he can't have got my letter yet; it was
only mailed the day we started. It was only a chance, you know, our
getting those staterooms, and we were in such a hurry. I was so much
obliged to that dear, old German gentleman for dying. We shouldn't have
been here if he hadn't."

"Pauline, my dear!"

"Well, I can't think, as he's probably in heaven, that he can have
begrudged us his tickets to New York."

"I should think not," said Mrs. Throckmorton, with a little sigh. For
New York was not heaven to her, and she had spent a good deal of the day
in looking up the necessary servants for our establishment, which,
little as it was, required just double the number that had made us
comfortable abroad.

She had too much discretion to trouble me with her cares, however, so
she said cheerfully, after a few moments, by way of diverting my mind
and her own--

"Well, I heard some news to-day."

"Ah!"--(I had been unpacking all day; and Mrs. Throckmorton in the
interval of servant-hunting had not been able to refrain from a visit or
two, _en passant_ to dear friends.)

"Yes: Kilian Vandermarck was married yesterday."

"Yesterday! how odd. And pray, who has he married? Not Mary Leighton, I
should hope."

"Leighton. Yes, that's the name. No money, and a little _passe_.
Everybody wonders."

"Well, he deserves it. That is even-handed justice, I'm not sorry for
him. He's been trifling all his days, and now he's got his punishment.
It serves Sophie right, too. I know she can't endure her. She never
thought there was the slightest danger. But I'm sorry for Richard, that
he's got to have such a girl related to him."

"Oh, well," said Mrs. Throckmorton, "I don't know whether that'll affect
him very much, for they say he's going to be married too."

"Richard!"

"Yes; and to that Benson girl, you know."

"Who told you?"

"Mary Ann. She's heard it half a dozen times, she says. I believe it's
rather an old affair. His sister made it up, I'm told. The young lady's
been spending the summer with them, and this autumn it came out."

"I don't believe it."

"I'm sure I don't know; only that's the talk. It would be odd, though,
if we'd just come home in time for the wedding. You'll have to give her
something handsome, being your guardian, and all."

I wouldn't give her anything, and she shouldn't marry Richard, I
thought, as I leaned back in my chair and looked into the fire; a great
silence having fallen on us since the delivery o