He lifted his head to look at her bright face, and said, ’They are very much obliged to you.’

‘You must not say that, they are my own.’

’I will not say it again, but as I look at you, and the home to which I have brought you, I feel that I have acted selfishly.’

Albinia timidly pressed his hand, ‘Work was always what I wished,’ she said, ’if only I could do anything to lighten your grief and care.’

He gave a deep, heavy sigh.  Albinia felt that if he had hoped to have lessened the sadness, he had surely found it again at his own door.  He roused himself, however, to say, ’This is using you ill, Albinia; no one is more sensible of it than I am.’

‘I never sought more than you can give,’ she murmured; ’I only wish to do what I can for you, and you will not let me disturb you.’

‘I am very grateful to you,’ was his answer; a sad welcome for a bride.  ‘And these poor children will owe everything to you.’

‘I wish I may do right by them,’ said Albinia, fervently.

’The flower of the flock’—­began Mr. Kendal, but he broke off at once.

Albinia had told Winifred that she could bear to have his wife’s memory first with him, and that she knew that she could not compensate to him for his loss, but the actual sight of his dejection came on her with a chill, and she had to call up all her energies and hopes, and, still better, the thought of strength not her own, to enable her to look cheerfully on the prospect.  Sleep revived her elastic spirits, and with eager curiosity she drew up her blind in the morning, for the first view of her new home.

But there was a veil—­moisture made the panes resemble ground glass, and when she had rubbed that away, and secured a clear corner, her range of vision was not much more extensive.  She could only see the grey outline of trees and shrubs, obscured by the heavy mist; and on the lawn below, a thick cloud that seemed to hang over a dark space which she suspected to be a large pond.

‘There is very little to be gained by looking out here!’ Albinia soliloquized.  ’It is not doing the place justice to study it on a misty, moisty morning.  It looks now as if that fever might have come bodily out of the pond.  I’ll have no more to say to it till the sun has licked up the fog, and made it bright!  Sunday morning—­my last Sunday without school-teaching I hope!  I famish to begin again—­and I will make time for that, and the girls too!  I am glad he consents to my doing whatever I please in that way!  I hope Mr. Dusautoy will!  I wish Edmund knew him better—­but oh! what a shy man it is!’

With a light step she went down-stairs, and found Mr Kendal waiting for her in the dining-room, his face brightening as she entered.

‘I am sorry Bayford should wear this heavy cloud to receive you,’ he said.

‘It will soon clear,’ she answered, cheerfully.  ’Have you heard of poor Gilbert this morning?’