to remind him how near he must be to the end. He had risen up cheerfully in the morning, and gone to bed cheerfully at night; and what was to hinder that it should be so forever? But now all at once the old man seemed to hear the messenger knocking at the door. He was knocking very softly as yet, only a confused, faint tapping, which might be some chance passer-by, and not the emissary of the Great King--tapping very softly, and the door had not yet been opened to him; but how if it was he? This was the thought that assailed Sir Ludovic with something like the same fretting, disturbing influence as actual knocking at the old door, faintly persistent, though never violent, might have had. He was impatient of it, but he had not been able to get rid of it. After all, it was not wonderful that an old man should get tired and be drowsy in the afternoon. He had not for a long time acknowledged to himself that this was the case; but lately it had been difficult to deny it, and the little event of yesterday had forced it, with a deepened touch of the disagreeable, on his notice. Rob Glen’s sketch, though it was so slight, had conveyed a stronger impression to his own mind of his own agedness and feebleness than all his other experiences of himself. The old figure reclining back in the easy-chair, thin, with meagre limbs following the angles of the chair, and languid, helpless hands stretched out upon its supports: the sight of it had given Sir Ludovic a shock. He had been partially soothed afterward by the natural desire of Margaret to have “a picture” of him, as she said. “Not like the grand gentleman over the mantel-piece,” the girl had said, “but in your chair, sitting there with your book, as you have always, always been to me.” This “always, always,” had been a comfort to him. It had breathed the very essence of that continuance which had seemed to become the one quality of life that mattered much; but notwithstanding Margaret’s “always,” the sketch had given him a shock. He thought of it again this morning as he sat in the same spot and felt now and then the soft puff of the fresh summer air. Was it, perhaps, that even Margaret, his little Peggy, was already conscious of that “afterward,” when it would be something for her to have even so slight a sketch of her father? That bit of paper would last longer than he should. When his chair had been set back against the wall, and his books all dispersed to the ends of the earth, how well he could fancy his little girl taking it out, crying, perhaps--then smiling, saying, “This is the one I like best of poor papa; that was how he used to be at the last.” She would cry at first, poor little girl--it would make a great difference to his little Peggy; but after a while she would smile, and be able to tell how like it was to poor papa.