Judge Wylde died last week, and they say he left a pretty penny to his family, though I don’t think Norman needs it much, he’s getting rich so fast with his law business. He works so hard, they say, that he has no time for any one but his child. He has given it the name of Charley for your poor, dead father, which I think was quite nice of him. I see the little fellow often, as the Wyldes are quite friendly with me; also that good Mrs. Meade, who says she was quite certain from the first that things would turn out as they have. I haven’t seen Norman since your husband died. I don’t know how he takes it, but I hope you and he will make it up some time, as it can’t do Colonel Falconer--poor, dear saint--any good for you to stay always a widow. But forgive me, dear daughter, for I know your sorrow is too deep for me to hint at such things yet. Pansy sat silent for a long time, brooding over those words, and her breast heaved with many hopeless sighs. “No one need ever think of that,” she thought mournfully. “Norman will never forgive me for what I did. He will think always that it was for Colonel Falconer’s money, not for pity’s sake.” And at thought of her little child, her beautiful Charley, out of whose love she had been tricked and cheated by her wicked stepfather, Pansy wept most bitterly and longingly. “Whether he ever forgives me or not, I must see my child sometimes,” she thought; but she determined that she would spend her year of mourning at the villa. Life was not so unhappy since Juliette had repented her wickedness and fallen in love with her uncle’s wife. They had become fast friends, and Juliette now prayed earnestly that the time would come when Pansy would again be Norman’s wife. CHAPTER XLV. SUPREME JOY. A year went slowly past, and found Pansy and Juliette still at the villa; but it was not likely that the latter would be there much longer, for she had lately made the acquaintance of a handsome young man, a rich New Yorker, who had wintered in Italy, and who had been so very much smitten with the charms of Miss Ives that he had proposed marriage on very short acquaintance, and had been accepted, for he was the first man who had ever touched her heart since she had lost Norman Wylde. In truth, Juliette was very much altered for the better. She had taken gentle Pansy for her model, and was fast becoming a changed and improved woman. Not content with owning her fault to Pansy, she had written to the Wyldes, mother and son, and confessed her folly and her repentance, declaring that she now loved Pansy as fondly as she had once hated her, and that her dearest wish now was for the happiness of the two she had injured so much. When Arthur Osborne first declared his love to Juliette she had a hard struggle with her pride, but before she gave him her answer she told him the whole story of her folly and sin and repentance.