"You dear old thing," said Dolly trying to laugh away her own tears, "when you are lost to me and mine, we shall not cry the less because you could not leave us enough to buy mourning," and it was then Miss Gerace and Dolly agreed they were not to part company again. In good truth, how Dolly would have got through that winter without her aunt's presence and her aunt's money she did not know. Life had been a hard enough struggle when she was strong to battle, but not long after Mrs. Werner left the little cottage, Dolly felt a weakness come upon her against which she was impotent to struggle, which made it easy to persuade her to take her morning cup of tea in bed, and do little save sit near the grateful warmth of that pleasant wood-fire through the day. The doctor came; a pleasant chatty country doctor, who was accustomed to patients who liked to dwell on their ailments, and who, though Mrs. Mortomley puzzled him, never imagined she could be so stupid as to tell him fibs. According to all known rules Dolly ought to have had one or two very sufficient pains, one or two very decided symptoms, but Dolly had no pains and no symptoms. She was only tired she declared, exhausted mentally and bodily if he preferred that form of expression, and she should be well in the spring. That was all any one could make out of Mrs. Mortomley, and when the spring came it seemed to justify her prediction. With the bright weather Dolly revived. She sat in the sunshine, she donned her brightest apparel, she ate with a relish the simple country fare, and she requested the kindly rector to say one day from the reading-desk that Dollabella Mortomley desired to return thanks for "mercies vouchsafed." "For what mercies, my dear?" asked the good rector, who could not look at her wistful, eager face quite unmoved. "God has vouchsafed me another spring," she answered; "one of almost unalloyed happiness." And so the sunshine of old returned and stayed with her to the end. With the spring came Mrs. Werner. Her friend had requested her visit long before; but she delayed complying with that request till an almost imperative message brought her South. Then Dolly gave her that packet, the secret of which she had kept so faithfully, and when Mrs. Werner opened it, she found notes to the amount of two thousand pounds and a letter, her dead husband's confession and fare-well. "I cannot retain this money," said Mrs. Werner. "Do so for a week and then we will talk about it," Mrs. Mortomley answered, and for a week the widow maintained silence, walking alone through those Hertfordshire woods, and for the first time keeping her vigil with the dead.