“Well, sir!” exclaimed the old lady—­“well, sir, you see it has turned out exactly as I said it would; there’s station—­there’s happiness.  Why, sir, if his brother dies without children, his own valet told me, Mr. Ivers would be a lord and Helen a lady.  Didn’t she look beautiful!  Now, please, reverend sir, do speak, didn’t she look beautiful?”

“She did.”

“Ah! it’s a great gift that beauty; though,” she added, resorting to the strain of morality which persons of her character are apt to consider a salve for sin—­“though it’s all vanity, all vanity.  ’Flesh is grass’—­a beautiful text that was your reverence preached from last Sunday—­’All flesh is grass.’  Ah, well-a-day! so it is.  We ought not to be puffed up or conceited—­no, no.  As I said to Mrs. Leicester, ’Don’t be puffed up, my good woman, because your niece has what folk call a pretty face, nor don’t expect that she’s to make a good market of it—­it’s but skin deep; remember our good rector’s sermon, ’All flesh is grass.’’ Ah, deary me! people do need such putting in mind; and, if you believe me, sir, unless indeed it be Rose, poor child, who never had a bit of love in her head yet, I’ll be bound every girl is looking above her station—­there’s a pity, sir.  All are not born with a coach and horses; no, no;” and so, stimulated a little, perhaps, by a glass of real, not gooseberry, champagne, poor Mrs. Myles would have galloped on with a strange commentary upon her own conduct (of the motives to which she was perfectly ignorant,) had not the rector suddenly exclaimed, “Where is Rose?”

“Crying in her own room, I’ll be bound; I’m sure she is.  Why, Rose—­and I really must get your reverence to speak to her, she is a sad girl—­Rose Dillon, I say—­so silent and homely-like—­ah, dear!  Why, granddaughter—­now, is it not undutiful of her, good sir, when she knows how much I have suffered parting from my Helen.  Rose Dillon!”

But Rose Dillon was not weeping in her room, nor did she hear her grandmother’s voice when the carriage, that bore the bride to a new world, drove off.  Rose ran down the garden, intending to keep the equipage in sight as long as it could be distinguished from an eminence that was called the Moat, and which commanded an extensive view of the high road.  There was a good deal of brushwood creeping up the elevation, and at one side it was overshadowed by several tall trees; in itself it was a sweet, sequestered spot, a silent watching place.  She could hardly hear the carriage wheels, though she saw it whirled along, just as it passed within sight of the tall trees.  Helen’s arm, with its glittering bracelet, waved an adieu; this little act of remembrance touched Rose, and, falling on her knees, she sobbed forth a prayer, earnest and heartfelt, for her cousin’s happiness.