But Mr. Gray never did. Maurice Hinchford reformed, but it was after his own method, not Mr. Gray's; and being a fair repentance, we need not cavil at it. He was ever truly sorry for that past, and all the wrong that he had done in it; he sobered down, fell in love once more, and in "real earnest;" married well, and made the best of husbands and fathers. The reader, who will meet with him no more on this little stage, whereon our characters are preparing to make their final bows, will I trust be glad to hear of Maurice Hinchford's better life, and to forgive him all his past iniquities. He has been the villain of our story; bad enough for real life, but in these latter days scarcely villain enough for the pages of a novel. Let us take him for what he is worth, and so dismiss him from our pages. Father and daughter went into the parlour. "Now let us hear all about Sidney," Mr. Gray said in the first place. Mattie told him all that she knew, and he listened, rubbed his hands one over the other complacently, and exulted, like a good man as he was, over the well-doing of others. He indulged in a short prayer also for all the goodness and mercies vouchsafed to Sidney; and Mattie, who had never become reconciled to these sudden and spasmodic prayers, yet joined in this one with all her heart. "Now," said he, suddenly assuming his every-day briskness, "for _my_ news. But in the first place, don't excite yourself, Mattie--because it ends in nothing." "Indeed!" "I am not fond of exciting situations, and therefore I begin with the end, in order that I may not be excited myself. The end is, that I declined their offer, Mattie." "What offer?" "We'll come to that next. They wanted to see me at the chapel--there's a great scheme afoot for a further extension of the missionary project; they want a very energetic man for Africa--just such a man as I am," he added, with that old naive conceit which set well and conveniently upon him, because he spoke the truth after all; "and they've altered their opinion of that other man, who, if you remember, stepped into my shoes some time ago." "Yes, I remember." "But they were too late--I told them so. I said that though my daughter was about to marry and have a home of her own, yet I had learned to love her so dearly that I did not care, in my old age, as it will be presently, to begin life afresh without her. I thought that I could do my Master's service here as elsewhere, and that I would rather give up that good chance than give up you, and go away for ever." "For ever!--why?" "I was to settle down at the Cape--minister at a chapel there that will be completed before the next vessel arrives--and I felt too weak of purpose, Heaven forgive me, to leave you altogether." "And you declined?" "Yes, firmly and decisively. Perhaps it was wrong." "Go back, then, at once--don't lose a moment, lest they should think of another man whom they can put in your place!"