There was no help for it, and at last the luggage was duly packed, and after poor Mrs Mallow had been carefully carried down, the family started for home, and settled for the time being in one of a handsome row of houses north of the park. "Yes, my dear, it is--very expensive," said the Rector, in answer to a remark, almost a remonstrance, from the invalid; "but we must keep up appearances till the girls are married. Then, my dear, we shall be alone, and we will go down to the old home, and there will be nothing to interfere with our quiet, peaceful journey to the end." Mrs Mallow turned her soft pensive eyes up to him as he leaned over the couch, and he bent down and kissed her tenderly. "Well, my darling, who can say?" he whispered. "If more trouble comes, it is our fate, and we will try and bear the burden as best we can." "But you will go down now and then to Lawford, Eli?" she said, and the Rector sighed. "Yes, my dear, I will," he said; "but at present we must stay in town." And he placed his hands behind him and walked up and down the room, wishing that he could understand the Lawford people, or that they could understand him, and looking forward with anything but pleasurable anticipations to his next visit. Just then Julia, looking very pale and dreamy in her half-mourning, entered the room, to come and sit with and read to the invalid, a visitor being below, and her presence not being in any way missed. Henry, Lord Artingale was the visitor, and as soon as she had left the room Julia became one of the principal topics, for she had seemed of late to have fallen into a dreamy state, now indifferent, now reckless, and Cynthia declared pettishly that she gave her sister up in despair. "I don't know what to make of her, Harry," said Cynthia one morning after they had been back in town some time; "one day she will be bright and cheerful, another she seems as if she were going melancholy mad." "Oh, no; come, that's exaggeration, little one." "It is not," cried Cynthia, "for she is wonderfully changed when we are together." "How changed? Why, she looks prettier than ever." "I mean in her ways," continued Cynthia. "We used to be sisters indeed, and never kept anything from one another. Why, Harry, I don't believe either of us had a thought that the other did not share, and now I seem to be completely shut out from her confidence; and if it were not for you, I believe I should break my heart."