e with him to the end, we were happy
together, and you were with him too. That is what he would have wished.
He loved you, Darsie. If he had lived, he would have wished you for
his wife."

"Yes!" sighed Darsie, and laid her head gently on the other's knee. In
the silence which followed she was acutely aware of the unspoken
question which filled the air, acutely distressed that she could not
give the stricken mother the assurance for which she craved.

In Ralph's lifetime his friendship had brought Darsie as much pain as
joy, and, though death had wiped away all but tender recollections, even
in this hour of grief and shock she did not delude herself that she
sorrowed for him with the deepest sorrow of all. The anxious, pitiful
affection which she had felt for the man who leaned so heavily upon her
was more that of a sister than a wife.

Darsie stretched out her hand, found the chilly one of the poor mother,
and leaning her soft cheek over it, pressed it tenderly with her lips.

"You must let me be your third daughter! We can talk about him
together. I can tell you about this last year--every little tiny thing
that he said and did. You'll never be anxious about him any more, dear,
never afraid! You will always be proud of your hero boy."

Mrs Percival sighed. She was in too sensitive a mood not to realise
the meaning of the girl's lack of response, but the first pang of
disappointment was followed by a thought full of comfort to the sore
mother-heart.

"I loved him best. He was mine to the end! No one loved him like his
mother!"

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

BRIGHTER DAYS.

Six months passed by--months of grief and pain, and bitter, unavailing
regret; of work and play, of long summer days, and wintry fog and cold;
of reviving happiness also, since, thank God! joy returns like the
spring, bringing back hope and joy to a darkened world. There was a
place in Darsie's heart which would ever be consecrated to the memory of
Ralph; but _it_ was not a foremost place--that most crushing of sorrows
had been spared her; and when one not yet twenty-one is living the
healthiest and most congenial of lives, and is above all elevated to the
proud position of third-year girl, it would be as unnatural as wrong to
dwell continually upon a past grief.

At first Darsie felt shocked and ashamed when the old gay mood swept her
off her balance, and she found herself dancing, singing, and making
merry as of yore, but her