Vanity of Vanities

Some one was standing at the foot--not the sexton--but a young man
bending as with an intolerable load of grief. Rachel saw him first, when
Alick was helping her down the step, and her start of dismay made him
turn and look round. His brow contracted, and she clutched his arm with
an involuntary cry of, "Oh, don't," but he, with a gesture that at once
awed and tranquillized her, unclasped her hold and put her back, while
he stepped forward.

She could hear every word, though his voice was low and deep with
emotion. "Carleton, if I have ever been harsh or unjust in my dealings
towards you, I am sorry for it. We have both had the saddest of all
lessons. May we both take it as we ought."

He wrung the surprised and unwilling hand, and before the youth,
startled and overcome, had recovered enough to attempt a reply, he had
come back to Rachel, resumed her arm, and crossed the churchyard, still
shivering and trembling with the agitation, and the force he had put
on himself. Rachel neither could nor durst speak; she only squeezed his
hand, and when he had shut himself up in his own room, she could not
help repairing to his uncle, and telling him the whole. Mr. Clare's "God
bless you, my boy," had double meaning in it that night.

Not long after, Alick told Rachel of his having met poor young Carleton
in the meadows, pretending to occupy himself with his fishing-rod, but
too wretched to do anything. And in a short time Mrs. Carleton again
called to pour out to Mrs. Keith her warm thanks to the Captain, for
having roused her son from his moody, unmanageable despair, and made him
consent to accept a situation in a new field of labour, in a spirit of
manful duty that he had never evinced before.