“Oh, yes I do,” cried Letitia.  “She was very pretty, and always wore such beautiful gowns.”

Again there was a silence, and then Christian said,

“I think, if the children do not dislike it, that as they always called Mrs. Grey ‘mamma,’ they had better call me ‘mother.’  It is a pleasanter word than step-mother.  And I hope to make myself a real mother to them before very long.”

“I know you will,” answered Dr. Grey, in a smothered voice, as he set down little Oliver, and, kissing the children all round, bade nurse carry them off to bed once more—­nurse, who, standing apart, with her great black eyes had already taken the measure of the new wife, of the children’s future, and of the chances of her own authority.  Not the smallest portion of this decision originated in the fact that Christian, wholly preoccupied as she was, quitted it without taking any notice of her—­Phillis—­at all.

Dr. Grey preceded his wife to a room, which, in the long labyrinth of apartments, seemed almost a quarter of a mile away.  A large fire burnt on the old-fashioned hearth, and glimmered cheerily on the white toilet-table, crimson sofa, and bed.  It was a room comfortable, elegant, pleasant, bright, thoroughly “my lady’s chamber,” and which seemed from every nook to welcome its new owner with a smile.

“Oh, how pretty!” exclaimed Christian, involuntarily.  She was not luxurious, yet she dearly loved pretty things; the more so, because she had never possessed them.  Even now, though her heart was so moved and full, she was not insensible to the warmth imparted to it by mere external pleasantnesses like these.

“I had the room newly furnished.  I thought you would like it,” said Dr. Grey.

“I do like it.  How very kind you are to me!”

Kind—­only kind!

She looked around the room, and there, in one corner, just as if she had never parted from them, were all the old treasures of her maidenhood—­ desk, work-table, chair.  She guessed all the secret.  Once, perhaps, she might have burst into tears—­heart-warm tears; now she only sighed.

“Oh, how good you are!”

Her husband kissed her.  Passively she took the caress, and again she sighed.  Dr. Grey looked at her earnestly, then spoke in much agitation—­

“Christian, tell me truly, were you hurt at what occurred just now?  I mean in the nursery.”

“No, not in the least.  It was inevitable.”

“It was.  Many things in life, quite inevitable, have yet to be met and borne, conquered even, if we can.”

“Ay, if we can!”

And Christian looked up wistfully, almost entreatingly, to her husband, who, she now knew, and trembled at the knowledge, so solemn was the responsibility it brought, had loved her, and did love her, with a depth and passion such as a man like him never loves but one woman in all his life.