Three years afterwards, and Herrick and Irene were living with their two children at Lavendale Manor, and the fences that parted manor and court had been thrown down, and the two estates were as one, the old squire having settled Fairmile Court and all its belongings upon his adopted daughter, whose husband was to assume the name of Bosworth in addition to his own, and to sign himself Durnford-Bosworth henceforward. Time is the best of all peace-makers, and after nursing his wrath for a year or two Roland Bosworth had discovered that the orphan he had picked up on Flamestead Common was dearer to him than resentment or wounded pride. Perhaps he was all the better pleased to endow the changeling since Mr. Topsparkle's magnificent bequest had made her independent of his bounty. To Lavendale Manor every New Year's Eve comes a pensive lady to pass sad hours in solitude and silence and pious prayers and meditations in those rooms which were once so full of mirth. Alone she paces the terrace in moonlight or in darkness: alone she keeps her midnight vigil, and prays and weeps upon that stone bench where her lover died. Irene and her husband respect the mourner's solitude, and in their pity for an inconsolable grief they scarce lament the change in that beautiful face which is but too prophetic of doom. Not again will that widowed heart ache at the sound of New Year joy-bells, for their merry peal will ring above her grave. THE END. End of Project Gutenberg's Mohawks, Volume 3 of 3, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon