| 490 | 491 | 492 | 493 | 494 |
| 1 | 133 | 265 | 398 | 530 |
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'In company with me and my friend in the next room. Can you guess
its purpose?'
Kit turned paler yet, and shook his head.
'
Oh yes. I think you do already,' said his master. 'Try.'
Kit murmured something rather rambling and unintelligible, but he
plainly pronounced the words 'Miss Nell,' three or four times -
shaking his head while he did so, as if he would add that there was no
hope of that.
But Mr Garland, instead of saying 'Try again,' as Kit had made sure he
would, told him very seriously, that he had guessed right.
'
The place of their retreat is indeed discovered,' he said, 'at last. And
that is our journey's end.'
Kit faltered out such questions as, where was it, and how had it been
found, and how long since, and was she well and happy?
'
Happy she is, beyond all doubt,' said Mr Garland. 'And well, I - I
trust she will be soon. She has been weak and ailing, as I learn, but
she was better when I heard this morning, and they were full of hope.
Sit you down, and you shall hear the rest.'
Scarcely venturing to draw his breath, Kit did as he was told. Mr
Garland then related to him, how he had a brother (of whom he would
remember to have heard him speak, and whose picture, taken when
he was a young man, hung in the best room), and how this brother
lived a long way off, in a country-place, with an old clergyman who
had been his early friend. How, although they loved each other as
brothers should, they had not met for many years, but had
communicated by letter from time to time, always looking forward to
some period when they would take each other by the hand once more,
and still letting the Present time steal on, as it was the habit for men
to do, and suffering the Future to melt into the Past. How this brother,
whose temper was very mild and quiet and retiring - such as Mr
Abel's - was greatly beloved by the simple people among whom he
dwelt, who quite revered the Bachelor (for so they called him), and had
every one experienced his charity and benevolence. How even those
slight circumstances had come to his knowledge, very slowly and in
course of years, for the Bachelor was one of those whose goodness
shuns the light, and who have more pleasure in discovering and
extolling the good deeds of others, than in trumpeting their own, be
they never so commendable. How, for that reason, he seldom told
them of his village friends; but how, for all that, his mind had become
so full of two among them - a child and an old man, to whom he had
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