Robert shook his hand, and thanked him sincerely for his ability and probity. He stayed that night at the Vicarage, and by that means fell in with another acquaintance. General Rolleston and his daughter drove down to see the parsonage. Helen wanted to surprise Robert; and, as often happens, she surprised herself. She made him show her everything; and so he took her on to his peninsula. Lo! the edges of it had been cut and altered, so that it presented a miniature copy of Godsend Island. As soon as she saw this, Helen turned round with a sudden cry of love, "Oh, Robert!" and the lovers were in each other's arms. "What could any other man ever be to me?" "And what could any other woman ever be to me?" They knew that before. But this miniature island made them speak out and say it. The wedding-day was fixed before she left. Her majesty pardoned this scholar, hero, and worthy, the crime he had never committed. Nancy Rouse took the penitent Wylie without the 2,000 pounds. But old Penfold, who knew the whole story, lent the money at three per cent; so the Wylies pay a ground-rent of 60 pounds a year for a property which, by Mrs. Wylie's industry and judgment, is worth at least 400 pounds. She pays this very cheerfully, and appeals to Joe whether that is not better than the other way. "Why, Joe," says she, "to a woman like me, that's a-foot all day, 'tis worth sixty pounds a year to be a good sleeper; and I shouldn't be that if I had wronged my neighbor." Arthur Wardlaw is in a private lunatic asylum, and is taken great care of. In his lucid intervals he suffers horrible distress of mind; but, though sad to see, these agonies furnish the one hope of his ultimate recovery. When not troubled by these returns of reason, he is contented enough. His favorite employment is to get Mr. Undercliff's fac-similes, and to write love-letters to Helen Rolleston which are duly deposited in the post-office _of the establishment._ These letters are in the handwriting of Charles I., Paoli, Lord Bacon, Alexander Pope, Lord Chesterfield, Nelson, Lord Shaftesbury, Addison, the late Duke of Wellington, and so on. And, strange to say, the Greek e never appears in any of them. They are admirably like, though the matter is not always equally consistent with the characters of those personages. |