d recall the
words which had been uttered about her, and that the best people in the
town should pay their respects to her. The time was now summer, and
although it is hard to make a garden beautiful, even while two miles
away from the grime and smoke of the town, he had done all that was
possible in that direction.

"She will be here to-morrow night," he said to himself, as one evening
he wandered from room to room. "This is her bedroom," he thought. "I
hope she'll find everything comfortable. Yes, I believe she'll be
happy here. It will ease her aching heart as I come to kiss her
good-night, and my bedroom is close by, and she'll always know that I'm
near. And then there is the kitchen, too. I must take care that
everything is right there. I wonder whether she will like the servant
I have got for her. At any rate, she will be able to set that right
herself, if it is not right now, and I have money enough to give her
every comfort. I was lucky to get such a dear old house, and she shall
enjoy it; at least, I owe her that." And then, as her picture came
before him as he had seen her that night when she had bidden him
good-bye, the tears came into his eyes and his lips trembled. All the
next day he was strangely excited, and George Preston declared that he
had never known him so careless about business. "People are finely
talking about your taking that house!" he said. "Some are saying
you're going to get wed! Why have you been so close about it? And
what makes you spend all that brass?"

"My mother is coming to live with me," said Paul; "coming to-day."

"You don't mean it!" said the other. "Why, you looked as though you
might be expecting your sweetheart!"

"I am," replied Paul with a laugh. And, indeed, he felt as though he
were; for Paul was more happy than he had ever known himself to be
before. The clouds somehow seemed to have lifted, and brightness came
into his heart in spite of himself.

"She'll be very tired," he reflected, as that night he wended his way
to the station. "She will have been travelling all day. She left
Launceston early this morning, and it will have been a rush for her."
So he was careful to engage a cab some time before the train was due,
and then walked up and down the station with a fast-beating heart.
Yes, life was becoming new to him in, a way that he could not
understand. He felt less bitter towards the world, less bitter towards
Mr. Bolitho, less angry at wha