inacy he had collected and detailed to her accounts of
how ill other children had been and had recovered, had been getting
fresh medical opinions, and proposing to try new remedies; but no sooner
was all over, and the afflicted mother was led from her dead child by
his son, than he tormented himself and the doctors by demanding why he
had been kept in the dark so long, why he had not been allowed to try
change of air, why, if the symptoms showed mortal disease from the
first, he had been allowed to set his heart on the child as he had done.
No one now had anything to say to Emily. She had only been a widow a
month, and the first loss had had no bitterness in it, though she had
sorrowed with the tender affection of a loyal heart. The death of her
child was almost the loss of all.

Valentine in the meantime had taken his sister Liz to a little quiet
place; there, as her marriage could not be put off, and the ship was
decided on in which they were to sail for New Zealand, he acted the
part of father, and gave her away at the quietest wedding possible,
seeing her off afterwards, and returning to take up his abode in his
uncle's house, about three weeks after the death of Emily's little
child. Not one of the late inhabitants had been left in his old home
excepting Mrs. Henfrey, who remained to receive the bride, and was still
there, though the newly-married pair had been home a week. Valentine had
found ample time to consider how he should behave to Dorothea, Mrs.
Brandon. He had also become accustomed to the thought of her being out
of his reach, and the little excitement of wonder as to how they should
meet was not altogether displeasing to him. "Giles will be inclined, no
doubt, to be rather jealous of me," was his thought; "I shall be a bad
fellow if I don't take care to show him that there is no need for it. D.
must do the same. Of course she will. Sweet D.! Well, it can't be helped
now."

It was natural enough that he should cogitate over the best way of
managing his first meeting with them; but he had not been an hour in his
uncle's house before he found that Grand was shortly going to give a
great dinner party for the bride mainly consisting of relatives and very
old friends. This, it was evident, would be the most natural time for
him to present himself.

Valentine loved comfort and luxury, and finding himself established
quite as if he had been a younger son in the house--a horse kept for him
to ride, and a smal