'Let us have "Lead, kindly Light" again to-night, Clem,' said Felix, as they moved towards the Oratory. 'Little Stella will not think it a sad farewell.'

'No, indeed,' she said, holding his hand. 'I am sure we want the kindly Light; going so far away, and so young!'

The hymn sounded even more sweetly than on the first arrival, so sweet that Sir Adrian said to his wife, 'If all family prayers were like that, they would not be such a bore.'

Wilmet went home by the bridge in the carriage, taking Marilda with her, but Will and Ferdinand returned by boat. It was a splendid frosty night, and Felix came out with them as far as the terrace. Lance, who had gone down to the river, on returning found him still gazing at the glories of the stars—Sirius flashing with most dazzling brightness, and the Pleiades twinkling with their silvery mystery, and Aldebaran gazing down like a great eye.

'Still out, Fee; don't get a chill.'

'Everything is so goodly—so good—without and within doors,' he answered, 'that one hardly knows how to leave it. I wonder whether we shall recognise what our foretastes have been!'

Lance recollected how strangely that word 'foretaste' had fallen on his ear by Tranquillity Bridge as he sat in the solitude of his heavy trance of disappointment; and as his brother's face came again into the lights of the hall, something in it struck him with a sense that even then he had been far from knowing what sorrow could be.

Of course the wedding morning was a scramble, though no one beyond the family was invited, except that Dr. May brought his daughter Gertrude to act as bridesmaid. Felix, who had since the hospital meeting ceased to leave his room before breakfast, sent word that he should keep quiet till Stella was dressed, and then that she would find him in the study.

How lovely the little white Star looked may be imagined. She was quite calm and self-possessed, softly tender and loving, but too gravely serious to be excited or agitated as she went, in deep, trustful love, to meet the great unknown life, carrying about with her a certain hush of sweet gentle awe.

So in her snowy robe and veil and wreathed brow, with her modest head still bearing the long shining curls, she floated down the dark oak stair, and crossed the hall, without casting a look on those who were watching her, and knocked at the study door.