m better for this
indication of feeling than she had ever been able to do before.

Her own sorrow was genuine enough, requiring no artificial stimulus
and no outward tokens to keep it alive, and if Vincent could have been
assured of this it would have reconciled him to all else. No
callousness nor forgetfulness on the part of others could have had
power to wound him so long as he should live on in the memory of the
girl he had loved.

But it is better far for those who are gone that they should be
impervious alike to our indifference and our grief, for the truest
grief will be insensibly deadened by time, and could not long console
the least exacting for the ever-widening oblivion.

CHAPTER IX.

A TURNING-POINT.

Mark came down to the little back parlour at Malakoff Terrace one dull
January morning to find the family already assembled there, with the
exception of Mrs. Ashburn, who was breakfasting in bed--an unusual
indulgence for her.

'Mark,' said Trixie, as she leaned back in her chair, and put up her
face for his morning greeting, 'there's a letter for you on your
plate.'

It was not difficult to observe a suppressed excitement amongst all
the younger members of his family concerning this letter; they had
finished their breakfast and fallen into some curious speculations as
to Mark's correspondent before he came in. Now three pairs of eyes
were watching him as he strolled up to his seat; Mr. Ashburn alone
seemed unconscious or indifferent.

Of late Mark had not had very many letters, and this particular one
bore the name of 'Chilton & Fladgate' on the flap of the envelope. The
Ashburns were not a literary family, but they knew this as the name of
a well-known firm of publishers, and it had roused their curiosity.

Mark read the name too. For a moment it gave him a throb of
excitement, the idea coming to him that, somehow, the letter concerned
his own unfortunate manuscripts. It was true that he had never had any
communication with this particular firm, but these wild vague
impressions are often independent of actual fact; he took it up and
half began to open it.

Then he remembered what it probably was, and, partly with the object
of preserving Vincent's secret still as far as possible, but chiefly,
it must be owned, from a malicious pleasure he took in disappointing
the expectation he saw around him, put the letter still unopened in
his pocket.

'Why don't you open it?' asked Trixie impatien