loved by such a one as Julia Brabazon had been--such a one as Lady
Ongar now was. But things had gone well with him. Julia Brabazon could
have made no man happy, but Florence Burton would be the sweetest,
dearest, truest little wife that ever man took to his home. He was
thinking of this, and determined to think of it more and more daily, as
he knocked at Lady Ongar's door. "Yes; her ladyship was at home," said
the servant whom he had seen on the railway platform; and in a few
moments' time he found himself in the drawing-room which he had
criticized so carefully when he was taking it for its present occupant.

He was left in the room for five or six minutes, and was able to make a
full mental inventory of its contents. It was very different in its
present aspect from the room which he had seen not yet a month since.
She had told him that the apartments had been all that she desired; but
since then everything had been altered, at least in appearance. A new
piano had been brought in, and the chintz on the furniture was surely
new. And the room was crowded with small feminine belongings, indicative
of wealth and luxury. There were ornaments about, and pretty toys, and a
thousand knickknacks which none but the rich can possess, and which none
can possess even among the rich unless they can give taste as well as
money to their acquisition. Then he heard a light step; the door opened,
and Lady Ongar was there.

He expected to see the same figure that he had seen on the railway
platform, the same gloomy drapery, the same quiet, almost deathlike
demeanor, nay, almost the same veil over her features; but the Lady
Ongar whom he now saw was as unlike that Lady Ongar as she was unlike
that Julia Brabazon whom he had known in old days at Clavering Park. She
was dressed, no doubt, in black; nay, no doubt, she was dressed in
weeds; but in spite of the black and in spite of the weeds there was
nothing about her of the weariness or of the solemnity of woe. He hardly
saw that her dress was made of crape, or that long white pendants were
hanging down from the cap which sat so prettily upon her head. But it
was her face at which he gazed. At first he thought she could hardly be
the same woman, she was to his eyes so much older than she had been! And
yet as he looked at her, he found that she was as handsome as ever--more
handsome than she had ever been before. There was a dignity about her
face and figure which became her well, and which