church the other day, God forgive me! and it did seem so hard for her to be the only face which I did not see—and have not seen her yet, either."
"So I thought, dear lad," said Frank, with one of his sweetest smiles; "and tried to get her father to let her impersonate the nymph of Torridge."
"Did you, you dear kind fellow? That would have been too delicious."
"Just so, too delicious; wherefore, I suppose, it was ordained not to be, that which was being delicious enough."
"And is she as pretty as ever?"
"Ten times as pretty, dear lad, as half the young fellows round have discovered. If you mean to win her and wear her (and God grant you may fare no worse!) you will have rivals enough to get rid of."
"Humph!" said Amyas, "I hope I shall not have to make short work with some of them."
"I hope not," said Frank, laughing. "Now go to bed, and tomorrow morning give your sword to mother to keep, lest you should be tempted to draw it on any of her Majesty's lieges."
"No fear of that, Frank; I am no swash-buckler, thank God; but if any one gets in my way, I'll serve him as the mastiff did the terrier, and just drop him over the quay into the river, to cool himself, or my name's not Amyas."
And the giant swung himself laughing out of the room, and slept all night like a seal, not without dreams, of course, of Rose Salterne.
The next morning, according to his wont, he went into his mother's room, whom he was sure to find up and at her prayers; for he liked to say his prayers, too, by her side, as he used to do when he was a little boy. It seemed so homelike, he said, after three years' knocking up and down in no-man's land. But coming gently to the door, for fear of disturbing her, and entering unperceived, beheld a sight which stopped him short.
Mrs. Leigh was sitting in her chair, with her face bowed fondly down upon the head of his brother Frank, who knelt before her, his face buried in her lap. Amyas could see that his whole form was quivering with stifled emotion. Their mother was just finishing the last words of a well-known text—"for my sake, and the Gospel's, shall receive a hundredfold in this present life, fathers, and mothers, and brothers, and sisters."
"But not a wife!" interrupted Frank, with a voice stifled with sobs; "that was too precious a gift for even Him to promise to those who gave up a first love for His sake!"
"And yet," said he, after a moment's silence, "has He not heaped me with blessings enough already, that I must repine and rage at His refusing me one more, even though that one be—No, mother! I am your son, and God's; and you shall know it, even though Amyas never does!" And he looked up with his
