"Ah! Molly, Molly, you're something like a wife. Never will I for the future give you any cause for complaint."
And he kept his word. Jack Hearty was a reformed man.
We now approach the end of our story. Our hero and heroine, after a prolonged honeymoon in the sunny south, which to Helen was like a dream of Paradise, found themselves reluctantly compelled to return to England in order to superintend certain matters of business connected with their country house and estate. Soon after their return, our married couple, wishing to give the old people an agreeable surprise, proposed paying them a visit in their carriage and pair, at their old home, the "Headless Lady." What was their surprise and dismay, on their arrival, to find, in lieu of the time honoured hostel, a blackened ruin!
"Good Heavens!" cried husband and wife, simultaneously, "what can have become of the old people?" Tears started to the eyes of Helen at the thought of the scenes of her childhood and of the many happy hours she had spent within those old walls; but anxiety for the fate of her parents filled her soul. Enquiries having been made, Jack Hearty and his wife were tracked to the house of a neighbour in the village.
"Father! Mother!" cried the grand lady, stepping out of her carriage; and, throwing all ceremony to the winds, she embraced them both with the fondest affection, while the liveried coachman and footman exchanged glances together.
"Tell us how all this has happened," said our artist; "but first step into the carriage, and we will drive home. You must come and stay with us."
Neither his father nor his mother-in-law possessed anything but what they stood upright in, and were not long in making up their minds, so stepping into the carriage, and waving an adieu to their hospitable neighbours, were soon borne out of sight.
"Well, Jack," said our artist to his father-in-law, after he had listened to a detailed account of the latter's misadventure, as they were sitting together that evening in the cosy parlour of our hero's country house, the two ladies having retired to the drawing-room to enjoy their own private gossip, "of course I am sorry for your loss, and for the old inn itself, which I had calculated making a picture of some day; but really, under the circumstances, I look upon it as providential."
"Providential!" exclaimed the ci-devant landlord, in astonishment. "What! the destruction of the home of my fathers by fire, through my idiotic folly and besotted drunkenness, providential!"