as through the churchyard, past the three graves, which were as trim
as if Lucilla had daily tended them. 'Thank you,' she said; then gazed
in silence, till with a sigh she exclaimed:--

'Poor Edna! Monument of my faults! What perverse determination of mine
it was that laid her here!'

'It was your generous feeling.'

'Do not miscall and embellish my perverse tyranny, as much to defy the
Charterises as to do her justice. I am more ashamed now that I have the
secret of your yielding!' she added, with downcast eyes, yet a sudden
smile at the end.

'We will take that child home and bring him up,' said Mr. Prendergast.

'If his father wishes it, it will be right; not as if it were the
pleasantest of charges. Thank you,' said Cilla. 'Three o'clock! Poor
Honor, she must be starving!'

'What about her?' stammered Mr. Prendergast, hanging back shyly. 'Must
she be told?'

'Not now,' said Lucilla, with all her alert readiness. 'I will tell her
to-night. You will come in the first day you can!'

'To-morrow! Every possible day.'

Honor had truly been uneasy, fearing that Lucilla was walking, sitting
down, or fasting imprudently; but the brilliant colour, the joyous eyes,
and lively manner spoke wonderfully for the effects of native air. Mr.
Prendergast had become more absent and awkward than ever, but his extra
shyness passed unremarked, and Lucilla's tact and grace supplied all
deficiencies without obtrusiveness. Always at home in the vicarage, she
made none of her former bantering display of familiarity, but only
employed it quietly to secure the guests having what they wanted, and to
awaken the host to his duties, when he forgot that any one save herself
needed attention.

She was carried off before the river fog should arise, and her abstracted
silence all the way home was not wondered at; although Phoebe, sitting
opposite to her, was at a loss to read the furtive smiles that sometimes
unclosed her lips, or the calm, pensive look of perfect satisfaction on
her features; and Honor could not comprehend her entire absence of
fatigue after so trying a day, and wondered whether it were really the
old complaint--want of feeling.

At night, Honor came to her room, and began--'My dear, I want to make a
little explanation to you, if you are not tired.'

'Oh! no--I had a little explanation to make to you,' she answered, with a
flush and a smile.

'Perhaps it may be on the same subject,' and as Cilla half laug