“Hooray, here’s Charley Vining!” cried Nelly, as Sir Philip and his son entered the Brays’ drawing-room; and bounding over the carpet, she ran up, and caught the latter by the hand; but as Charley shook both her thin hands warmly, he glanced across the room to where Laura was standing, flushed and happy.

“Are you better?” he said, as he crossed over.

“Better? yes,” she said softly; “and so happy!”

There was such a look of intensified joy in Laura’s face, that as he took his seat beside her, Charley Vining smiled pleasantly. He was accepting his fate.

And why not, he asked himself, when, with all their eccentricities, the family seemed ready to worship him? Sir Philip and Mr Bray had no sooner taken their places in a corner of the lesser drawing-room, and commenced their discussion upon the projected improvements, than Mrs Bray crossed over to where Charley was seated, and probably for the first time in her life forbore to shriek, and, leaning over him, actually whispered, as she stooped and kissed him on the forehead.

“Bless you, Vining! you have made us all so happy! But I have not said a word to him.”

Charley felt disposed to frown; but there was a genuine mother’s tear left upon his forehead, and he pressed Mrs Bray’s hand as she left him, carrying off Nelly at the same time.

It was all settled, then; it was to be. And why not? Let it be so, then. Some people said there was no fate in these things; what, then, was this, if it were not fate?

But he accepted it all, asking himself the while, could the gentle tremulous woman at his side be the Laura of old? How she drank in his every glance, eagerly listening for each word! Could he, as he had said he would, thoroughly dismiss the past, life might, after all, be endurable.

So he reasoned, as the evening passed away.

They had had tea, and Nelly had been sent to the piano to play piece after piece, not one of which was listened to, for those present were intent upon their own affairs. Charley talked in a low voice to Laura, Mrs Bray dozed in an easy-chair, and Nelly kept to her music.

Meanwhile the question of draining Holt Moors had been discussed and rediscussed. Farming matters had been talked over, and the state of Blandfield Park; Mr Bray strongly advising a particular breed of sheep for keeping the grass short and lawnlike, giving his opinions freely, and at the same time listening with deference to those of his old friend.

At last, during a pause, Sir Philip caught Mr Bray’s eye, and nodded towards the other room.

“That’s a picture, Bray!” he said. “Ah,” said Mr Bray, as he gazed for a few moments at where—a noble-looking couple—Charley and Laura sat together in the soft light shed by the lamps, “I wish, Vining, I had had such a son. It seems hard to speak against one’s own flesh and blood, but my Max—”

He did not finish his sentence, but shrugged his shoulders, laughing pleasantly, as tall thin Nelly came and rested her weak loose body against his shoulder, before laying her cheek against his bald head, afterwards polishing the shiny white hemisphere with her little hand, rubbing it round and round, round and round; while, apparently approving thereof, Papa Bray drew his child upon his knee, and went on talking.

But suddenly he ceased; for, rising, and with her hand in his, and one arm round her waist, Charley Vining walked with Laura towards where the old men sat, and Nelly, with the tears in her eyes, glided away to the seat just vacated.

“............