while.

'You will call on Mrs. Westlake as you pass through London?' Mr. Wyvern
next inquired.

'Mrs. Westlake?' the other repeated absently. 'Yes, I dare say I shall
see her.'

'Do, by all means.'

They began to descend the hill.

The Walthams no longer lived in Wanley. A year ago the necessities of
Alfred Waltham's affairs had led to a change; he and his wife and their
two children, together with Mrs. Waltham the dowager, removed to what
the auctioneers call a commodious residence on the outskirts of Belwick.
Alfred remarked that it was as well not to be so far from civilisation;
he pointed out, too, that it was time for him to have an eye to civic
dignities, if only a place on the Board of Guardians to begin with.
Our friend was not quite so uncompromising in his political and social
opinions as formerly. His wife observed that he ceased to subscribe
to Socialist papers, and took in a daily of orthodox Liberal
tendencies--that is to say, an organ of capitalism. Letty rejoiced at
the change, but knew her husband far too well to make any remark upon
it.

To their house, about three months after her husband's death, came
Adela. The intermediate time she had passed with Stella. All were very
glad to have her at Belwick--Letty in particular, who, though a matron
with two bouncing boys, still sat at Adela's feet and deemed her the
model of womanhood. Adela was not so sad as they had feared to find her.
She kept a great deal to her own room, but was always engaged in study,
and seemed to find peace in that way. She was silent in her habits,
scarcely ever joining in general conversation; but when Letty could
steal an hour from household duties and go to Adela's room she was
always sure of hearing wise and tender words in which her heart
delighted. Her pride in Adela was boundless. On the day when the latter
first attired herself in modified mourning, Letty, walking with her in
the garden, could not refrain from saying how Adela's dress became her.

'You are more beautiful every day, dear,' she added, in spite of a
tremor which almost checked her in uttering a compliment which her
sister might think too frivolous.

But Adela blushed, one would have thought it was with pleasure. Sadness,
however, followed, and Letty wondered whether the beautiful face was
destined to wear its pallor always.

On this same spring morning, when Hubert Eldon was taking leave of
Wanley, Mrs. Waltham and Letty were talking of a visit Ade