She gathered together all his letters reverently--some had been waiting for his return from Mr. Lambert's, and were still unopened; and though many of them were addressed in the kind of handwriting that was especially calculated to arouse curiosity, she would not pry into his correspondence, nor allow anyone else to do so. She would not read what he had evidently never intended her to read; she burnt them all without taking one of them out of its envelope, and then drove to the cemetery with a wreath of flowers for his grave. "He was the best of husbands," she said, when to her own people she talked of him. And Mrs. Hardy, who was truly afflicted by the family bereavement, was comforted to be able to repeat this tender formula to all the gossip of her own circle. "He was the best of husbands. So fond of her to the last! Even when he was delirious you could see plainly his distress when she went out of the room, and his relief when she came back again. And she was so devoted! Such a thoroughly suitable marriage in every way--as if they had been made for each other! She is broken-hearted for the loss of him. And how _he_ valued _her_ he has plainly proved." And here the gossips would smile decorously, and shake their heads, and say, "Yes, indeed." For they all understood what this allusion meant. It meant that Mr. Kingston had left the half of his great property absolutely at his young wife's disposal, and that she was the sole and unrestricted trustee of the rest, which was settled upon his son; which certainly _did_ prove that he had valued her in the most conclusive manner. But in a little while--a scandalously little while--indications that this young widow of twenty-five was not inconsolable for the loss of her elderly husband, became apparent to all but the most superficial observers. It was not that she wore such very slight mourning--soft black silks and cashmeres that were the merest apology for weeds--for everybody knew that Mr. Kingston had had a horror of crape, and had been repeatedly heard to declare that no wife of his should wear it if he could help it. Mrs. Hardy had explained that it was in deference to his wishes that she had defied custom in this respect; and, though there was a strong impression that she ought to have insisted on paying proper respect to his memory, in spite of him--and even that his protests against conventional suttee were never intended to include this particular case (as was very probable), but only indicated his personal distaste for harsh and unbecoming materials in ladies' apparel--the fact that it was growing the fashion to be lax and independent in these matters, saved her the verdict of the majority. And it was not that she drove about, within two months of his death, with her veil turned back over her bonnet--in the case of a veil so transparent, it didn't make much difference whether it were up or down--leaving her youthful, lovely, rose-leaf face exposed to public view as heretofore.