"Oh, Godfrey, I'm so glad. Dear Phemie! She deserves to be made happy. She has been so plucky over the farm, and it has been uncongenial work. What does her mother say?" "She doesn't seem over-pleased. I'm afraid she will miss her, but she works her like a galley slave. And I'm stopping a good bit of that. I insist upon her coming out with me. You don't know how pretty she's getting. She's losing all that worn, weary look about her eyes. She wanted you to know, so I told her I would tell you to-day." "She'll make you the dearest wife! My best congrats, Godfrey. I'm very, very glad." She listened whilst he went on to talk about his fiancée's perfections, and when their ride was over, and Adrienne reached home again, she felt as if all her world were falling to pieces. She knew she had not wanted Godfrey when he had wanted her; but in spite of that, there was a little hurt feeling in her heart that he had forgotten her so entirely, and was so completely satisfied with this second choice of his. "I have only been away about three months," she told herself—"it is barely that; yet he has put someone in my place with the greatest ease. I always felt that he did not really and truly love me. I often told him so, but he would not have it. I wonder what he would have said if I had told him that I had become engaged to Cousin Guy. I might have, if I'd taken him at his word. I almost believe that, if Godfrey had not always been flitting through my background, I might have given Guy a different answer. At all events I would not have snubbed him off so promptly. And now I've lost them both, and I believe that I shall be a single woman all my days! After all, there is nothing so very attractive or fetching about me. I shan't have an unlimited number of admirers haunting my steps." And then she shed a few tears, and tried to think they were for her uncle Tom, and for the blank he had left behind him; but in reality she knew that they were for herself, and she grew angry at the thought of it, for she had so despised her Aunt Cecily's continual self-pity. She took up her old life again, yet her thoughts were continually straying to the French village. The Admiral heard from his sister, who was of course distressed at the loss of her brother. "I am quite sure you will send Adrienne back as soon as you can," she wrote. "Miss Preston, who is with me, does her best; but Adrienne knew my ways, and she is my niece, and has duties towards me. Why don't you sell your house and come out here? Dear Tom was too boisterous for my nerves, but I could give you the library here for your sanctum and you could help me in my business matters, which seem in sad disorder. I shall be glad to hear the conditions of Tom's will. I hope he did not forget his only sister, who is left to struggle on with insufficient means to keep her head above water."