Trafford worked. Some strange unspoken sympathy had grown up between
the girl and the elder woman.

Evelyn's brave spirit and dauntless courage had carried her through a
trial that would have crushed a weaker nature. Her life was an
uncongenial one. Often she sickened of the hollow round of gayety in
which Lady Maltravers passed her days; but she would not waste her
strength by complaint. But by and by, when she had lost the first
freshness of her youth, and people had begun to say that Miss Selby
would never marry now, Hedley Power crossed her path, and Evelyn found
that she could love again.

Mr. Power was very unlike the bright-faced young lover of her youth.
He was a gray-haired man in the prime of middle-age, with grave
manners, and a quiet thoughtful face--very reticent and
undemonstrative; but Evelyn did well when she married him, for he made
his wife a happy woman.

"Evelyn is absurdly proud of Hedley," Lady Maltravers would say; "but
then he spoils her, and gives her her way in everything." Every one
thought it was a pity that they had no children; but Evelyn never
owned that she had a wish ungratified. She contented herself with
lavishing her affection on Erle's two boys. To them Aunt Evelyn was a
miracle of loveliness and kindness; and the children at the orphanage
had reason to bless the handsome lady who drove down often to see
them.

"I do think Evelyn is happy now," Fern said one day to Erle, when they
had encountered Evelyn and her husband in the Row.

"Of course she is," he would answer; "much happier than if she had
married your humble servant. Hedley Power is just the man for her.
Now, dear, I must go down to the House, for Hugh and I are on
committee;" and the young M. P. ran lightly down-stairs, whistling as
he went, after the fashion of Erle Huntingdon.

Yes, Hugh Redmond represented his county now, and Fay had her house in
town, where her little fair-haired sons and daughters played with
Erle's boys in the square gardens.

The young Lady Redmond would have been the fashion, but Fay was too
shy for such notoriety, and was quite content with her husband's
admiration. And well she might be, for the face that Hugh Redmond
loved best on earth was the face of his Wee Wifie.

THE END.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wee Wifie, by Rosa Nouchette Carey

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