dearest, truest little wife that ever man took to his home.  He was thinking of this, and determined to think of it more and more daily, as he knocked at Lady Ongar’s door.  “Yes; her ladyship was at home,” said the servant whom he had seen on the railway platform; and in a few moments’ time he found himself in the drawing-room which he had criticized so carefully when he was taking it for its present occupant.

He was left in the room for five or six minutes, and was able to make a full mental inventory of its contents.  It was very different in its present aspect from the room which he had seen not yet a month since.  She had told him that the apartments had been all that she desired; but since then everything had been altered, at least in appearance.  A new piano had been brought in, and the chintz on the furniture was surely new.  And the room was crowded with small feminine belongings, indicative of wealth and luxury.  There were ornaments about, and pretty toys, and a thousand knickknacks which none but the rich can possess, and which none can possess even among the rich unless they can give taste as well as money to their acquisition.  Then he heard a light step; the door opened, and Lady Ongar was there.

He expected to see the same figure that he had seen on the railway platform, the same gloomy drapery, the same quiet, almost deathlike demeanor, nay, almost the same veil over her features; but the Lady Ongar whom he now saw was as unlike that Lady Ongar as she was unlike that Julia Brabazon whom he had known in old days at Clavering Park.  She was dressed, no doubt, in black; nay, no doubt, she was dressed in weeds; but in spite of the black and in spite of the weeds there was nothing about her of the weariness or of the solemnity of woe.  He hardly saw that her dress was made of crape, or that long white pendants were hanging down from the cap which sat so prettily upon her head.  But it was her face at which he gazed.  At first he thought she could hardly be the same woman, she was to his eyes so much older than she had been!  And yet as he looked at her, he found that she was as handsome as ever—­more handsome than she had ever been before.  There was a dignity about her face and figure which became her well, and which she carried as though she knew herself to be in very truth a countess.  It was a face which bore well such signs of age as those which had come upon it.  She seemed to be a woman fitter for womanhood than for girlhood.  Her eyes were brighter than of yore, and, as Harry thought, larger; and her high forehead and noble stamp of countenance seemed fitted for the dress and headgear which she wore.

“I have been expecting you,” said she, stepping up to him.  “Hermione wrote me word that you were to come up on Monday.  Why did you not come sooner?” There was a smile on her face as she spoke, and a confidence in her tone which almost confounded him.

“I have had so many things to do,” said he lamely.