uncle was right. Mr. Ayre therefore, settled everything as far as it could be done; interested Harry in packing up such things as were to be removed, and putting the house and premises in order; and then he bade us farewell, taking with him Mrs. Wilson and Harry, for whom he had written to engage a small house at Cheltenham, near his own, and where Harry could reside with his mother, and daily attend the College. He also provided a kind and experienced nurse for his sister, as Maud was unable to leave her family, and only one of the servants from Emerald Bank wished to go so far from home. Subsequently, Mr. Ayre entirely adopted his nephew, educating him in his own profession, for which Harry had a decided turn. He grew up a very excellent and high principled young man, the trials and impressions of his early life had not been lost or effaced by time-and the recollection of his sweet and pious sister seemed to shed an atmosphere of purity and goodness around him-as though her spirit was ever hovering near. In after years, he would sometimes steal a day from more active duties, to come up and visit "Our Graves,”—a most charmingly welcome guest to my brother and myself, and a very handsome young man he grew up. He loved to talk of his mother and his lost sisters, and had planted a willow over her grave, with his own hands, before he left Overton We remained long enough to see it grow a large tree. CHAPTER XVIII. CONCLUSION. It was a lovely, bright Sunday afternoon in the month of July, that Cuthbert and I came out through the porch of the old Church into the summer's sun. We had lingered behind the last of the other worshippers who were leaving that sacred building, and turned our steps towards our cherished graves, where more than a year and half ago we had laid our beloved one in her youth and loveliness; and sweet flowers were lifting their bright eyes to heaven, and the little white headstone on which was carved the figure of a dove, cut just over Lotty's name, sparkled in the sun, in strict accordance with a memorandum of the dear girl's, which poor Harry found in her dressing-case a few days after her death. Since that sorrowful day, when we all stood around our darling's open Grave, our hearts wrung with the agony too great for utterance, Cuthbert had never once omitted his attendance at Church, nor at the Holy Communion. He had indeed passed through the fire of affliction, and had come forth a sadder but a better man. I have no longer cause to mourn for my brother, for, like the Prodigal Son, he has returned to the bosom of his Father, there to find repose and peace; wandering no further in a dark and dangerous way, but walking in the blessed sunlight of Gospel Truth; for the time, the blessed time, had come at last. And here, by "Our Graves," we often stand together, and are enabled to speak calmly and with resignation of the past, and of our blessed hope of a happy future, where we shall be united for ever with those to whom our hearts had clung so fondly here on earth. And now I am all in all to Cuthbert again. No divided affections are mine, for the love which once belonged to his affianced one, is no longer the same, but purified and changed into that which a son of earth might be permitted to feel towards an angel in heaven. On his loving, faithful sister's bosom had he leaned through all his bitter trial, into her ear alone had he poured forth his soul's misery, and sought for words of comfort and of hope. And |