consciously all attempts to lead that sealed mind to clearer understanding, and doing so with a pang of resignation, seemed to bury for herself all the brighter hopes that had still survived within her--hopes which had supported her through many a troubled and monotonous year. The Dower House was at the other side of the county, as has been said, and further off from the Park than if it had been twice as far in a more direct way. It stood on the corner of a little property, one of the portions of the estate which had been longest in the hands of the family, six or seven miles from the nearest railway station, with nothing more important than a large village near. The chief society which the two ladies had was in this village, about the outskirts of which were a few “good houses,”--respectable, solid dwellings, with “grounds,” not sufficiently dignified to be country places, but superior to the ordinary villa or village mansion--where there lived a few retired people, a soldier or two, Indian officials on pensions, and such like, who, with the addition of the clergy and the doctor, formed the highest classes of Doveton. Lady Frogmore was much thought of in this little society. Her story, which everyone knew more or less, but about which there was always a considerable mystery, her gentleness and kindness, and not least her rank, made her always interesting to her neighbors, and notwithstanding her own complete retirement, their little neighborly tea parties and garden parties were not disagreeable to Mary. She would go nowhere in the evening, but to sit for an hour in a neighbor’s garden and see the young people amuse themselves and listen to the talk of the elders--which was of a calm description, not exciting, and in which it was very unlikely that there could arise any question likely to touch her too keenly--was pleasant enough. For some weeks after her return home she would go nowhere, and her absence made a blank to the good people about, who liked to put Lady Frogmore’s name in their list of guests and quote the very simple things that Mary had said; but as it happened, about the time when Letitia had made up her mind with certainty as to what was going to take place, and acting under the doctor’s order had sent a letter to warn Mar’s relations of the state in which he lay, Lady Frogmore and Miss Hill, much entreated, had consented to be present at a garden party at General Forsyth’s, who had the nearest house to theirs. They were able to walk over, as it was near, and the general’s children had grown up since Lady Frogmore came to the Dower House, and were supposed to be favorites of the ever kind but often shrinking woman, who smiled tenderly upon them but avoided and evaded, no one knew why, all near approach.