"Oh!" Aileen thought, gazing around over the dark, deep sea, the
star-gemmed sky, and the green radiance and sweetness of the earth,
"what a beautiful, blissful world it is, and I the happiest creature in
it!"

She returned to her cushions, and fell asleep; slept and dreamed dreams
as joyful as her waking thoughts, and no shadow of that gathering cloud
that was to blacken all her world so soon, fell upon her.

Hours passed, and still Aileen slept. Then came an imperative knock at
her door--again and again, louder each time; and then Aileen started up,
fully awake. Her room was flooded with sunshine, countless birds sang in
the swaying green gloom of the branches, and the ceaseless sea was all
aglitter with sparkling sunlight.

"Come in," Miss Jocyln said. It was her maid, she thought--and she
walked over to an arm-chair, and composedly sat down.

The door opened, and Colonel Jocyln, not Fanchon, appeared, an open note
in his hand, his face full of trouble.

"Papa!" Aileen cried, starting up in alarm.

"Bad news, my daughter--very bad! very sorrowful! Read that."

The note was very brief, in a spidery, female hand.

"DEAR COLONEL JOCYLN--We are in the greatest trouble. Poor Lady Thetford
died with awful suddenness this morning, in one of those dreadful
spasms. We are all nearly distracted. Rupert bears it better than any of
us. Pray come over as soon as you can.

"MAY EVERARD."

Aileen Jocyln sunk back in her seat, pale and trembling.

"Dead! O papa! papa!"

"It is very sad, my dear, and very shocking; and terribly unfortunate
that it should have occurred just at this time. A postponed wedding is
ever ominous of evil."

"Oh! pray, papa, don't think of that. Don't think of me! Poor Lady
Thetford! Poor Rupert! You will go over at once, papa, will you not?"

"Certainly, my dear. And I will tell the servants, so that when our
guests arrive, you may not be disturbed. Since it was to be," muttered
the Indian officer under his mustache, "I would give half my fortune
that it had been one day later. A postponed marriage is the most ominous
thing under the sun."

He left the room, and Aileen sat with her hands clasped, and an
unutterable awe overpowering every other feeling. She forgot her own
disappointment in the awful mystery of sudden death. Her share of the
trial was light--a year of waiting, more or less; what did it matter,
since Rupert loved her unchangeably; but, poor Lady Thetford, called
away in o