"This Mr. Franklyn told Dr. West in my presence that he and his wife had recently arrived in England from Melbourne, and that they were on their way to visit the father of his first wife, Dr. Halford, at Englefield Grange, with whom his children were now staying, so no doubt this gentleman was the husband of Dr. Halford's daughter, and the father of the young people we saw on Sunday." In spite of a look of disgust which passed over the countenance of Mr. Armstrong, his wife could not resist a few approving remarks about the young people referred to, till at length Mr. Armstrong exclaimed, "Come, Mary, give us a little music, we have heard quite enough of our unfortunate fellow-passenger and his antecedents; if he comes to-morrow you can treat him with politeness, and there the matter will end." Mary rose hastily to obey, she was glad to turn her back on those present, for the explanation respecting the young visitors at Englefield Grange had lifted a weight from her heart and made her eyes brighter, and the colour on her cheeks deeper than they had been for months. Yes, she could sing now; and as Jack listened, and remembered that this was his last evening at the Limes, he inwardly resolved that when he was old enough, and had made a fortune like Cousin Armstrong, he would marry a wife exactly like Cousin Mary. Altogether it had been a day of excitement; and when Mary entered her bedroom a feeling of hope--the foundation of which she could scarcely account for--seemed to fill her heart. She lay awake for some time, trying to realise certain causes from which this hope seemed to spring. Her meeting with Henry Halford at the station--the absence of displeasure in her father's manner, which she dreaded would follow her sudden impulse to send him as a messenger--above all, the discovery that she had mistaken one of Mr. Henry Halford's nieces for perhaps his intended wife--and last, but not least, an impression that Cousin Sarah was favourable to the Halfords, and in some way able to influence her father--these reflections, added to the certainty in her own mind that Henry Halford had taken his degree and would soon go up for ordination, seemed so full of hope that they acted with a soothing influence on the young girl's heart, till at length she slept. Very different from the innocent hopes of Mary Armstrong were the reflections that haunted the chamber of Arthur Franklyn that night at Englefield Grange. The painful event of his second wife's sudden death, and the necessity for an inquest, had spread consternation over the household, and excited great sympathy. To his surprise, no one sympathised with him more deeply than his eldest daughter, for he remembered how openly she had resented his second marriage. But to the memory of this resentment he now owed Clara's sympathy; remorse for having been at times rude and unkind to the woman who must have suffered so much to cause such a sudden death, filled the young girl's heart.