. I came to watch and
tend him, as I would have joyfully gone, with such a purpose, to the
dreariest ends of the earth. When he knew no one else, he knew me. When
he suffered most, he bore his sufferings barely murmuring, content to
rest his head where your rests now. When he lay at the point of death,
he married me, that he might call me Wife before he died. And the name,
my dear love, that I took on that forgotten night--"

"I know it now!" he sobbed. "The shadowy remembrance strengthens. It is
come back. I thank Heaven that my mind is quite restored! My Mary, kiss
me; lull this weary head to rest, or I shall die of gratitude. His
parting words were fulfilled. I see Home again!"

Well! They were happy. It was a long recovery, but they were happy
through it all. The snow had melted on the ground, and the birds were
singing in the leafless thickets of the early spring, when those three
were first able to ride out together, and when people flocked about the
open carriage to cheer and congratulate Captain Richard Doubledick.

But even then it became necessary for the Captain, instead of returning
to England, to complete his recovery in the climate of Southern France.
They found a spot upon the Rhone, within a ride of the old town of
Avignon, and within view of its broken bridge, which was all they could
desire; they lived there, together, six months; then returned to England.
Mrs. Taunton, growing old after three years--though not so old as that
her bright, dark eyes were dimmed--and remembering that her strength had
been benefited by the change resolved to go back for a year to those
parts. So she went with a faithful servant, who had often carried her
son in his arms; and she was to be rejoined and escorted home, at the
year's end, by Captain Richard Doubledick.

She wrote regularly to her children (as she called them now), and they to
her. She went to the neighbourhood of Aix; and there, in their own
chateau near the farmer's house she rented, she grew into intimacy with a
family belonging to that part of France. The intimacy began in her often
meeting among the vineyards a pretty child, a girl with a most
compassionate heart, who was never tired of listening to the solitary
English lady's stories of her poor son and the cruel wars. The family
were as gentle as the child, and at length she came to know them so well
that she accepted their invitation to pass the last month of her
residence abroad un