Mrs. James wanted to leave also; and Maria Lease took her place as nurse. Tenderly she did it, too; and Harriet got well. She was going off to join her husband as soon as she could travel: it was said in France. No one knew; unless it was Maria Lease. She and Harriet had become confidential friends. "Which is the worse fate--yours or mine?" cried Harriet to Maria, half mockingly, half woefully, the day she was packing her trunk. "You have your lonely life, and your never-ending repentance for what you call your harsh sin: I have my sickness and my trouble--and I have enough of that, Maria." But Maria Lease only shook her head in answer. "Trouble and repentance are our best lot in this world, Harriet. They come to fit us for heaven." But North Crabb, though willingly admitting that Harriet Roe, in marrying, had not entered on a bed of lilies, and might have been happier had she kept single, would not, on the whole, be shaken from its belief that the ghost still haunted the empty cottage. Small parties made shivering pilgrimages up there on a moonlight night, to watch for it, and sometimes declared that it appeared. Fancy goes a long way in this world. XXI. SEEING LIFE. The Clement-Pells lived at Parrifer Hall, and were as grand as all the rest of us put together. After that affair connected with Cathy Reed, and the death of his son, Major Parrifer and his family could not bear to stay in the place. They took a house near London, and Parrifer Hall was advertised to be let. Mr. Clement-Pell came forward, and took it for a term of years.