y upon a round, damask-covered-stand
in the corner, under her mother's picture painted in the graceful
days of the gray silks and llama laces; and around this, drooping
and trailing till they touched the little table and veiled the box
that held the beautiful secret,--seeming to say, "We know it too,
for we are a part,"--wreathed the shining sprays of blossomy fern.

In these sunny days of early spring, Sylvie could not help being
happy. The snows were gone now, except in deep, dark places, out of
the woods; the ferns and vines and grasses were alive and eager for
a new summer's grace and fullness; their far-off presence made the
air different, already, from the airs of winter.

Yet Rodney Sherrett had kept silence.

All these weeks had gone by, and Miss Euphrasia had had no answer
from over the water. Of all the letters that went safely into mail
bags, and of all the mail bags that went as they were bound, and of
all the white messages that were scattered like doves when those
bags were opened,--somehow--it can never be told how,--that
particular little white, folded sheet got mishandled, mislaid, or
missent, and failed of its errand; and at the time when Miss
Euphrasia began to be convinced that it must be so, there came a
letter from Mr. Sherrett to herself, written from London, where he
had just arrived after a visit to Berlin.

"I have had no family news," he wrote, "of later date than January
20th. Trust all is well. Shall sail from Liverpool on the 9th."

The date of that was March 20th.

The fourteenth of April, Easter Monday, was fixed for Desire
Ledwith's marriage.

Rachel Froke came back on the Friday previous. Desire would have her
in time, but not for any fatigues.

The gray parlor was all ready; everything just as it had been before
she left it. The ivies had been carefully tended, and the golden and
brown canary was singing in his cage. There was nothing to remind of
the different life to which, the place had been lent, making its
last hours restful and pleasant, or of the death that had stepped so
noiselessly and solemnly in.

Desire had formally made over this house to her cousin and
co-heiress, Hazel Ripwinkley.

"It must never be left waiting, a mere possible convenience, for
anybody," she said. "There must be a real life in it, as long as we
can order it so."

The Ripwinkleys were to leave Aspen Street, and come here with
Hazel. Miss Craydocke, who never had half room enough in Orchard