" said Miss Crewys;
and the poor gentleman could only bow sympathetically.

"I am an old friend," he said feelingly, "and your confidences are
sacred. But I think in your very natural--er--affection for Lady
Mary"--the word stuck in his throat--"you are, perhaps, over-anxious.
In judging those younger than ourselves," said the canon, gallantly
coupling himself with his auditors,' though acutely conscious that he
was some twenty years the junior of both, "we must not forget that
they recover their spirits, by a merciful dispensation of Providence,
more quickly than we should ourselves in the like circumstances," said
the canon, who was as light-hearted a cleric as any in England.

"They do, indeed," said Lady Belstone, emphatically; "when they can
sing and play all the day and half the night, like our dear Mary and
young John."

"You see the piano blocking up the hall, though Sir Timothy hated
music?" said Miss Crewys.

Her own mourning was thoughtfully graduated to indicate the time which
had elapsed since Sir Timothy's decease. She wore a violet silk of
sombre hue, ornamented by a black silk apron and a black lace scarf.
The velvet bow which served so very imperfectly as a skull-cap was
also violet, intimating a semi-assuaged, but respectfully lengthened,
grief for the departed.

"And now this maddest scheme of all," said Miss Crewys.

"Bless me! What mad scheme?"

"A house in London is to be hired as soon as Peter comes home."

"Is that all? But surely that is very natural. For my part, I have
often wondered why none of you ever cared to go to London, if only for
your shopping. I am very fond of a trip to town myself, now and then,
for a few days."

"A few days, it seems, would not suffice our cousin John's notions. He
is pleased to think Peter may require skilled medical attendance; and,
since he wrote he was in rags, a new outfit. These, it seems, can only
be obtained in the Metropolis nowadays. My brother's tailor still
lives in Exeter; and with all his faults--and nobody can dislike him
more than I do--I have never heard it denied that Dr. Blundell is a
skilful apothecary."

"_Very_ skilful," added Miss Crewys. "You remember, Isabella, how
quickly he put your poor little Fido out of his agony."

"That is nothing; all doctors understand animals' illnesses. They kill
numbers of guinea-pigs before they are allowed to try their hands on
human beings," said Lady Belstone. "The point is, that if my poor
b