could not be restored, but she knew now why Joel Lea had such
an instinct against it.
"I feel," she once said, "as if Satan had offered me all this for my
soul, and I had taken the bargain. Aye, and if God's providence had
allowed our wicked purpose, he would have had it too. My husband! he
prayed for me! and my boy did too."
She always called Joel Lea "my husband" now, and thought and talked
much of their early love and his warnings. I think the way she had
saddened his later years grieved her as much as anything, and all her
affection seemed revived.
She lingered on, never leaving the house indeed, but not much worse,
till the year had come round again, and we loved her more each day we
nursed her. And when the end came suddenly at last, we mourned as for
a dear sister.
Perrault wrote once--a threatening, swaggering letter from America,
demanding hush-money. It did not come till she was too ill to open
it--only in the last week before her death, and it was left till we
settled her affairs.
Then Fulk wrote and told him of the verdict against him, and
recommended him to let himself be heard of no more. And he took the
advice.
We found that dear Hester had left all the fortune, 30,000 pounds,
which had been settled on herself and Trevor, to be divided equally
between us three. Nor had we any scruple in profiting by it.
Trevorsham had enough, and it was what my father would have given us if
he could.
It was enough to make Jaquetta and her young Dr. Cradock settle down
happily and prosperously on the practice they bought.
And enough too, together with Emily's strong quiet determination, to
make Mrs. Deerhurst withdraw her opposition. Daughters of twenty-nine
years old may get their own way.
Moreover a drawing-room and dining-room were built on to Skimping's
Lawn, though Alured declares they have spoilt the place, and nothing
ever was so jolly as the keeping-room.
We had a beautiful double wedding in the summer, in our old church, and
since that I have come to make the old Hall homelike to my boy in the
holidays.
We are very happy together when he comes home, and fills the house with
his young friends; and if it feels too large and empty for me in his
absence, I can always walk down for a happy afternoon with Emily, or go
and make a longer visit to Jaquetta.
And I don't think, as a leader of the fashion, she would have been half
so happy as the motherly, active, ready-handed doctor's w
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