'

'I mean that sort of perfect marriage that, according to the saying, is
made in heaven. Whether that could have been with Mary, I do not know
her well enough to guess; but I am convinced that he will always have
the same kind of memory of her that a man has of a first love, or first
wife.'

'It may have been a mistake to drive him into the attachment, which
Isabel thinks has been favoured by absence, leaving scope for
imagination; but I cannot give up the hope that his days of happiness
are yet to come.'

'Nor do I give up Mary, yet,' said Clara. 'Till she announces her
defection I shall not believe it, for it would be common honesty to
inform poor Louis, and in that she never was deficient.'

'It is not a plant that seems to thrive on the Peruvian soil.'

'No; and I am dreadfully afraid for Tom Madison. There were hints
about him in Mr. Ponsonby's letters, which make me very anxious; and
from what my uncle says, it seems that there is such an atmosphere of
gambling and trickery about his office, that he thinks it a matter of
course that no one should be really true and honest.'

'That would be a terrible affair indeed! I don't know for which I
should be most concerned, Louis or our poor little Charlotte. But
after all, Clara, we have known too many falsehoods come across the
Atlantic, to concern ourselves about anything without good reason.'

So they talked, enjoying the leisure the walk gave them for
conversation, and then paying the painful visit, when Clara tried in
vain to make it understood by the poor old lady that she was going
away, and that James was her brother. They felt thankful that such
decay had been spared their grandmother, and Clara sighed to think that
her uncle might be on the brink of a like loss of faculties, and then
felt herself more than ever bound to him.

On the way home they went together to the church, and pondered over the
tombs of their ancestry,--ranging from the grim, defaced old knight,
through the polished brass, the kneeling courtier, and the dishevelled
Grief embracing an urn, down to the mural arch enshrining the dear
revered name of Catharine, daughter of Roland, and wife of James Frost
Dynevor, the last of her line whose bones would rest there. Her grave
had truly been the sole possession that her son's labours had secured
for her; that grave was the only spot at Cheveleigh that claimed a pang
from Clara's heart. She stood beside it with deep, fond, clinging l