He only retired, however, because he received a pension amounting to his full salary, for which he had striven and kept me out of his shoes so long.

Putting the thought of this on one side, the secretaryship was now mine, as soon as I arrived to claim it--the sooner that was, the better, the vicar added, as if I needed any stimulus to return to home and my darling! What a delightful, darling letter Min sent to me, too! She told me that I was to start off immediately--"at once, sir,"-- on receipt of her tender little missive.

She was expecting me, looking for me, awaiting me! She had learnt all the songs I liked; had prepared the dresses in which I had said she looked best; would greet me, oh, so gladly! I was to keep my promise and arrive on Christmas-eve, when her mother would be happy to see me; and she--well, she didn't know yet whether _she_ would speak to me or not:--it, really, depended whether I was "good!" I took my passage in a steamer leaving the next day; but, instead of getting home on Christmas-eve, I only arrived at Liverpool a day before the close of the year--six days late! However, I was in England at last, in the same dear land that held my darling; and she would forgive me, I knew, when she saw how glad I was to get back to her dear little self.

"Naughty Frank!" she would say--"I won't speak to you at all, sir!" And, wouldn't she?
Oh, dear no! All the way up to town from the fair city on the Mersey, the railway nymphs, whom I had previously noticed on my journey to Southampton, were as busy as then, with their musical strains.
The burden of their present song, echoing through my heart, was,-- "Going to see Min! Going to see Min! Going to see Min, without delay! Going to see Min! Going to see Min! Soon! Soon!! Soon!!" The last bars chiming in when the buffers joined the chorus with a "jolt, jolt, jolt." As the train glided, at length--after some six hours of reeling and bumping and puffing along, the railway nymphs never slackening their song for an instant, into the Euston-square station--I saw the kind vicar and dear little Miss Pimpernell awaiting me on the platform.
It was just like their usual kindness to come and meet me thus! I had telegraphed to them from Liverpool, telling them the time when I might hope to be in London; and, there they were to the minute, although I had never expected them, having only informed them of my coming, in order that they might let my darling know that I was on my way to her.
I jumped out of the carriage before it stopped, in defiance of all the company's bye-laws; and, advanced to clasp their outstretched hands.
But-- What was it, that I could read in the grave kind face of the one, the glad yet sorrowful eyes of the other, before a word had passed on either side?
What was it, that congealed the flood of joyful questionings, with which I went forward to meet them, in an icy lump pressing down upon my brain; and, that snapped a chord in my heart that has never vibrated since?
Min was dead!.