They kissed and separated; and the next day, in the morning, Nat said farewell to his relations, and set off for the town; not again, perhaps, to be brought so close to his sister as in the white heat of penitence which for a while had made them one. Yet never in vain is it for two human souls to be brought thus near together before the throne of God; that evening must have remained as a sanctifying influence in the minds and the lives of Annie and of Nat. They were not soon to meet; he went to work in London; and Annie was to share with her mother the home of Mr Lee. That morning passed on, and before the strokes of noon the whole air was full of the sound of wedding-bells. Alice Robson and Tim Nicol had a bright day for their marriage; and many were the friends who came to see the sight. Neither Jenny nor her daughter were present at the wedding--there were reasons why their absence was not astonishing; but they had sent their warmest good-will to the bridegroom and the bride, and with that a tea-service; and they received some wedding-cake. This marriage might not perhaps make old friendship closer, but their friends had been faithful to them all the same, and no tenderer memories cling about our days than those of the friends who have stood near our distress. Such faithfulness merits the best that earth can give, and even on earth it gains a sure reward. And so our story draws to its close at length--the story of an episode in village-life, not of occurrences altogether ordinary, and yet not unlike much that passes day by day. In Warton the memory of the Salters was enduring, and the remembrance also of the events with which we have concerned ourselves--mingled, as I have said, with some natural dissatisfaction at a certain incompleteness of justice to be discovered in the tale. I have said that such discontent was natural--but, for my own part, I am not strictly just, and, however certain of the necessity of traps and cats, am liable to inclinations in favour of the safety of the mouse. And, for such reasons, I cannot bring myself to be sorry that the children of Jenny, though not always wise or right, had their feet restored to the paths of peace and comfort, and even to higher hopes than their birth warranted. I think the possession of these new-found relations did much to bring happiness to Mr Lee, shaken by the tragic event of his nephew’s death, and by the uncertainty in which his niece’s life was lost. The old man made efforts to discover Tina Gillan, but they proved fruitless, and at length he sought no more.