'Where are they gone?'

'To see little Stella in her glory, and the other two are bound to a great Rhenish musical festival, and to hear the Freiburg and Lucerne organs. They went off together in the same railway carriage, and were only to part in London. The whole affair was as quiet as possible. I am glad it was at Stoneborough. Dr. May filled the place that neither Clement nor Harewood could have borne to take.'

'And you have not told me of Cherry or Clement.'

'You will see them to-morrow, and I think you will be satisfied about Cherry. The wrench last July was dreadful; both she and Clement say that they could never have made up their minds to it if they had known the grief it would cause in the village, and the partings they would undergo, but it has certainly been good for her. She looks well, and she says that though a little while ago she felt as if she had nothing to hope or fear, a month of Whittingtonia has shown her enough to engross a hundred lifetimes.'

'And little Gerald?'

'He walks better, and he is exceedingly happy at Stoneborough. Dickie May, the Archdeacon's son, you know, a fine fellow of fourteen, is so kind to him, teaches him to make models, and I fancy has secured that admiration little boys pay to big ones. They say the poor little fellow will probably outgrow his weakness and do well in the end, but that he must be kept at home for a good many years.'

'At which I suppose Cherry cannot repine.'

'No; he is her delight; and with Bernard to give the element of manhood and spirit, I don't think he will be spoilt, for Clement is sure to be strict enough. I never saw any one more improved than Bernard, by-the-by; he is grown into a reasonable being, and as devoted and attentive to Cherry as they all are. I am sure she is happier even now than she ever thought to be again! There was as much smile as tear when she told me that she was coming to see Felix and Theodore to-morrow, and to admire Wilmet in the Priory. She is carrying on a gleam from the past sunshine of her life.'

'She is learning to pleurer son Albert gaîment,' said Mother Constance. 'So we must when the pillars of our joy are taken from us here. And sooner or later we can do so, if we can believe of them that they have become pillars that shall never be removed, with the new Name written upon them, in the House of the Lord above.'