"I wish you could have seen her, ma'am, the night before they started off," purred Grover. "Lady St. Aukmund, she give a dinner-party in her honour, and Mr. Gaunt had had all the family jools re-set. She wore white satin, ma'am, and with the diamonds and all she did look a perfect picture. We heard afterwards as all the county was talking about her. Mr. Gaunt, it's pretty to see how proud he is of her. But it is but natural they should want to be by themselves a bit at first. Everybody is talking about Mr. Gaunt's courage, the way he went down the mine after that young Mr. Rosenberg! There! It was a fine deed, wasn't it, ma'am? Sit down, I will bring you some tea directly." She left the room, and Virginia's mother, her mouth set in hard lines, stood gazing about her. She thought of Osbert as she first remembered him, in his impetuous youth. What magic wand had touched him now, raising up love and youth from their ashes? Was he indeed lavishing upon Virgie--Virgie, her little girl, her willing drudge, to whom she had deputed all disagreeable duties--the torrent of devotion which she might once have had? Very sincerely at that moment did she repent her own inconstancy. Had she had the courage to stick to Osbert, her fidelity would have been rewarded quite soon. He was not as rich a man as Bernard had been when first they married--at least, she supposed not. Yet she knew that with him for a husband she would never have been suffered to dissipate a fortune. His strong hand would have been over her. She would have been governed instead of governing. She stood in the window and turned her eyes upon the delicate statue of Love. Idly she read the inscription around its base. Then her eye caught a little brass plate affixed to the black marble shaft near the top. _O.G. V.O. JUNE 30th, 19--_ It was the date of their first meeting. She was still contemplating this, in profound reflection, when Grover came back with the tea. "You must excuse deficiencies, ma'am. Hemming have locked up pretty near all the silver; with so many workmen about you need eyes in the back of your head. Was you looking at the statue, ma'am? Mr. Gaunt had it made, so Mrs. Gaunt tells me, to commemorate their first meeting. As I daresay you know, ma'am, it was love at first sight with him. And who can wonder? Well, he deserves to be happy, doesn't he? For he risked all his future, and hers, to save that young man. They say he was as near dead as anybody could be, to come back at all; but Mrs. Gaunt, she wouldn't let them give up. "She sat there, so Ransom tells me, holding his head, nursing him in her arms as she sat on the grass, and calling to him, so pitiful, there was hardly a dry eye, ma'am, for every one thought she was speaking to a dead man. Then, when his eyelids flickered, it seemed like a miracle. So at last he opens his eyes, and, 'Do you know me?' she says. And he answers very low, but you could hear it all right: '_My wife!_' he says.