And Kenneth,—­Desire had never lost out of her heart those words,—­“Be strong,—­be patient, dear!”

He did not speak to her of himself; he could not demand congratulation from her grief; he let it be until she should somehow learn, and of her own accord, speak to him.

So everybody let her alone, poor child, to her hurt.

The news of the engagement was no Boston news; it was something that had occurred, quietly enough, among a few people away up in Z——.  Of the persons who came in,—­the few remaining in town,—­nobody happened to know or care.  The Ripwinkleys did, of course; but Mrs. Ripwinkley remembered last winter, and things she had read in Desire’s unconscious, undisguising face, and aware of nothing that could be deepening the mischief now, thinking only of the sufficient burden the poor child had to bear, thought kindly, “better not.”

Meanwhile Mrs. Ledwith was dwelling more and more upon the European plan.  She made up her mind, at last, to ask Uncle Titus.  When all was well, she would not seem to break a compact by going away altogether, so soon, to leave him; but now,—­he would see the difference; perhaps advise it.  She would like to know what he would advise.  After all that had happened,—­everything so changed,—­half her family abroad,—­what could she do?  Would it not be more prudent to join them, than to set up a home again without them, and keep them out there?  And all Helena’s education to provide for, and everything so cheap and easy there, and so dear and difficult here?

“Now, tell me, truly, uncle, should you object?  Should you take it at all hard?  I never meant to have left you, after all you have done; but you see I have to break up, now poor Grant is gone; we cannot live as we did before, even with what you do; and—­for a little while—­it is cheaper there; and by and by we can come back and make some other plan.  Besides, I feel sometimes as if I must go off; as if there weren’t anything left here for me.”

Poor woman! poor girl, still,—­whose life had never truly taken root!

“I suppose,” said Uncle Titus, soberly, “that God shines all round.  He’s on this side as much as He is on that.”

Mrs. Ledwith looked up out of her handkerchief, with which at that moment she had covered her eyes.

“I never knew Uncle Titus was pious!” she said to herself.  And her astonishment dried her tears.

He said nothing more that was pious, however; he simply assured her, then and in conversations afterward, that he should take nothing “hard;” he never expected to bind her, or put her on parole; he chose to come to know his relatives, and he had done so; he had also done what seemed to him right, in return for their meeting him half way; they were welcome to it all, to take it and use it as they best could, and as circumstances and their own judgment dictated.  If they went abroad, he should advise them to do it before the winter.