CHAPTER XIX.
EPILOGUE.
About a year after Paul and Leonore were married, they received a visit from Mr. and Mrs. Valentine Purcell, travelling in all the state that money could buy and ingenuity devise.
Val was glorious: even prouder of his new wife's cleverness than he had been of her predecessor's beauty. Marietta was superb: there never was such a woman; managed everything—ran the entire show. He was allowed a tailor's bill though,—and he looked down at a new suit with all his old complacency.
He was perfectly easy, happy, and friendly. He had not an awkward remembrance, nor an uncomfortable sensation.
It was splendid to be among his dear old friends again, and to find them all so fit; Mere Hall was a delightful place, and he was awfully glad that it was Sue's home too.
He did wish that he could get them all out to California. Sue ought really to see California. If she would hop across the pond, he would meet her himself in New York, and take her across the Rockies in his own car. He and his wife always travelled in their own car.
As for Paul and Leo, of course they were coming, but Sue—he had a sly whisper for Leo's ear anent Sue. "What about Salt Lake City? That would be Sue's chance: those Mormons are awful jossers for wives. I never let Marietta within a hundred miles of 'em. You send old Sue out to me, Leo."
Paul he speedily pronounced the best fellow in the world—taking him as an entirely new personage. Paul's alterations in the house were a triumph of architecture, and the steeple he was adding to the church a masterpiece.