This he did with very successful results, and Miss Marjory was bold enough to put into words what everybody else really thought. ‘Poor old man, it is well he is taken. He was a dreadful burden upon that poor girl, although she did not know it; and his sublime selfishness would have been a great trial to her and to Philip in their married life, and would have raised continual complications and difficulties. It is really a great mercy things have turned out as they have; and Roma will be a different being as Philip’s wife, from what she has been as Meredith’s daughter.’ The letters which reached Maud from Roma at frequent intervals, as well as those from Phil to Tor, all seemed to point to the fact that Miss Marjory’s conclusion had been a correct one. * * * * * In June, Maud and Tor were married. They had seen each other so constantly that the rather long waiting had passed quickly. Tor was anxious that Ladywell Lodge should be in perfect order before he brought his young bride home to it; and it takes a long time to get a place to the state of perfection desired by an exacting man. But at last all was ready. Mr. and Mrs. Debenham had returned, and a grand wedding from Ladywell took place, which made the excitement and talk of the place for weeks. Miss Marjory was there, of course, in all her glory, and her present, the wedding-veil, was a marvel of antique workmanship, and almost overawed Maud by its beauty and costliness. She tried hard to persuade her ‘fairy godmother’ to be first bridesmaid, but this wish was laughed to scorn. ‘It’s all very well for you to laugh; but I tell you there is more truth in old-fashioned sayings than you young people believe. “Three times a bridesmaid, never a bride.” I’ve been bridesmaid twice in my life before, and do you think I’m going to throw away my chance of a husband on a slip of a girl like you?’ The wedding, however, was a brilliant success, owing, as everybody said, a great deal of its brightness to Miss Marjory’s unceasing energy and unfailing flow of spirits. The bride and bridegroom only spent a short three weeks in Switzerland, and then returned to England, and settled down in blissful tranquillity at Ladywell Lodge. Mrs. Lorraine remained an inmate of the Manor House, where her gentle yet practical presence was of great value to the young Squire and his artist-wife, and where she was greatly beloved by all. She visited her favourite, Maud, almost daily, and would sometimes say, with tears of feeling in her eyes, that it was quite a picture and a poem to see how happy were both the children of Philip Debenham.