‘Is it anyone we know?’ was his first question. ‘I hope it may be the sort of friend who will leave him something--a legacy couldn’t come at a better moment.’ This was a wonderful sedative to her alarms, and turned her thoughts into quite a different channel. It would be indeed a most suitable moment to have a legacy left him. Every time is suitable for that, but when a man is about to be married, nothing could be more appropriate. Mrs. Ford went across in the evening, after dinner, to see Grace. They lived quite near each other, and the Fords for that evening had no engagement. She found her future sister-in-law sitting over a little, bright fire, reading a novel, with papers beside her on the table, lists from the furniture shops, and some made out in her own handwriting of things that would be required in the new home. Miss Goodheart received Mrs. Ford very cordially. ‘It feels so odd to be quite alone again,’ she said, with a little laugh, which was slightly nervous, ‘and when one didn’t expect it. So I was glad to find a new book. Poor Oliver! he will not have pleasant journey. I hope he will find his friend better. Is he a friend of yours, too?’ ‘He was in such a hurry he had not time to tell me, nor I to ask him,’ said Trix, which was not, as the reader knows, quite true. There was a little pause after this, as if they each would have liked to ask questions of the other; and then, no questions being possible, as neither knew, they plunged into furniture, which is a very enthralling subject. Trix, having experience, was able to give many hints, and to suggest a number of things Grace had left out--kitchen things, for instance. How can anyone know about pots and pans, and how many are necessary, without practical knowledge supplied by recent experience? They both subdued a little dull pain they had about the region of their hearts by a good long talk on this subject, and parted quite cheerfully when Mr. Ford--who never had any pains in that region except those which are produced by a digestion out of order--came to fetch his wife. ‘Oliver will take the opportunity to do several things on his own hook, now that he has managed to tear himself away,’ that gentleman said. ‘The great difficulty was to tear himself away. And I only hope his friend will leave him something.’ This, though it was so prosaic, gave a real comfort to the two women. It brought his mission quite out from the mystery that hung about it to the range of commonplace affairs.