It might be asked, if he was so insular in his ideas, why had he taken an American wife, and she a widow? He had been charmed by her vivacity. She lifted him out of the gloom in which he had lived so long. If she had been tame and prosaic, she would have worn the weeds of widowhood again in a short time. She made him comfortable; she surrounded him with the brightest people she could find; he was not allowed to mope indoors, and Sir Stuart Fernborough and his sprightly American wife attended all the important social functions of the County, and many in London, and at the houses of their friends. And now a great joy was to come to Lady Fernborough. She expected visitors from the United States, and what she considered needful preparations kept her in a flutter of excitement. “How soon do you expect them?” asked Sir Stuart at breakfast. “To-morrow, or next day. They sailed on the tenth; to-morrow is the seventeenth, but they may rest for a day in Liverpool--” “Or stay a day or two in London,” suggested Sir Stuart. “I hope not, for my guests will be impatient to see a real live American ex-governor. Quincy's political advancement has been very rapid.” “America is a rapid country, my dear,” was Sir Stuart's comment. When Lady Fernborough reached her boudoir, she seated herself at her writing desk and wrote rapidly for nearly an hour. “I don't wish too many guests,” she soliloquized as she sealed the last invitation. “Now, I must write to Linda.” “My dear Linda, “I have a great surprise for you. You must forgive me for keeping a secret. I do it so seldom, I wished the experience. I am like the penniless suitor who proposed to an heiress, who, he knew, would reject him, just to see how it would make him feel to lose a fortune. I think I saw that in Punch, but it fits my case exactly. They will be here, _sure_, day after to-morrow. I mean Quincy and Alice, and, I hope, Maude. Come and bring all the children. I suppose Algernon is in London helping to make laws for unruly Britishers, but we will make merry and defy the constables. Despite my marital patronymic, and my armorial bearings, I am still, your loving aunt Ella.” Alice was not to tell the sad news to Lady Fernborough. The telegraph outstrips the ocean liner, and a newspaper, with tidings of the great calamity, was in Aunt Ella's hands long before the arrival of the broken-hearted wife and disconsolate sister. The invitations were countermanded, and days of sorrow followed instead of the anticipated time of joyfulness. Alice and Florence told the story of the tragedy over and over again to sympathizing listeners. “That was just like Quincy to give his place to that poor woman and her child,” said Aunt Ella. “Like Bayard he was without fear and he died without reproach.”