They took him to Belfast as soon as it was possible, and his mother came to him. He was gentle and quiet, with little power of movement, and scarcely any of thought; and in a consultation of doctors, the verdict was given that he must be carefully tended for months, if not for years to come; and though there might finally be full recovery, yet it would depend on the most tender and careful treatment of body and mind. London doctors, when he could be moved thither, confirmed the decision, and he began a helpless invalid life, in which a certain indifference and dulness made him a much less peevish and trying patient than would have been anticipated. Mysie was his willing, but intelligent slave; and his mother was not only thankful to have him brought back to her at any price, but really—though she would not have confessed it even to herself—was less troubled and anxious about him than she had been since he had begun to “roam in youth’s uncertain wilds.” Indeed, there were hopes that slow recovery might find him a much changed person in character. He had become so uninterested in his former predilections that he heard with little emotion that Vera was to marry Petros White. “I thought she would take up with some cad,” he said. But his family were really glad that this wedding was to take place at Rocca Marina, whither the two sisters and Magdalen were invited. Paulina would not go. She still resented the treatment of Hubert Delrio, and she was devoted to her study of nursing at the Dearport Sisterhood; but Magdalen thought it right to take Thekla, and give her the advantages of improvement in languages, and the sight of fine scenery. And certainly Rocca Marina was a wonderful place for marriages. Vera, handsome and happy and likely to turn into a fairly good commonplace wife, had no sooner been sent off on a honeymoon tour to Greece and Egypt, and Mrs. White had begged the other two to prolong their visit, considering, perhaps, if one or the other aunt or niece could not be promoted to the vacant post of lady-in-waiting, than Hubert Delrio came to secure specimens of marble for some mosaic work on which he was engaged. He was fast becoming a man of mark, whom the Whites were delighted to receive and entertain, and who was delighted to be with the old friends who had had so great an influence on his life. And was it Magdalen alone to whom he chiefly looked up as his helper and guide? So he thought; but before the time of separation had come, he had found out that Thekla was far prettier than ever Vera had been, and with a mind and principle—no Flapsy, but a real sympathetic and poetic nature, which had grown up in these years. Young as she was, their destinies were fixed.