along with his own Dick
Bolsover's "things." And thus the bridegroom's party, the new associates
of Elinor, the great family into which the Honourable Mrs. Phil Compton
had been so lucky as to marry, to the great excitement of all the country
round, departed and was seen no more. Harry, who was civil, walked home
with the Hudsons when all was over, and said the best he could for the
Jew and her friends. "You see, she has been regularly spoiled: and
then when a girl's so dreadful shy, as often as not it sounds like
impudence." "Dear me, I should never have thought Lady Mariamne was
shy," the gentle Rector said. "That's just how it is," said Harry. He
went over again in the darkening to take his leave of Mrs. Dennistoun.
He found her sitting out in the garden before the open door, looking
down the misty walk. The light had gone out of the skies, but the usual
cheerful lights had not yet appeared in the house, where the hum of a
great occasion still reigned. The Tathams were at the Rectory, and Mrs.
Dennistoun was alone. Harry Compton had a good heart, and though he
could not conceive the possibility of a woman not being glad to have
married her daughter, the loneliness and darkness touched him a little
in contrast with the gayety of the previous night. "You must think us a
dreadful noisy lot," he said, "and as if my sister had no sense. But
it's only the Jew's way. She's made like that--and at bottom she's not
at all a bad sort."

"Are you going away?" was all the answer that Mrs. Dennistoun made.

"Oh, yes, and we shall be a good riddance," said Harry; "but please
don't think any worse of us than you can help---- Phil--well, he's got a
great deal of good in him--he has indeed, and she'll bring it all out."

It was very good of Harry Compton. He had a little choking in his throat
as he walked back. "Blest if I ever thought of it in that light before,"
he said to himself.

But I doubt if what he said, however well meant, brought much comfort to
Mrs. Dennistoun's heart.

CHAPTER XVII.

Thus Elinor Dennistoun disappeared from Windyhill and was no more seen.
There are many ways in which a marriage is almost like a death,
especially when the marriage is that of an only child. The young go
away, the old remain. There is all the dreary routine of the solitary
life unbrightened by that companionship which is all the world to the
one who is left behind. So little--only the happy going away into
brighter scenes of on