a great deal to say about her poor sister, and 'it wasn't her wish'; but Mr Harford, who was on the watch, began to answer her, so as to keep her from going upstairs with the visitors. Little Judy, now a nice, neat girl of fourteen, was sitting by her, but rose to go away when the lady came in.
Judith was leaning against pillows, and the pink flush in her cheeks and her smile of greeting prevented Sophy from seeing how ill and wasted she looked, thin and weak as were the fingers that lay on the coverlet.
'Why, Judith, you look much better than I expected. You will soon be as well as ever.'
Judith only smiled, and said, 'Thank you, ma'am! I hope Mrs Carbonel is better.'
'Yes. She is getting better now, and she is very sorry not to come and see you; but perhaps she may be able before we go away.'
'And little Miss Mary, ma'am?'
'She has been quite another creature since we have been at Poppleby-not at all fretty, and almost rosy.'
'I am glad. And you are going away, ma'am?'
'Yes; off to a beautiful island in the Mediterranean Sea, close to all the places where Saint Paul preached. You know Dora is at Malta, where he was shipwrecked.'
'Yes, ma'am; I like to know it. You will give my duty to her, Miss Sophy, and thank her-oh! so much,'-and Judith clasped her hands-'for all she and you and Mrs Carbonel have been to me. You seemed to bring the light back to me, just as my faith was growing slack and dull.'
'Yes; I will tell her, Judith. I don't like leaving you, but it won't seem long till we come back; and we will send you those beautiful Maltese oranges.'
Judith smiled that beautiful smile again. 'Ah, Miss Sophy, you have been very good, and helped me ever so much; but my time is nearly over, and I shall not want even you and madam where I am going. I shall see His face,' she murmured; and lifted up her hands.
Sophy was rather frightened, and felt as if she had done wrong in talking of oranges. She did not know what to say, and only got out something about Johnnie and a comfort.
'Yes, that he is, Miss Sophy, and little Judy too. The boy, he is that shy and quiet, no one would believe the blessed things he says and reads to me at night. He
'Oh! to you, Judith. You made him good before we had him, though Mary and Dora did help,' said Sophy, with rising tears.
'And oh! I am so thankful,' she said, clasping her hands, 'for what the captain is doing for the boy.'
'He deserves it, I am sure,' said Sophy.
'It will keep him easier to the right way, and it would be harder for him when I am gone, and his father come home! And Mr Harford, he says he will find a good place for Judy. She is a good girl, a right good girl.'
'That she is.'
'And, maybe, Mrs Carbonel and you, when you come home, would be good to my poor sister. She've been a good sister to me, she has, with it all, but it has all been against her, and she would be a different woman if she could. Please remember her.'
'We will, we will if we can.'
Then Judith went on to beg Sophy to write to her former mistress, Mrs Barnard, with all her thanks for past kindness. That seemed to exhaust her a good deal, and she lay back, just saying faintly, 'If you would read me a little bit, miss.'
The Prayer-Book lay nearest, and Sophy read, 'Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace,' as well as she could amid the choking tears. She felt as if she were lifted into some higher air, but Judith lay so white and still that she durst not do more than say, 'Good-bye, dear Judith.' She was going to say, 'I will come and see you again,' but something withheld her. She thought Judith's lips said, 'Up there.' She bent down, kissed the cheek, now quite white, and crept down, passing Molly at the turn.
Two days later Mr Harford came to say that Judith was gone. Her last communion with Johnnie, and with George Hewlett, had been given to her the day before, and she had not spoken afterwards, only her face had been strangely bright.
The Carbonels could only feel that her remnant of life had been shortened by all she had undergone for their sakes, and Edmund and Sophy both stood as mourners at her grave, Sophy feeling that her life had been more of a deepening,
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. THE GOLDEN CHAINS.
'A form unseen is pulling us behind,
Threads turn to cords, and cords to cables strong,
Till habit hath become as Destiny,
Which drives us on, and shakes her scourge on high.'
Captain Carbonel lost no time after Judith Grey's funeral in sending John Hewlett to his new master, Mr Jones. The place was the Carbonels' old home, in a county far-away from Uphill. George had wished the lad to go to a cabinet-maker whom he knew at Minsterham, but he was convinced by the captain's advice to let him be quite away from the assizes, which would not only be pain and shame to him, but would mark his name with the brand of the same kind as that of an informer. This Mr Jones was well-known to the Carbonel family as an excellent man-a churchwarden, and sure to care for the welfare, spiritual as well as bodily, of those commended to him.
And it happened, not unfortunately for John, that, in the captain's handwriting, his rather uncommon name was read as Newlett, and for some time after he arrived he never found out the mistake, and was rather glad of it when he did so, since no one connected him with the rick-burner who gave evidence against his leader.
Dan himself came home to find that he was held in more utter disgrace than for all his former disreputable conduct, which only passed for good-fellowship. If he had been hanged, or even transported, he would only have been 'poor Dan Hewlett,' and his wife would have had all the pity due to widowhood; but everybody fought shy of him, and the big lads hooted at him. He could not get work, Judith's pension had failed, and they lived scantily on what Farmer Goodenough allowed Molly to earn, as an old hand, to be kept off the parish. Little Judith was apprenticed to Mrs Pearson, according to the old fashion which bound out pauper girls as apprentices to service, and which had one happy effect, namely, that they could not drift foolishly from one situation to another, though, in bad hands, they sometimes had much to suffer. But Mrs Pearson was a kind, conscientious mistress, and Judy was a good girl, so that all went well.
Dan slouched about, snared rabbits and hares, and drank up the proceeds thereof at little public-houses where he was not known, or where the company was past caring about his doings. At last, he was knocked down in the dark by the mail-coach, and brought home in a cart, slowly dying.
Mr Harford came to see him, and found his recollections of old times reviving, when he had been Dame Verdon's best scholar. 'I could beat old George any day at his book. And, then, I was church singer, and had the solos,' he said, evidently thinking sadly of his better days. 'And my wife, she was that tidy-only she did put too much on her back!'
The screen, which Judith had of late years kept with the panel with the laburnums on the back side, had by accident been now turned so that he saw them; and, when Mr Harford came the next day, he broke out-
'Them flowers! Them flowers, sir!'
Mr Harford could not understand.
'Them golden chains, sir. They was at the bottom of it.'
Mr Harford understood still less.
'They talk of devils' chains, sir, and how they drags a man down. Them was a link, sure enough. That paper there, sir, I keeps seeing it at night by the rushlight, and they gets to look just like chains.'
Then Mr Harford understood that he meant the laburnums on the paper- golden chains, as they are often called.
'I was working with George,' he said, 'before them Carbonels came, and when there was a piece of the parlour paper left over, I took it for a parkisit. I didn't let George know; he always seemed too particular. 'Twas more than I had reckoned on; and one bit I papered Mrs Brown's room, at Downhill, with; and one bit that was left
