ression of his
love these nine-and-twenty years. I left them, standing eye to eye,
heart to heart, as if nothing in this world could ever part them.

Next morning was as gay as any of our mornings used to be, for, before
breakfast, came Edwin and Louise. And after breakfast, the father and
mother and I walked up and down the garden for an hour, talking over
the prospects of the young couple. Then the post came--but we had no
need to watch for it now. It only brought a letter from Lord Ravenel.

John read it, somewhat more seriously than he had been used to read
these letters--which for the last year or so had come often enough--the
boys usually quizzing, and Mistress Maud vehemently defending, the
delicate small hand-writing, the exquisite paper, the coronetted seal,
and the frank in the corner. John liked to have them, and his wife
also--she being not indifferent to the fact, confirmed by many other
facts, that if there was one man in the world whom Lord Ravenel
honoured and admired, it was John Halifax of Beechwood. But this time
her pleasure was apparently damped; and when Maud, claiming the letter
as usual, spread abroad, delightedly, the news that "her" Lord Ravenel
was coming shortly, I imagined this visit was not so welcome as usual
to the parents.

Yet still, as many a time before, when Mr. Halifax closed the letter,
he sighed, looked sorrowful, saying only, "Poor Lord Ravenel!"

"John," asked his wife, speaking in a whisper, for by tacit consent all
public allusion to his doings at Paris was avoided in the family--"did
you, by any chance, hear anything of--You know whom I mean?"

"Not one syllable."

"You inquired?" He assented. "I knew you would. She must be almost
an old woman now, or perhaps she is dead. Poor Caroline!"

It was the first time for years and years that this name had been
breathed in our household. Involuntarily it carried me back--perhaps
others besides me--to the day at Longfield when little Guy had devoted
himself to his "pretty lady;" when we first heard that other name,
which by a curious conjuncture of circumstances had since become so
fatally familiar, and which would henceforward be like the sound of a
death-bell in our family--Gerard Vermilye.

On Lord Ravenel's re-appearance at Beechwood--and he seemed eager and
glad to come--I was tempted to wish him away. He never crossed the
threshold but his presence brought a shadow over the parents'
looks--and no wonder. Th