e. He had many visits of friendship or business to pay,
but he could not resist going first to Mrs. Bellairs.

After all, now that the first sharpness of his disappointment was over,
it was pleasant to be at home and to meet friendly faces at every turn.
He had to stop again and again to exchange greetings with people on the
road, and even sometimes to receive congratulations on being a "rich man
now," "a lucky fellow"--congratulations which were both spoken and
listened to as much as if the lands of Hunsdon were a fairy penny, in
the virtues of which neither speaker nor hearer had any very serious
belief. In fact, there was something odd and incredible in the idea that
this was no longer plain Maurice Leigh, the most popular and one of the
poorest members of this small Backwoods world, but Maurice Leigh
Beresford, of Hunsdon, an English country gentleman rich enough, if he
chose, to buy up the whole settlement.

Maurice went on his way, however, little troubled by his new dignity,
and found Mrs. Bellairs and Bella expecting him. They had guessed that
he would not delay coming for the promised address, and Mr. Strafford's
note containing it lay ready on the table; but when he came into the
room their visitor did actually for the moment forget his errand in
seeing the sombre black-robed figure which had taken the place of the
gay Bella Latour. He had gone away just before her wedding, he had left
her happy, bright, mischievous,--a girl whom sorrow had never touched,
who seemed incapable of understanding what trouble meant; he came back,
full of his own perplexities and disappointments, and found her one so
seized upon by grief that it had grown into her nature, and clothed and
crowned her with its sad pre-eminence. There was no ostentation of
mourning about the young widow, it is true, but none the less Maurice in
looking at her first forgot himself utterly, and then remembered his
impatience and ill-humour with more shame than was at all agreeable.

To Bella also the meeting was a painful one. Of all her friends, Maurice
was the only one who was associated with her girlish happiness, and
quite dissociated from her married life and its tragic ending. The sight
of him, therefore, renewed for the moment the recollections which she
had taught herself to keep as much as possible for her solitary hours,
and almost disturbed the calm she had forced upon herself in the
presence of others.

Mrs. Bellairs, however, used to her