About two years after the events I have just described, in the Autumn, when life was low and dreary at Whiteladies, a new and unexpected visitor arrived at the old house. Herbert and his sister had not come home that Summer, as they had hoped--nor even the next. He was better, almost out of the doctor’s hands, having taken, it was evident, a new lease of life. But he was not strong, nor could ever be; his life, though renewed, and though it might now last for years, could never be anything but that of an invalid. So much all his advisers had granted. He might last as long as any of the vigorous persons round him, by dint of care and constant watchfulness; but it was not likely that he could ever be a strong man like others, or that he could live without taking care of himself, or being taken care of. This, which they would all have hailed with gratitude while he was very ill, seemed but a pale kind of blessedness now when it was assured, and when it became certain his existence must be spent in thinking about his health, in moving from one place to another as the season went on, according as this place or the other “agreed with him,” seeking the cool in Summer and the warmth in Winter, with no likelihood of ever being delivered from this bondage. He had scarcely found this out himself, poor fellow, but still entertained hopes of getting strong, at some future moment always indefinitely postponed. He had not been quite strong enough to venture upon England during the Summer, much as he had looked forward to it; and though in the meantime he had come of age, and nominally assumed the control of his own affairs, the celebration of this coming of age had been a dreary business enough. Farrel-Austin, looking black as night, and feeling himself a man swindled and cheated out of his rights, had been present at the dinner of the tenantry, in spite of himself, and with sentiments toward Herbert which may be divined; and with only such dismal pretence at delight as could be shown by the family solicitor, whose head was full of other things, the rejoicings had passed over. There had been a great field-day, indeed, at the almshouse chapel, where the old people, with their cracked voices, tried to chant Psalms xx. and xxi., and were much bewildered in their old souls as to whom “the king” might be whose desire of his heart they thus prayed God to grant. Mrs. Matthews alone, who was more learned, theologically, than her neighbors, having been brought up a Methody, professed to some understanding of it; but even she was wonderfully confused between King David and a greater than he, and poor young Herbert, whose birthday it was. “He may be the squire, if you please, and if so be as he lives,” said old Sarah, who was Mrs. Matthews’s rival, “many’s the time I’ve nursed him, and carried him about in my arms, and who should know if I don’t? But there ain’t no power in this world as can make young Mr. Herbert king o’ England, so