It revealed itself shortly afterward that his sympathy had not confined itself to the night Mollie called “dreadful.” Since that night he had been a frequent visitor at Bloomsbury Place,--as frequent a visitor as he had been in the days when Dolly had been wont so to entertain him. A week after the return of Aimée and Grif from London, there fell again upon the modest hotel a hush; but it was not the hush of sympathetic silence which had fallen upon it before,--it was merely a sort of reaction after a slight excitement. The pretty English girl had, to every one's wonder, suddenly returned to earth and had been married! The wisest were bewildered, but such was the fact, nevertheless; nobody could exactly comprehend, but who could deny it? It was a mystery, indeed, until one day, some time after, a usually phlegmatic matron was struck with an idea, and accordingly propounded to her friends a somewhat vaguely expressed problem. “After the appearance of the lover one heard no more that she was dying?” “Just so.” “Perhaps the lover had something to do with the matter?”, “Ah!” “Perhaps she was dying for him, and his coming cured her?” “Exactly. That must have been the case.” And thenceforth the matter was deemed settled. However, the gay, light-hearted party of English had taken their departure,--the friendly young artist who sketched and smoked and enjoyed himself; his handsome young wife, who sketched and played with her handsome child, and enjoyed _herself_; the beautiful younger sister, who blushed and was charmingly bashful, but enjoyed herself; the fair little saint with the grave youthful face, who took care of them all, and yet enjoyed _herself_,--the lover, the elder lady, the guest who came to be groomsman, the bride,--they were all gone at last, and their absence was the cause of the hush of which I speak. There had been a wedding,--a joyous, light-hearted wedding, in which the bride had looked pretty and flower-like and ethereal,--a fragile creature enough in her white dress and under her white veil, but a delightfully happy creature, notwithstanding,--in which the bridegroom had been plainly filled with chivalric tenderness and bliss,--in which the two sisters had been charming beyond measure, and the awkward, affectionate girl friend from the seminary had blushed herself into a high fever. There could not have been a more prettily orthodox wedding, said the beholders. Somehow its glow of young romance touched people, it was so evident that the young couple were fond of each other, and happy and hopeful. There were those who, seeing it solemnized in the small church, shed a few tears, they knew not why, when Grif lifted Dolly's veil and kissed her without a word. “It is all rose color to them,” said one of these soft-hearted ones, apologetically, to her neighbor. Rose color! I should think it was.