that no success of his whole life had been worth
the present.

'After all, Clara,' said Oliver Dynevor, as his nephew and niece were
assisting him to the carriage, 'they have managed these things better
than we did, though they did not have Gunter.'

'Gunter can't bring heart's love down from town in a box,' said Clara,
in a flash of indignation. 'No, dear uncle, there are things that
can't be got unless by living for them.'

'Nor even by living for them, Clara,' said James; 'you must live for
something else.'

Lord Ormersfield had heard these few last words, and there was deep
thought in his eye as he bade his cousins farewell at the hall door.

Clara was the last to take her place; and, as she turned round with a
merry smile to wish him goodbye, he said, 'You have been making
yourself very useful, Clara, I am afraid you have had no time to enjoy
yourself.'

'That's a contradiction,' said Clara, laughing; 'here's busy little
Kitty, who never is thoroughly happy but when she thinks she is useful,
and I am child enough to be of the same mind. I never was unhappy but
when I was set to enjoy myself. It has been the most beautiful day of
my life. Thank you for it. Goodbye!'

The Earl crossed the hall, and found Mary standing alone on the terrace
steps, looking out at the curling smoke from the cottage chimneys, and
on the coppices and hedge-rows.

'Are you tired, my dear?' he said.

'Oh no! I was only thinking of dear mamma's persuading Louis to go on
with the crumpled plans of those cottages. How happy she would be.'

'I was thinking of her likewise,' said the Earl. 'She spoke truly when
she told me that he might not be what I then wished to make him, but
something far better.'

Mary looked up with a satisfied smile of approval, saying, 'I am so
glad you think so.'

'Yes,' said Lord Ormersfield, 'I have thought a good deal since. I
have been alone here, and I think I see why Louis has done better than
some of his elders. It seems to me that some of us have not known the
duties that lay by the way-side, so to speak, from the main purpose of
life. I wish I could talk it over with your mother, my dear, what do
you think she would say?'

Mary thought of Louis's vision of the threads. 'I think,' she said,
'that I have heard her say something like it. The real aim of life is
out of sight, and even good people are too apt to attach themselves to
what is tangible, like friendship or family affection,