“Pauline, my dear!”

“Well, I can’t think, as he’s probably in heaven, that he can have begrudged us his tickets to New York.”

“I should think not,” said Mrs. Throckmorton, with a little sigh.  For New York was not heaven to her, and she had spent a good deal of the day in looking up the necessary servants for our establishment, which, little as it was, required just double the number that had made us comfortable abroad.

She had too much discretion to trouble me with her cares, however, so she said cheerfully, after a few moments, by way of diverting my mind and her own—­

“Well, I heard some news to-day.”

“Ah!”—­(I had been unpacking all day; and Mrs. Throckmorton in the interval of servant-hunting had not been able to refrain from a visit or two, en passant to dear friends.)

“Yes:  Kilian Vandermarck was married yesterday.”

“Yesterday! how odd.  And pray, who has he married?  Not Mary Leighton, I should hope.”

“Leighton.  Yes, that’s the name.  No money, and a little passe.  Everybody wonders.”

“Well, he deserves it.  That is even-handed justice, I’m not sorry for him.  He’s been trifling all his days, and now he’s got his punishment.  It serves Sophie right, too.  I know she can’t endure her.  She never thought there was the slightest danger.  But I’m sorry for Richard, that he’s got to have such a girl related to him.”

“Oh, well,” said Mrs. Throckmorton, “I don’t know whether that’ll affect him very much, for they say he’s going to be married too.”

“Richard!”

“Yes; and to that Benson girl, you know.”

“Who told you?”

“Mary Ann.  She’s heard it half a dozen times, she says.  I believe it’s rather an old affair.  His sister made it up, I’m told.  The young lady’s been spending the summer with them, and this autumn it came out.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“I’m sure I don’t know; only that’s the talk.  It would be odd, though, if we’d just come home in time for the wedding.  You’ll have to give her something handsome, being your guardian, and all.”

I wouldn’t give her anything, and she shouldn’t marry Richard, I thought, as I leaned back in my chair and looked into the fire; a great silence having fallen on us since the delivery of that piece of news.

I said I didn’t believe it, and yet I’m afraid I did.  It was so like a man to give in at last; at least, like any man but Richard.  He had always liked Charlotte Benson, and known how clever she was, and Sophie had been so set upon it, (particularly since Richard had had so much money that he had given her a handsome settlement that nothing would affect.) And now that Kilian was married and would have the place, unless Richard wanted it, it was natural that Sophie should approve Richard having his wife there instead of Kilian having his; Kilian’s being one that nobody particularly approved.