ss rather than
religious in her beneficence still, though the lesson she had had
showed itself in her constantly seeking the advice of Miles, who
thought her the most sensible woman in the world, except his Nan.
Whether this constant occupation, furnishing, repairing, planning,
beautifying her model cottages, her school chapel, and all the rest,
were lessening the heartache, no one knew, but the sharp black eyes
looked as dry and hard, the lines round the mouth as weary as ever;
and Rosamond sometimes thought if Sirenwood were not full of ghosts
to her, she was much like a ghost herself who came

"Hovering around her ancient home,
To find no refuge there."

There was another who could not help seeing her somewhat in that
light, and this was Eleonora Vivian, who had come to Compton to be
with Frank, when he was at last able to enjoy a well-earned holiday,
and with ears restored to their natural powers, though he always
declared that his eight months of deafness had done him more good
than anything that had ever befallen him in his life. It had thrown
him in on his real self, and broken all the unfortunate associations
of his first year in London. His first few months, while he was
still in need of care, had been spent with Miles and Anne, and that
tender ministry to him which his sister-in-law had begun in his
illness had been with him when he was tired, dispirited, or beset by
the trials of a tardy convalescence. As his interpreter, too, and
caterer for the pleasures his infirmity allowed, Anne had been
educating herself to a degree that 'self' improvement never would
have induced.

And when left alone in London, he was able to take care of himself
in all ways, and had followed the real leadings of his disposition,
which his misdirected courtship had interrupted for the time,
returning to the intellectual pursuits which were likely to be
beneficial, not only as pleasures, but in an economical point of
view; and he was half shy, half proud of the profits, such as they
were, of a few poems and essays which he certainly had not had it in
him to write before the ordeal he had undergone.

Eleonora's elder sister, Mrs. Fanshaw, had come home from India with
her husband, newly made a Major-General. Frank had gone to Rockpier
early in January, to be introduced to them, and after spending a day
or two there, to escort Lena to Compton. Mrs. Poynsett needed but
one glance to assure her that the two were happier than