d imagination! How sweet in the telling
was the story of the ring, so sad in the experience! and the recountings
of the times that they had seen each other of late. Philip had caught
more glimpses than she. He came down--he dared not say to watch over
her in this time of sickness--but because he could not stay away when he
heard of the condition of Deerbrook. But for this sickness would they
have met--should they ever have understood each other again? This was a
speculation on which they could not dwell--it led them too near the
verge of the grave which was yawning for Matilda. Mrs Rowland would
have been relieved, but the relief would have been not unmixed with
humiliation, if she could have known how easily she was let off in this
long conference. Not only can the happy easily forgive, but they are
exceedingly apt to forget the causes and the history of their woes; and
the wretched lady who, in the midst of her grief and terror for her
child, trembled at home at the image of the lovers she had injured, was,
to those lovers in their happiness, much as if she had never existed.

"Mrs Howell!" said Margaret, hearing her sister mention their departed
neighbour, after Philip was gone. "Is it possible that it was this very
afternoon that I saw that poor woman die?"

"Even so, dear. How many days, or months, or years, have you lived
since? A whole age of bliss, Margaret!"

Margaret's blush said "Yes."

CHAPTER FORTY SIX.

DEERBROOK IN SUNSHINE.

On the first news of the fever being gone, the Greys returned to
Deerbrook, and Dr Levitt's family soon followed. The place wore a
strange appearance to those who had been absent for some time. Large
patches of grass overspread the main street, and cows might have
pastured on the thatch of some of the cottages, while the once green
churchyard looked brown and bare from the number of new graves crowded
in among the old ones. In many a court were the spring-flowers running
wild over the weedy borders, for want of hands to tend them; and the
birds built in many a chimney from which the blue smoke had been wont to
rise in the morning air. Sophia and her sisters noted these things as
they walked through the place on the morning after their arrival, while
their father was engaged in inspecting the parish register, to learn how
many of his neighbours were gone, and their mother was paying her visit
of condolence to Mrs Rowland.

Fanny and Mary were much impressed t