e truth. I just said the first thing that
occurred. And a change is always the thing that is first thought of after
such a--after such a----" The rector sought about for a word. He could
not say calamity, or affliction, or any of the words that are usually
employed. He said at last, with a sense of having got triumphantly over
the difficulty--"such a shock."

"I agree with the rector," said Minnie. "It would be far better that she
should go away, for a change. The circumstances are quite different. For
a lady to go and look after everything herself, when it ought not to be
supposed possible that she could do anything: seeing the lawyers, and
giving the orders, and acting exactly as if nothing had happened,--oh,
it is too dreadful! It is quite different from us. And she does not even
wear a widow's cap! That would be reason enough for going away, if there
was nothing else. She ought to go away for the first year, not to let
anybody know that she has never worn a widow's cap."

"Now that is a very clever reason," said Dick Cavendish, who felt it
was time for him to interfere, and lessen the serious character of the
discussion. "Unaided, I should never have thought of that. Do at Rome as
Rome does; or if you don't, go out of Rome, and don't expose yourself.
There is a whole system of social philosophy in it."

"Oh, I am not a philosopher," cried Minnie, "but I know what I think. I
know what my opinion is."

"We are not here to criticise Lady Markland," said her mother; and then
she burst into an unpremeditated invitation, to break the spell. "You
will bring Mr. Cavendish to dine with us one evening?" she said. "He and
you will excuse the dulness of a sad house."

The rector felt his breath taken from him, and thought of what his wife
would say. "If you are sure it will not be too much for you," he replied.

Dick's eyes and attention were fixed upon the girls. Minnie's face
expressed the utmost horror. She opened her mouth to speak; her sharp
eyes darted dagger thrusts at her mother; it was evident that she was
bursting with remonstrance and denunciation. Chatty, on the contrary,
looked at her mother, and then at the stranger, with a soft look of
pleasure stealing over her face. It softened still more the rounded
outline, the rose tints, which were those of a girl of seventeen rather
than twenty-three, and which her black dress brought out with double
force. Dick thought her quite pretty,--nay, very pretty,--as she sto