As he was speaking to me the curtain opened again, and there stood my brother-in-law, Edward Church, not looking down-spirited and miserable, as he had done at Mrs. Eva Hatch's, but bright and smiling, and dressed in evening clothes, as also I perceived, when I had time to think of it, was John Powles. I didn't know which to talk to first, but kept turning from one to the other in a dazed manner. John Powles was telling me that _he_ was preparing my house for me in the Summer Land, and would come to take me over to it when I died, when "Ted" interrupted him. "That ought to have been _my_ work, Bluebell," he said, "only Powles had anticipated me." "I wish I could go back with you both at once, I am sick of this world," I replied. "Ted" threw his arms round me and strained me to his breast. "O! it is so hard to part again. How I wish I could carry you away in my arms to the Summer Land! I should have nothing left to wish for then." "You don't want to come back then, Ted?" I asked him. "_Want to come back_," he said with a shudder; "not for anything! Why, Bluebell, death is like an operation which you must inevitably undergo, but which you fear because you know so little about it. Well, with me _the operation's over_. I know the worst, and every day makes the term of punishment shorter. I am _thankful_ I left the earth so soon." "You look just like your old self, Ted," I said; "the same little curls and scrubby little moustache." "Pull them," he answered gaily. "Don't go away, Bluebell, and say they were false and I was Miss Berry dressed up. Feel my biceps," he continued, throwing up his arm as men do, "and feel my heart," placing my hand above it, "feel how it is beating for my sister Bluebell." I said to John Powles, "I hardly know you in evening costume. I never saw you in it before" (which was true, as all our acquaintance had taken place in India, where the officers are never allowed to appear in anything but uniform, especially in the evenings). "I wish," I continued, "that you would come next time in uniform." "I will try," he replied, and then their time was up for that occasion, and they were obliged to go.