There was no disputing the change in the face, the authority of the voice. Gently they gathered around him, and Elizabeth laid the sleeping child on a pillow by his side. Richard saw him glance at the chubby little hand stretched out, and he lifted it to the squire's face. The dying man kissed it, and smilingly looked at Elizabeth. Then he let his eyes wander to Richard and his daughter-in-law. "Good-bye, all!" he whispered, faintly, and almost with the pleasant words upon his lips he went away. In a few hours the Christmas waits came singing through the park, and the Christmas bells filled the air with jubilant music; but Squire Henry Hallam had passed far beyond the happy clamor. He had gone home to spend the Christmas feast with the beloved who were waiting for him; with the just made perfect; with the great multitude which no man can number. CHAPTER VIII. "We are here to fight the battle of life, not to shirk it." "The last days of my life until to-day, What were they, could I see them on the street Lie as they fell. Would they be ears of wheat Sown once for food, but trodden into clay? Or golden coins squandered and still to pay?" "The only way to look bravely and prosperously forward is never to look back." Antony arrived at Hallam about an hour after the squire's death. He was not a man of quick affections, but he loved his father. He was grieved at his loss, and he was very anxious as to the disposition of the estate. It is true that he had sold his birthright, but yet he half expected that both his father and sister would at the last be opposed to his dispossession. The most practical of men on every other subject, he yet associated with his claim upon Hallam all kinds of romantic generosities. He felt almost sure that, when the will came to be read, he would find Hallam left to him, under conditions which he could either fulfill or set aside. It seemed, after all, a preposterous thing to leave a woman in control of such a property when there were already two male heirs. And Hallam had lately grown steadily upon his desires. He had not found money-making either the pleasant or easy process he had imagined it would be; in fact, he had had more than one great disappointment to contend against.