She bore up sullenly till after the funeral, only keeping to her own room, and refusing to see Lettice. Then she broke down, and for many weeks she was laid low with brain fever. Out of this illness, she emerged a permanent invalid, shattered in body and mind, childishly sorry for her past conduct, so far as she was capable of recalling it, yet apt to be amused with the veriest trifles. Lettice could be no help to Dr. Bryant, so far as Theodosia was concerned: since her presence proved always in a measure harmful, by exciting more vivid recollections. A good nurse was in constant attendance: and Dr. Bryant devoted himself, with patient and forgiving assiduity, to lightening, so far as was in his power, the burden of his wife's existence. Hers truly was a spoilt life. In less than a year, she was laid beside her boy. Dr. Bryant had been thoroughly shaken out of his love for Quarrington Cottage by these painful events. Without consulting anybody, he put the place into the hands of agents, to be let or sold: and six weeks after his wife's death, he betook himself to a London hotel, within five minutes' walk of the Andersons' lodgings. Nobody expected him. Lettice had been greatly exercised of late, wondering whether her first duty lay with Felix or with Dr. Bryant, now that the latter was left alone in the world. "If only I could live with them both!" she said often to herself. But Felix was tied to the neighbourhood of London: and that Dr. Bryant should be willing to quit his old home was a notion which never so much as occurred to her imagination. Everybody looked upon him as a fixture there. The day on which he arrived happened to be the day of Prue Valentine's wedding: a quiet affair, with only Bertha and Nan, Lettice and one other girl, for bride's-maids. The ceremony took place in Mr. Kelly's own Church. Prue looked calmly happy, in her neat white dress: not only happier but younger than for years past. The bride's-maids wore mauve and white, in consideration of Lettice's mourning, which was of course slight in degree. It was a morning of much excitement for Lettice, who had never been a bride's-maid before: and for about the first time during six weeks past, her mind did not dwell continuously on the thought of Dr. Bryant in his solitude. Coming out of Church, after the happy pair, a vague sense took possession of Lettice that somebody familiar and unexpected was present. She could not at once give shape to the notion, and she did not exactly see the "somebody." It was rather a dim consciousness that such an one might be seen—and her eyes roved about anxiously. Had she caught a glimpse, or had she not—almost without knowing? An answer came in the porch, when a kind finely-outlined face, framed in grey hair, was suddenly close at hand; and then she was aware that she had before detected him in Church, though her brain had not fully translated what her eyes had seen. "Uncle Maurice!" burst from her lips.