He turned to her, a great light shining over his face. "Ah! yes, my darling, you are waiting. How long you have been waiting! But I'm ready--ready.--I knew you would come, Hester, I knew you would come when I wanted you most----" "Papa!" cried Cicely, in a voice shrill with terror. He started, the light went out of his face, his eyes grew cloudy and bewildered. "What were you saying, Cicely? I am getting--a little hard of hearing. I don't think I heard what you said." "Come in to supper, papa." "Yes, yes; but you need not trouble; there is nothing the matter," he said, recovering himself. And he went with her and ate something dutifully, not without appetite. Then he returned to his study. When Cicely went to him there to say good-night he was smiling to himself. "I am coming; I am coming," he said. "No need to tell me twice; I know when I am in good hands." "Good night, papa--you are going to bed?--we must be early to-morrow," said Cicely. "Yes, early--early," he said, still smiling. "Directly, Hester--before you have reached the gate----" "Papa! don't you know me?" cried Cicely, trembling from head to foot. Again he turned to her with his old face all lighted up and shining. "Know you! my darling!" he said. CHAPTER XVIII. THE CURATE LEAVES BRENTBURN. Cicely went to her room that night in a very nervous and disturbed condition. It was her last night, too, in the house in which she had been born; but she had no leisure to think of that, or to indulge in any natural sentiments on the subject. She was very much alarmed about her father, whose looks were so strange, but did not know what to do. That he should take her for her mother was perhaps not wonderful at such a moment of agitation; but it frightened her more than words can say. What could she do? It was night, and there was no one in the house with her but Betsy, who had for hours been buried in deepest slumbers; and even had she been able to send for the doctor, what advance would that have made?--for he was not ill, only strange, and it was so natural that he should be strange;--and the good steady-going country doctor, acquainted with honest practical fevers and rheumatism, what help could he bring to a mind diseased? Cicely had changed her room in her new office of nurse, and now occupied a small inner chamber communicating with that of the two children. She was sitting there pondering and thinking when she heard her father come upstairs. Then he appeared suddenly bending over the children's little cots. He had a candle in his hand, and stooping feebly, kissed the little boys. He was talking to himself all the time; but she could not make out what he said, except, as he stood looking at the children, "Poor things, poor things! God bless you." Cicely did not show herself, anxiously as she watched, and he went out again and on to his own room. He was going to bed quietly, and after all it might turn out to be nothing; perhaps he had been dozing when he called her Hester,