The words evidently awoke some poignant source of deep sorrow.

"Oh, my boy! My boy!" she wailed--"my boy! My unhappy boy! Mr.Hare wonders at my ill-health, Archibald; Barbara ridicules it; but there lies the source of all my misery, mental and bodily.

Oh, Richard! Richard!" There was a distressing pause, for the topic admitted of neither hope nor consolation.

"Put your chain on again, Barbara," Mr.Carlyle said, after a while, "and I wish you health to wear it out.

Health and reformation, young lady!" Barbara smiled and glanced at him with her pretty blue eyes, so full of love.