her, and would
continue to mourn with still and faithful sorrow, even while welcoming
home her young scholar, hearing the details of his past achievements
and hopes for the future, or entertaining--with all gracious
hospitality--such of his Oxford friends as he elected to invite to
Brockhurst.

It was on one of these last occasions, the young men having gone down
to the Gun-Room to smoke and discuss the day's pheasant shooting, that
Katherine had kept Julius March standing before the Chapel-Room fire,
and had looked at him, a certain wistfulness in her face.

"He is happy--don't you think, Julius?" she said. "He seems to me
really happier, more contented, than I have ever seen him since his
childhood."

"Yes, I also think that," Julius answered. "He has reason to be
contented. He has measured himself against other men and is satisfied
of his own powers."

"Every one admires him at Oxford?"

"Yes, they admire and envy him. He has been brilliantly successful."

Katherine drew herself up, clasping her hands behind her, and smiling
proudly as she mused, gazing into the crimson heart of the burning
logs. Then, after a silence, she turned suddenly to her companion.

"It is very sweet to have you here at home again, Julius," she said
gently. "I have missed you sorely since dearest Marie de Mirancourt
died. Live a little longer than I do, please. Ah! I am afraid it is no
small thing that I ask you to do for my sake, for I foresee that I
shall survive to a lamentably old age. But sacrifice yourself, Julius,
in the matter of living. Less than ever, when the shadows fall, shall I
be able to spare you."

For which words of his dear lady's, though spoken lightly, half in
jest, Julius March gave God great thanks that night.

It was about this period that two pieces of news, each proving
eventually to have much personal significance, reached Lady Calmady
from the outside world. The first took the form of a letter--a rather
pensive and tired letter--from her brother, William Ormiston, telling
her that his daughter Helen was about to marry the Comte de Vallorbes,
a young gentleman very well known both to Parisian and Neapolitan
society. The second took the form of an announcement in the _Morning
Post_, to the effect that Lady Tobemory, whose lamented death that
paper had already chronicled, had left the bulk of her not
inconsiderable fortune to her god-daughter Honoria, eldest child of
that distinguished officer General St.