And Mary Seaham and Eugene Trevor exchanged another smile, as they slightly bent their heads in acknowledgement of the ceremony, but both at the same time murmuring their declaration of a previous acquaintance.
"Indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. de Burgh, with some surprise, "when and where could you have possibly met?"
"You forget the fête at Morland, when you so cruelly abandoned Miss Seaham to her fate, whilst you and Louis," with a little covered malice in his tone, "went love-making."
"Ah! to be sure, I do remember something of the kind," rejoined Mrs. de Burgh, "that is to say, of you two being together, but that is so very long ago," she added, in a tone of marked carelessness, and glancing at her husband.
"Not quite six years," said Mary.
"Only six years!" interposed Mr. de Burgh, blandly, "I should have imagined it sixteen."
"And I too," rejoined the wife colouring; "but at any rate," she continued, with affected carelessness, "it has been quite long enough to have almost effaced from my mind the impression—almost the recollection of things then existing—you two it seems," glancing from Mary to Mr. Trevor, "have better memories."
Mr. de Burgh retorted with a beautiful smile; that the tablets of their memories had happily been kept apart during that interregnum, that there was nothing like six years of close contact for rubbing out old impressions.
"And then in that space of time," he added, probably with more secret meaning than the not very original remark expressed, "and then in six years, a great deal of change may have taken place."
"A great deal indeed!" was almost unconsciously echoed by Mary's lips, as her thoughts silently wandered over the domestic changes and family events which coloured her reminiscences of that intervening period, whilst from the soft pensive expression which stole over her countenance, it might have seemed that it was more a soothing relief to take refuge from "the strife of tongues" in the private sanctuary of thought thus suggested, than that any very sharp pang of sadness or regret was roused by this reflection.