Jasper was all smiles and good-humor. He was willing to accede to any arrangement which could add to the pleasures of the day, and Hilda, in whose heart a faint hope had lingered that she and her husband might have gone home together, followed Lady Malvern to her carriage with a little sigh. The whole party was soon driving home. Lady Malvern and Hilda had a small victoria to themselves. As soon as ever they left the rest of the party, the older woman turned and gave a full glance at the girl by her side.

"Hilda," she said suddenly, "you look better than you did this morning."

"Oh, I feel better," she replied. "You have done me lots of good," she continued, raising her eyes with an affectionate light in them to Lady Malvern's kind face.

"I am delighted to have helped you, my love," replied the elder lady; "and now, Hilda, I want to say something. You have been married very little over three months. It is a very common illusion with girls to imagine that married life is a time of perpetual bliss."

Hilda opened her lips to say something, but Lady Malvern interrupted.

"My dear," she said, "you must hear me out. Married life is not a bed of roses, and the first year which a young couple spend together is generally the hardest of all."

"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Quentyns. "Why the first year?"

"Because, my dear, the glamour is gradually being removed. The girl is finding that the hero whom she married is a right good fellow, but still that he is human; that he has his faults and his aggravations; that he needs to be humored and consulted and petted, and to have his smallnesses—yes, my dear, mark the word, his smallnesses—attended to. The husband is making similar discoveries with regard to the lovely angel whom he took to his arms. She, too, is mortal—affectionate, of course, and sweet and womanly, and ten thousand times better than a real angel would be to him, but still with her faults, her tempers, and her fads. The young couple discover these things in each other during the first two or three months of married life. All their future happiness depends on how they both act, under the influence of these discoveries. They have got to learn that, though they are made one by the priest, they are both of them distinct individualities. If they are to be happy together, they must both give and take. I know a married couple who are now the happiest, prosiest, most attached old pair in the world, who went through no end of storms during their first eventful year. But they learned a lesson and profited by it. The wife does not now think her husband the greatest hero that ever set foot on this earth, and the husband does not call his wife an angel; but I think, if their love were analyzed, it would be found greater, deeper, and more tender than that early glamour which was love, but was not equal to the love tried by fire which comes later in life. Now, my dear, you will forgive my little lecture. If you had need of it, ponder my words; if not, forgive an old woman for worrying you. Hilda, what a sweet, pretty little house you have! I always knew that my nephew Jasper had good taste. I am so truly glad that you have the same."

While Lady Malvern was speaking, Hilda pulled down her veil, and struggled hard to keep the tears from her brown eyes. She could not quite manage this, however, and Lady Malvern, giving her a half-glance, saw that her eyelashes were wet.

She did not add any more in words, but she made up her mind to help the young girl by every means in her power.

They drove on rapidly. The horses were fresh, and they were getting over the ground with great rapidity, when a quickly approaching train startled one of the horses. At the same time a man on a bicycle darted round the corner, and before he could help himself, knocked against the carriage. The double shock was enough for the affrighted horses. They plunged, reared, and became unmanageable, and the next moment the little victoria was overturned, and Lady Malvern and Mrs. Quentyns were flung with some violence on the pavement. Lady Malvern was not severely hurt, and she sprang almost immediately to her feet, but the fright and fall had stunned Hilda, who lay white and still on the ground without any attempt at movement. The usual crowd of course collected, and it was on this scene that Quentyns, in high good-humor, and forgetting for the time being that there was a crumpled rose-leaf in the world, suddenly came with some more of the picnic party. As a matter of course, they all drew up. Quentyns was driving a high dog-cart. He sprang to the ground and ran into the midst of the crowd. Then for the first time he realized what had happened. His young wife, looking as if she were dead, was lying in Lady Malvern's arms. Lady Malvern was seated on a doorstep. Some men were hastily coming forward with a shutter.

"My God!" exclaimed Quentyns; "is she dead?"

"No, my dear boy, no—only stunned," said Lady Malvern. "Here, take her into your own arms, Jasper. You are stronger than I. Let her see your face first when she opens her eyes. No medicine will be so reviving as that."

Here a woman came up and spoke to Lady Malvern.

"I shall be only too pleased to have the young lady brought into my house, madam," she said. "A very good doctor lives just round the corner, and he can be summoned at once."

"Yes, yes; send for him immediately," said Quentyns.

He strode into the house with his light burden. Hilda was laid upon a sofa, and in a few moments the doctor arrived. He felt her all over and said that no bones were broken, and that no severe injury of any kind had occurred, but both fall and shock had been very severe. He counseled her being left undisturbed in her present condition until the morning.

"Then I will go home," said Lady Malvern. "You will look after her yourself, Jasper?"

"Need you ask?" he replied. He followed his aunt to the door as he spoke.

"Hilda had a narrow escape of her life," said Lady Malvern, looking full at her nephew as she spoke. "How sudden and awful it all was! There were we chatting together, and thinking no more of danger than if such a thing did not exist, when all in an instant came that awful bolt from the blue. I shall never forget the swinging of the carriage and the way the horses looked when they plunged and kicked about, or the white piteous face of your sweet little Hilda, who would not scream nor show any outward sign of terror. I thought it was all over with both of us—I did really, Jasper. I cannot tell you how thankful we ought to be that things are no worse."

"You are sure then that Hilda is not in danger?" queried the young man in a tremulous voice.

"No, no; what did you hear the doctor say, you silly boy? Perhaps the best thing that could have happened to Hilda was this accident, dreadful as it was for the moment. Perhaps—well, Jasper, I think you must know what I mean."

"Has Hilda been talking about me?" asked Jasper, a wave of red mounting to his brow.

