Ottawa began to miss Henry Rayne and his household, and many a word of kind remembrance was uttered as a friendly tribute to their memory.
The wonderful story of Vivian Standish's disgrace never found its way in detail into the gossipping circles of the capital, although there were a few who shook their heads and winked their eyes and affected to know all about it.
Josephine de Maistre had gone back to the peace and comfort of her seclusion, after the critical interview, and no one of Mr. Raynes household had betrayed the secret. There were only a few little unavoidable words afloat, by which the curious public of Ottawa could surmise why Honor Edgeworth had so coldly rejected her handsome suitor at the last moment, and why Guy Elersley had come back in the nick of time, to be reinstated in his uncle's favor.
Honor was the recipient of many dainty notes of well-worded congratulations, and the sweetest sounding—like Miss Dash's and Miss Reid's—were those whose writers envied with a great bitterness the luck of Henry Rayne's protégée.
I need not follow the course of events farther than this, although strongly tempted to tell of certain stylish weddings that followed this one in busy succession. My pen would be kinder, if it might, than merciless. Fate to my other heroines, who are threatened to remain "fancy free" for a deplorable number of years to come, and after that—forever.
The married life of Honor Edgeworth could not but be consistent with her single life. In peace, happiness and prosperity, and in the enjoyment of health, wealth and mutual devotedness, we leave our worthy hero and his worthy wife.
May our destinies,—as they unroll themselves from the scroll of time, be as promising, as salutary, and as well deserved as theirs.