a suddenly changed
mood, 'especially not such a stick as that. He might have let it alone.'

'And if you heard that Captain Alder was--'

'A repentant prodigal, eh? A sober-minded, sponsible, easy-going, steady
money-making Canadian,' interrupted Bertha vehemently, 'such as approved
himself to his Lordship's jog-trot mind. Well, what then?'

'Oh, Birdie, perverse child as ever.'

'And so you actually despatched my Lord to eat humble pie in my name.
You might have waited to see what I thought of the process.'

Bertha jumped up, as if to go and take off her hat, but just at that
moment some figures crossed the twilight window, and in another second
Adela had sprung into the hall, meeting Mary and Frank, whom she beckoned
into the dining-room.

Bertha had followed as far as the room door, when, in the porch, she
beheld a tall large form, and bearded countenance. One moment more and
those two were shut into the drawing-room.

Mary, Frank, and Adela stood together over the dining-room fire, all
smiles and welcome.

'Doesn't he look well?' was Mary's cry, as she displayed her husband.

'Better than ever. Nothing like bracing air. Oh! I am glad you brought
_him_' indicating the other room, 'down at once; she might have had a
naughty fit, and tormented herself and everybody.'

'You think it will be all right?' said Frank anxiously. 'It was a
venture, but when he heard that she was at the Dower House, there was no
holding him. He thinks she has as much to forgive as he has.'

'You wrote something of that--though the actual misery and accident were
no fault of his, poor fellow, and yet--yet all that self-acted and
re-acted on one another, and did each other harm,' said Adela.

'Yes,' said Frank; 'harm that he only fully understood gradually, after
he had burst away from it all in the shock, and was living a very
different life with his little sister, and afterwards with her husband, a
thoroughly good man.'

'To whom you have trusted your nephew?'

'Entirely. Herbert is very happy there, much more so than ever before,
useful and able to follow his natural bent.'

'I am very glad he will do well there.'

A sudden interruption here came on them in the shape of Amice, who had
not been guarded against. She flew into the room in a fright,
exclaiming--

'Mamma, mamma, there's a strange man like a black bear in the
drawing-room, and he has got his arm round Aunt Bertha's waist.'

'Oh!' as she perceived Lor