She has now been married nearly seven years, during which time her life has been very bright and happy—­a life of almost uncheckered sunshine.  She has carried out her idea of our friendship to the very letter; and we have never been separated, except during her honeymoon and my own visits home.  Happily for my sense of independence, there are now plenty of duties for me to perform at Cumber Priory, where I am governess to a brood of pretty children, who call me auntie, and hold me scarcely second to their mother in their warm young hearts.  Angus Egerton is a model country squire and master of the hounds; and he and his wife enjoy an unbroken popularity among rich and poor.  Peter is under-gardener at the Priory, and no longer lives with his grandmother, who left her cottage soon after Mrs. Darrell’s suicide, and is supposed to have gone to London.