rather a dreary view to take of the subject; but, however, Reine was in the troublous state of expectation, which this young woman declared to be thus put an end to. She was as a young man often is, whose friends keep him back from active occupation, wondering whether this flat round was to go on forever, or whether next moment, round the next corner, there might not be something waiting which would change her whole life. As for Miss Susan and her sister, they went on living at Whiteladies as of old. The management of the estate had been, to some extent, taken out of Miss Susan’s hands at Herbert’s majority, but as she had done everything for it for years, and knew more about it than anybody else, she was still so much consulted and referred to that the difference was scarcely more than in name. Herbert had written “a beautiful letter” to his aunts when he came of age, begging them not so much as to think of any change, and declaring that even were he able to come home, Whiteladies would not be itself to him unless the dear White ladies of his childhood were in it as of old. “That is all very well,” said Miss Susan, “but if he gets well enough to marry, poor boy, which pray God he may, he will want his house to himself.” Augustine took no notice at all of the matter. To her it was of no importance where she lived; a room in the Almshouses would have pleased her as well as the most sumptuous chamber, so long as she was kept free from all domestic business, and could go and come, and muse and pray as she would. She gave the letter back to her sister without a word on its chief subject. “His wife should be warned of the curse that is on the house,” she said with a soft sigh; and that was all. “The curse, Austine?” said Miss Susan with a little shiver. “You have turned it away, dear, if it ever existed. How can you speak of a curse when this poor boy is spared, and is going to live?” “It is not turned away, it is only suspended,” said Augustine. “I feel it still hanging like a sword over us. If we relax in our prayers, in our efforts to make up, as much as we can, for the evil done, any day it may fall.”