"In--deed!" was the master's comment, in a tone of doubt. "Poor fellow!" he added, after a pause, "his has been a sudden and melancholy ending. Boys, if you want to do well, you should imitate Henry Arkell. I can tell you that the best boy who ever trod these boards, as a foundation scholar, has now gone from among us." "Please, sir, I'm senior of the choir now," interposed Aultane junior, as if fearing the master might not sufficiently remember that important fact. "And a fine senior you'll make," scornfully retorted Mr. Wilberforce. It was Mr. St. John who had taken the news of his death to the dean, and the latter immediately sent to order the bell to be tolled. St. John left the deanery, and was passing through the cloisters on his way to Hall-street, when he saw in the distance Mrs. and Miss Beauclerc, just as the cathedral bell rang out. Mrs. Beauclerc was startled, as the head master had been: her fears flew towards her aristocratic clergy friends. She tried the college door, and, finding it open, entered to make inquiries of the bedesmen. Georgina stopped to chatter to Mr. St. John. "Fancy, if it should be old Ferraday gone off!" cried she. "Won't the boys crow? He has got the influenza, and was sitting by his study fire yesterday in a flannel nightcap." "It is the death-bell for Henry Arkell, Georgina." A vivid emotion dyed her face. She was vexed that it should be apparent to Mr. St. John, and would have carried it off under an assumption of indifference. "When did he die? Did he suffer much?" "He died at a quarter past eleven; about twenty minutes ago. And he did not suffer so much at the last as was anticipated." "Well, poor fellow, I hope he is happy." "That he is," warmly responded Mr. St. John. "He died in perfect peace. May you and I be as peaceful, Georgina, when our time shall come." "What a blow it must be to Mrs. Arkell!" "I saw her as I came out of the house just now, and I could not help venturing on a word of entreaty, that she would not grieve his loss too deeply. She raised her beautiful eyes to me, and I cannot describe to you the light, the faith, that shone in them. 'Not lost,' she gently whispered, 'only gone before.'" Georgina had kept her face turned from the view of Mr. St. John. She was gazing through her glistening eyes at the graveyard, which was enclosed by the cloisters. "What possesses the college bell to toll for him?" she exclaimed, carelessly, to cover her emotion. "I thought," she added, with a spice of satire in her tone, "that there was an old curfew law, or something as stringent, against its troubling itself for anybody less exalted than a sleek old prebendary." Mr. St. John saw through the artifice: he approached her, and lowered his voice. "Georgina, he sent you his forgiveness for any unkindness that may have passed. He sent you his love: and he hopes you will sometimes recal him to your remembrance, when you walk over his grave, as you go into college."