Mrs. Darcy looks over Lavinia’s shoulder, and verifies the blunders alluded to; but it is clear that the attention given is but a half-hearted one. In the early days of black emptiness which had followed Sir George’s death in the previous January, of occupation gone, and spirits drooping to the very earth that had closed over the last of her “men,” Susan had welcomed for Lavinia the editing of Rupert’s “Remains” as a salutary distraction; but of late she has remorsefully to own to herself that she has grown rather tired of that “volume of posthumous verse,” which takes such a long time in preparing for the press, and the emendating, noting, and prefacing of which, by her friend’s not very practised pen, has robbed the latter of so many of the little out-door joys which stand first in the pharmacy of grief-healing. Miss Carew apparently divines the faintness of her friend’s sympathy, for she changes the subject. “I sent the spoons and forks this morning! Have you enough now?” “Plenty.” “Do you want any knives?” “Bless your heart, no! Mrs. Prince has lent enough to cut the throats of the whole township.” “And how about fruit? There are still a good many white currants under the nets on the north wall.” “Currants!” repeats Mrs. Darcy, with affected scorn. “If you could see the size of the grapes that arrived, personally conducted by Féodorovna, just as we were sitting down to dinner last night, you would blush for such a suggestion.” “I withdraw it,” replies the other, with a slight grave smile; adding, “One laughs at them, but they really are wonderfully kind.” “This was not a case of undiluted kindness,” says the rector’s wife, with her light and stingless sarcasm. “The grapes were but incidental; the real object of her visit--I wish she would not pay morning calls just as the soup tureen is entering the dining-room--was to ask for an invitation for to-day for her organist.” “And you gave it?” “Of course! Am I ever harsh to true first love?” ironically. “She went conscientiously through his achievements all the same. How well we know them, don’t we?” “As a little boy of ten he won sight-reading prizes at local competitions, while earning his bread as organist of Sutton Rivers Church!” replies Lavinia, the long-absent dimple showing itself cautiously in her left cheek, as she responds promptly to the call upon her memory. “He had to go to the College of Music unusually late,” rejoins Susan, snatching the words out of her friend’s mouth in triumphant patter; “but, nevertheless, took his A.R.C.M. in theory, the stiffest exam. the Royal College affords, with ninety-nine marks out of a maximum of a hundred!” Lavinia breaks in hurriedly. “He is composing an organ fugue in G minor, which has something of the strength and purity of design of Bach!” They both pause to laugh; but Lavinia’s eyes, falling on the MS., grow suddenly serious again.