"A reaction set in for Henry after he died, and the boys grew shy and cool to the two Lewises. In fact, they were sent to Coventry. They did not like it, and they left. The eldest went up to be in some office in London, and the youngest has gone to a private school." "It is strange that the two great _inflicted_ evils in your family and in mine, should have come from the Carrs!" exclaimed Mrs. Dundyke. "But, my dear, do not let us get into a sorrowful train of thought to-day. And, all the sorrow we can give, cannot bring back to us those who are gone." "I wish you could have seen him!" murmured Lucy. "He was so beautiful! he----" "Here are people coming, my dear." Lucy turned away, drying her eyes. A clerical dignitary and a young lady were advancing through the cloisters. As they met, the young lady bowed to Lucy, and the gentleman raised his shovel hat--not so much as to acquaintances, as because they were ladies passing through his cloisters. "Who are they?" whispered Mrs. Dundyke, when the echo of their footsteps had died away. "The dean and Miss Beauclerc. Aunt Betsey, she knew Henry so well! She came to see him in his coffin." They were at Mr. Arkell's house, in the evening--Lucy, her aunt, and Mrs. Dundyke. The breakfast in the morning was to be given in it, Miss Arkell's house being small, and the carriages would drive there direct from St. James-the-Less. Mrs. Arkell, gracious now beyond everything, had sent for them to spend the last evening, and see the already laid-out table in the large drawing-room. She could not spare Travice that last evening, she said. Oh, how it all came home to Mildred! _She_ had gone to that house the evening before a wedding in the years gone by, taken to it perforce, because she dared make no plea of refusal. She had seen the laid-out table in the drawing-room then, just as she was looking down upon it now. "Lucy's destiny is happier!" she unconsciously murmured. "Did you speak, Mildred?" She raised her eyes to the questioner by her side, William Arkell. She had not observed that he was there. "I?--Yes; I say Lucy's will be a happy destiny." "Very happy," he assented, glancing at a group at the end, who were engaged in a hot and laughing dispute, as to the placing of the guests, Travice maintaining his own opinion against Aunt Betsey and Lucy. Travice looked very well now. His hair was long again; his face, delicate still--but it was in the nature of its features to be so--had resumed its hue of health. Lucy was radiant in smiles and blue ribbons, under the light of the chandelier. "I begin to think that destinies are more equally apportioned than we are willing to imagine; that where there are fewer flowers there are fewer thorns," Mr. Arkell observed in a low tone. "There is a better life, Mildred, awaiting us hereafter." "Ah, yes. Where there shall be neither neglect, nor disappointment, nor pain; where----"