"Talking about you?" replied his aunt, now thoroughly angry; "only in the way that Hilda can talk of those whom she loves best on earth. Jasper, you are the luckiest man in the world, and if you don't contrive to make that sweet child the happiest woman, I for one will have nothing to do with you again."

"No fear, no fear, if she loves me in that way," murmured Jasper.

He turned abruptly on his heel and went back to the room where his wife lay. He was a very proud, reserved man, and even in moments of the deepest agitation would scarcely reveal his real sentiments. But that moment, when he had looked at his wife's white face and had thought that she was dead, had shaken his whole nature to its very depths. He made a discovery then that nothing in all the world was of any real value to him compared with Hilda's love.

"I have acted like a brute to her," he murmured. "Rivers was right. She's too good for me—she's fifty times too good for me. My God, how white she looks as she lies there! Suppose the doctor is wrong. Why doesn't she speak or move? Why do they make so little of this continued unconsciousness? I think I'll go for some further advice. Oh, my darling, my darling, if you are dead, if your sweet life has been taken, I shall never forgive myself—never!"

But just then there was a faint stir of the heavily fringed lids which lay against Hilda's white cheeks. The next moment the sweet brown eyes were opened wide, and Hilda looked into her husband's face.

"What has happened?" she asked drowsily. "I don't remember anything. Where are we?"

"Together, Hilda," he replied; "together. Does anything else really matter?"

"Oh, no, no!" she said, with a catch in her voice.

* * * * *

Next day Mrs. Quentyns was so far convalescent as to be able to return to the little house in Philippa Terrace. Jasper, of course, accompanied her. They had found a good deal to say to each other, between the moment when she had opened her eyes the night before and now. Both had some things to confess—both had some words of forgiveness to crave from the other. So complete now had been the interchange of soul and of love between this pair that it seemed impossible that anything could ever separate such warm hearts again.

"And it has been all Judy's doing," said Jasper as they sat that evening in the little drawing room.

"What do you mean?" asked his wife.

"Why," he answered, "if Judy had not brought matters to a crisis by going away, we might have drifted further and further apart. But now we must have her back again, Hilda. She has fulfilled her mission, dear little soul, and now she must have her reward."

"No," said Hilda, in a firm voice. "Judy shall have her reward, but not by coming back. She did right to go. I could never, never have sent her away, but she did right to go."

"Do you mean to tell me, Hilda, that you could be perfectly happy to live without her?"

"With you," she said, laying her hand on his arm, and looking into his face with her sweet eyes shining through tears.

He put his arms round her and kissed her many times.

"Jasper," said Hilda after a few minutes, "I think the first wrong step that I took—the first beginning of that unhappy time—was when I lost my temper down at Little Staunton and gave up my engagement ring."

"No wonder you lost your temper when I was such a brute about everything," said Quentyns. "It was my fault."

"No, no; it was mine."

"Have you missed the ring, Hilda?"

"Missed it?" she held up her slender finger. "My heart has been empty without it," she said.

"Then let me put it on again for you."

"Can you? Is—isn't it sold?"

"Of course not. Do you think that I could sell that ring?"

"But—but the furniture in Judy's room?"

"When I saw that you must have Judy with you, Hilda, I went into debt for the furniture. Oh, never mind all that now, my darling—the debt is paid in full a week ago, and I have the receipt in my pocket. Now I am going upstairs to fetch the ring."



CHAPTER XIX.

GOOD OMENS.

And so the shadows fall apart, And so the west winds play; And all the windows of my heart I open to the day.

—WHITTIER.

Mildred Anstruther was paying a visit at the Rectory on the day that Rivers and Judy walked in. Rivers was a very striking-looking man, and all the Rectory people were so devoured with curiosity about him, and so interested in all he said and did—in his reasons for coming down to Little Staunton, and in his remarks about the Quentyns—that Judy's own return to the family circle passed into utter insignificance. She was there—they had none of them expected her, and as she chose to come back, she was welcome of course.

It was a lovely day, and the whole party were out in the garden, when Rivers and his little charge entered their midst.

Judy wore her green cloak and pretty black shady hat. There was a new sort of picturesqueness about her, which Aunt Marjorie noticed in an abstracted way; she put it down to "the polish which even a short residence in the metropolis always gives;" she had not the faintest idea that it was due to the dignity which a noble action can inspire.

Judy greeted everyone quite in her old manner, and was rather glad that she was not fussed over, but taken quite as a matter-of-course.

Aunt Marjorie was too anxious about the cream for Rivers' tea to give serious thoughts to anyone else just then. But when the young man had departed to catch the return train to London, then a few questions were asked of Judy.

"I thought you were going to live with Hilda," said Mildred, looking curiously at the child.

Mildred was standing a little apart from the others, and Judy, whose face was pale, for the suffering of her self-sacrifice was still causing her heart to ache horribly, looked full at her, and said in a low voice:

"That turned out to be a mistake, so I've come home."

"You brave little darling!" said Mildred, understanding everything like a flash; she stooped and kissed Judy on her forehead.

Babs came rushing into the midst of the group.

"Judy, Judy, I want you," she cried.

"What is it?" asked Judy.

"There's a butterfly coming out of a chrysalis in the butterfly-case; come quick—he's moving his tail backward and forward—he'll soon be out; come quick and see him."

The dull look left Judy's eyes; they sparkled with a sudden, swift, childish joy.

She took Babs' hand, and they rushed away, right round to the back of the house where the butterfly-case stood.

"Let's take him out, poor darling," she said; "let's put him on a leaf, and watch him as he gets out of his prison."

Her eyes grew brighter and brighter; she bent low to watch the resurrection which was going on.

After all the chrysalis and the butterfly were emblems. They were good omens to Judy that love and hope were not dead.

THE END.