I had not told Mr. Shenstone this; nor dared I tell him that there was hardly a hope that his friend was still in America. A week had elapsed since my letter had been sent; the end was surely approaching--we could not shut our eyes to that. That morning, Mr. Shenstone had, with great pain and difficulty, refusing my assistance, himself written a few lines to Mr. Rutledge, and, sealing it, had committed it to my hands, charging me to deliver it to him as soon as he should come. From the moment that that was done, he had put off all care, and given himself wholly up to the exercises of religion and the preparations for death. Of my future he had never spoken much. God would direct my lot mercifully, he was sure; he left me, his sole earthly care, with faith, to God's protection. He desired that for the present I should remain, with the two servants, in the house, till some other home presented, or till the parsonage was required for his successor. It was a holy, religious day; such peace as soothed the last hours of his life told well for the service in which he had spent it. It was not like death--it was like the coming of a blessing that had been long prayed for. We had with him received the sacrament, and heard the faint words that told his triumph and his hope, and stood waiting around him, almost following him to the courts of heaven, almost forgetting with him, the world in which our path still lay; when through the window, open to the sunset of a June evening, there came the sound of a hurried arrival. "It is Arthur," murmured the dying man, faintly, turning his eyes on me. "Go and bring him to me." I hurried to the door and down the path. "You have not a moment to lose," I said, without a word of preparation or salutation. "He can hardly live an hour, and he desires to see you." "Good heaven! Has it indeed come to that!" he exclaimed, following me up the stairs. I left him at the door; for half an hour they were alone together, then Mr. Rutledge opened the door and called me hastily to come in. I obeyed; but only in time to receive the last blessing of the dying saint, and, kneeling in unspeakable sorrow by his bedside, to feel his hand rest tenderly on my head, with a silent benediction, even after his departing soul had carried its supplication and its intercession to the very presence of the Divine Benefactor.