So they went home to Selwyn Heights, where they received a perfect ovation, and where Nina’s old friend and playmate, Lion, almost went mad over her return. He looked askance at Talbot at first, but he soon came to understand that the obnoxious man stood very high in the affections of his mistress, so after some jealous sulking, Lion capitulated to the exigencies of the case, and himself adopted Talbot as a favorite. Miss Drusilla Strangemore did not give in so readily as the Newfoundland in her anger against her nephew. In her character of a man-hater, she maintained an animosity against him for some months. But when she came to know Talbot better, when she understood that his one great fault was counter-balanced by a thousand sterling virtues and graces, she gradually softened, and all the more rapidly because she saw that her favorite Nina was cruelly hurt by the coldness and distrust displayed toward her husband. The day came when Miss Drusilla made quite an exception in favor of her nephew whom she declared far superior to the generality of men whom she continued to despise with unabated vigor. She was almost as proud as Nina herself when Talbot went into public life and rose rapidly from one distinction to another until he became a senator in the halls of the national capitol. Then Miss Drusilla said that there was really more in her nephew than she had ever supposed, and Nina declared that she was the happiest woman in the world, her love and her ambition both being satisfied. No honor that ever came to him ever made Talbot Strangemore so proud and glad as those words from his wife’s lips. It was the aim of his life to make her so happy that she would almost, if not quite, forget the tragedy that had so nearly ended her sweet young life. When he found that he had succeeded, that she had put away from her heart the brooding shadow of the tragic past and lived only in the present and the future, he said to himself that now he could ask no more of fate. His cup was full to the brim. THE END. 1886. [Illustration: G.W. CARLETON & CO.] 1886. NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS, RECENTLY ISSUED BY G. W. CARLETON & CO., Publishers, 33 West 23d Street, New York. The Publishers, on receipt of price, will send any book on this Catalogue by mail, _postage free_. All handsomely bound in cloth, with gilt backs suitable for libraries. Mary J. Holmes’ Novels.