Many years he remained in Canada, working hard. Tidings occasionally reached England of his progress. Rosa, perhaps, heard such at rare intervals,--though somewhat distorted, it may be, from their original tenor, before they reached her. But it appeared certain that he was "getting on." In defiance and utter contradiction of all the sapient predictions there anent, it seemed that this dreamy, poetizing Everett Gray was absolutely successful in his new vocation of man-of-business. The news that he had become a partner in the firm he had entered as a clerk was communicated in a letter from himself to Lady Beauchamp. In it he, for the first time since his departure, spoke of Rosa; but he spoke of her as if they had parted but yesterday; and, in asking her mother's sanction to their betrothal _now_, urged, as from them both, their claim to have that boon granted at last. Lady Beauchamp hastily questioned her daughter. "You must have been corresponding with the young man all this time?" she said. But Rosa's denial was not to be mistaken. "He has heard of you, then, through some one," the practical lady went on; "or, for anything he knows, you may be married, or going to be married, instead of waiting for him, as he seems to take it for granted you have been all this time." "He was right, mother," Rosa only said. "Right, you foolish girl? You haven't half the spirit I had at your age. I would have scorned that it should have been said of _me_ that I 'waited' for any man." "But if you loved him?" "Well, if he loved _you_, he should have taken more care than to leave you on such a Quixotic search for independence as his." "He thought it right to go, and he trusted me; we had faith in one another," Rosa said; and she wound her arms round her mother, and looked into her face with eyes lustrous with happy tears. For, from that lady's tone and manner, despite her harsh words, she knew that the opposition was withdrawn, and that Everett's petition was granted. They were married. It is years ago, now, since their wedding-bells rung out from the church-tower of Hazlewood, blending with the sweet spring-air and sunshine of a joyous May-day. The first few years of their married life were spent in Canada. Then they returned to England, and Everett Gray put the climax to the astonishment of all who knew him by purchasing back a great part of Hazlewood with the fruits of his commercial labors in the other country. At Hazlewood they settled, therefore. And there, when he grew to be an old man, Everett Gray lived, at last, the peaceful, happy life most natural and most dear to him. No one would venture to call the successful merchant a Visionary; and even his brother owns that "the old fellow has got more brains, after all, by Jove! than he ever gave him credit for." Yet, as the same critic, and others of his calibre, often say of him, "He has some remarkably queer notions. There's no making him out,--he is so different from other people."