said softly: "And you may kiss her too, if you like; but very gently: you must not wake her, she has been so ill, poor thing!" At these words his listener started, dropped the little hand he had kindly taken, the crimson blood suffusing his brow. He cast one hurried glance on the object of their conversation, then with irresolute quietness turned away, and paced the room with hushed but rapid steps, as if to calm some sudden storm of troubled feeling, the boy's innocently spoken words had awakened in his breast. When next he paused before the couch, the deep flush had passed away, leaving his countenance paler than before, though calmer and more composed; and smiling kindly upon the watchful child, as if to promise him that his injunctions should not be disregarded, he reverently stooped, and "very gently," as the boy had enjoined, touched with his lips the fair white hand which drooped by Mary's side; and when again he raised his head, the wondering child perceived a tear glistening in the tall, pale stranger's eye. And no wonder if the heart of Eustace Trevor swelled with peculiar emotion at that moment! The last time his lips had pressed the form of woman it had been in that kiss of agony, in "that last kiss which never was the last," which, in his strong despair and mighty anguish, he had imprinted on the cold, cold brow of his mother, ere they hid her from his sight for ever!--his then only beloved on earth, with whom all the light and hope of his existence would be quenched for ever! And must he not now turn away from her he had learnt since to love, with a love such as he had thought never again to feel on earth?--from that being, fair, and gentle, and good as the object of his soul's first pure, faithful idolatry: she whose sleeping smile--cold, pale and tranquil almost as that which had greeted his arrival that night of never-to-be-forgotten misery--now welcomed the exile on his homeless, hearthless, desolate return!