Ernest Melvyn never rose above the station of confidential clerk, but the respect and esteem of his employers testified his integrity and usefulness. Mr. Walton learned to regard him with as much friendship as Mr. Allison, and it was not long before he was as welcome a guest in Mary’s new home as he had ever been in the scenes of her joyous childhood. Whatever might have been her feelings towards Ernest, his perfect self-possession and calm demeanor, by convincing her that he had never loved her, aided her in the subjugation of her own rebellious heart. Her husband was kind, affectionate, and good. She had always respected his talents and esteemed his virtues, and now, as time wove the new and strong ties of parental affection between them, the quiet happiness of domestic life gradually effaced the brightest tints of her youth’s romance. It may be that a shadow rested long on her path—it may be that the spectre of blighted love sometimes stood beside the shrine of her household gods—but Time, the true exorciser of all such ghosts, wrought his work of kindness, slowly but surely, and Mary became a cheerful, useful and happy woman. Ernest experienced the usual changes which come upon a solitary man. He lived alone among his books, and pictures, and shells, until they became actually objects of tender interest to him. Regularly, every afternoon, he visited Mr. Allison, and read the newspapers for his benefactor, whose failing sight rendered the perusal of his favorite journals a task of some difficulty. This done, Ernest returned to his home and passed the remainder of the evening in study—aimless it is true, but still pleasing; or in a dreamy and vague reverie so enticing to a reserved and imaginative man. But on one certain evening in each week, he always took his seat at Mrs. Walton’s tea-table, and as regularly ensconced himself in the chimney-corner as soon as tea was over. To the isolated man this weekly visit, and those claspings of the hand with which he was always greeted, were as dear as the “memorable kiss” with which the “apostle of passion” fed his wild idolatry; aye, full as precious and far more pure was the joy thus imparted than any refinement of infidel philosophy and illicit love. Mary’s children climbed his knee, even as Mary had done in her own glad infancy, and loved him with all the fervent affection which had once characterized her feelings. Like all old bachelors, he became somewhat of a humorist, and, at last, was voted by the dandies of the rising generation, to be decidedly eccentric. But his kindliness of heart, his firm integrity, and his purity and delicacy of feeling never forsook him.