new of him, this poor
orphan should not have feared to trust him entirely. And there is
nothing that binds heart to heart, of lovers or friends, so quickly and
so safely, as to trust and be trusted in time of trouble.

"Did she tell you any more, John? Anything of her circumstances?"

"No. But from something Mrs. Tod let fall, I fear"--and he vainly
tried to disguise his extreme satisfaction--"that she will be left with
little or nothing."

"Poor Miss March!"

"Why call her poor? She is not a woman to be pitied, but to be
honoured. You would have thought so, had you seen her this morning. So
gentle--so wise--so brave. Phineas,"--and I could see his lips
tremble--"that was the kind of woman Solomon meant, when he said, 'Her
price was above rubies.'"

"I think so too. I doubt not that when she marries Ursula March will
be 'a crown to her husband.'"

My words, or the half sigh that accompanied them--I could not help
it--seemed to startle John, but he made no remark. Nor did we recur to
the subject again that day.

Two days after, our little company followed the coffin out of the
woodbine porch--where we had last said good-bye to poor Mr.
March--across the few yards of common, to the churchyard, scarcely
larger than a cottage garden, where, at long intervals, the few
Enderley dead were laid.

A small procession--the daughter first, supported by good Mrs. Tod,
then John Halifax and I. So we buried him--the stranger who, at this
time, and henceforth, seemed even, as John had expressed it, "our
dead," our own.

We followed the orphan home. She had walked firmly, and stood by the
grave-side motionless, her hood drawn over her face. But when we came
back to Rose Cottage door, and she gave a quick, startled glance up at
the familiar window, we saw Mrs. Tod take her, unresisting, into her
motherly arms--then we knew how it would be.

"Come away," said John, in a smothered voice--and we came away.

All that day we sat in our parlour--Mr. March's parlour that had
been--where, through the no longer darkened casement, the unwonted sun
poured in. We tried to settle to our ordinary ways, and feel as if
this were like all other days--our old sunshiny days at Enderley. But
it would not do. Some imperceptible but great change had taken place.
It seemed a year since that Saturday afternoon, when we were drinking
tea so merrily under the apple-tree in the field.

We heard no more from Miss March that day. The nex