Two years rolled over Beechwood—two uneventful years. The last of the children ceased to be a child; and we prepared for that great era in all household history, the first marriage in the family. It was to be celebrated very quietly, as Edwin and Louise both desired. Time had healed over many a pang, and taught many a soothing lesson; still it could not be supposed that this marriage was without its painfulness.

Guy still remained abroad; his going had produced the happy result intended. Month after month his letters came, each more hopeful than the last, each bringing balm to the mother’s heart. Then he wrote to others beside his mother: Maud and Walter replied to him in long home-histories; and began to talk without hesitation—nay, with great pride and pleasure—“of my brother who is abroad.”

The family wound was closing, the family peace about to be restored; Maud even fancied Guy ought to come home to “our wedding;"—but then she had never been told the whole of past circumstances; and, besides, she was still too young to understand love matters. Yet so mercifully had time smoothed down all things, that it sometimes appeared even to us elders as if those three days of bitterness were a mere dream—as if the year we dreaded had passed as calmly as any other year. Save that in this interval Ursula’s hair had begun to turn from brown to grey; and John first mentioned, so cursorily that I cannot even now remember when or where, that slight pain, almost too slight to complain of, which he said warned him in climbing Enderley Hill that he could not climb so fast as when he was young. And I returned his smile, telling him we were evidently growing old men; and must soon set our faces to descend the hill of life. Easy enough I was in saying this, thinking, as I often did, with great content, that there was not the faintest doubt which of us would reach the bottom first.

Yet I was glad to have safely passed my half century of life—glad to have seen many of John’s cares laid to rest, more especially those external troubles which I have not lately referred to—for, indeed, they were absorbed and forgotten in the home-troubles that came after. He had lived down all slanders, as he said he would. Far and near travelled the story of the day when Jessop’s bank was near breaking; far and near, though secretly—for we found it out chiefly by its results—poor people whispered the tale of a gentleman who had been attacked on the high roads, and whose only attempt at bringing the robbers to justice was to help the widow of one and send the others safe out of the country, at his own expense, not Government’s. None of these were notable or showy deeds—scarcely one of them got, even under the disguise of asterisks, into the newspaper; the Norton Bury Mercury, for its last dying sting, still complained (and very justly) that there was not a gentleman in the county whose name so seldom headed a charity subscription as that of John Halifax, Esquire, of Beechwood. But the right made its way, as, soon or late, the right always does; he believed his good name was able to defend itself, and it did defend itself; he had faith in the only victory worth having—the universal victory of Truth; and Truth conquered at last.

To drive with him across the country—he never carried pistols now,—or to walk with him, as one day before Edwin’s wedding we walked, a goodly procession, through the familiar streets of Norton Bury, was a perpetual pleasure to the rest of the family. Everybody knew him, everybody greeted him, everybody smiled as he passed—as though his presence and his recognition were good things to have and to win. His wife often laughed, and said she doubted whether even Mr. O’Connell of Derrynane, who was just now making a commotion in Ireland, lighting the fire of religious and political discord from one end to the other of County Clare;—she doubted if even Daniel O’Connell had more popularity among his own people than John Halifax had in the primitive neighbourhood where he had lived so long.

Mrs. Halifax herself was remarkably gay this morning. She had had letters from Guy; together with a lovely present, for which he said he had ransacked all the magazins des modes in Paris—a white embroidered China shawl. It had arrived this morning—Lord Ravenel being the bearer. This was not the first time by many that he had brought us news of our Guy, and thereby made himself welcome at Beechwood. More welcome than he might have been otherwise; for his manner of life was so different from ours. Not that Lord Ravenel could be accused of any likeness to his father; but blood is blood, and education and habits are not to be easily overcome. The boys laughed at him for his aristocratic, languid ways; Maud teased him for his mild cynicism and the little interest he seemed to take in anything; while the mother herself was somewhat restless about his coming, wondering what possible good his acquaintance could do to us, or ours to him, seeing we moved in totally different spheres. But John himself was invariably kind, nay, tender over him—we all guessed why. And perhaps even had not the young man had so many good points, while his faults were more negations than positive ill qualities, we likewise should have been tender over him—for Muriel’s sake.

He had arrived at Beechwood this morning, and falling as usual into our family routine, had come with us to Norton Bury. He looked up with more interest than usual in his pensive eyes, as he crossed the threshold of our old house, and told Maud how he had come there many years ago with his father.

“That was the first time I ever met your father,” I overheard him say to Maud—not without feeling; as if he thought he owed fate some gratitude for the meeting.

Mrs. Halifax, in the casual civil inquiry which was all the old earl ever won in our house, asked after the health of Lord Luxmore.

“He is still at Compiegne. Does not Guy mention him? Lord Luxmore takes the greatest pleasure in Guy’s society.”

By her start, this was evidently new and not welcome tidings to Guy’s mother. No wonder. Any mother in England would have shrank from the thought that her best-beloved son—especially a young man of Guy’s temperament, and under Guy’s present circumstances—was thrown into the society which now surrounded the debauched dotage of the too-notorious Earl of Luxmore.

“My son did not mention it. He has been too much occupied in business matters to write home frequently, since he reached Paris. However his stay there is limited;” and this seemed to relieve her. “I doubt if he will have much time left to visit Compiegne.”

She said no more than this, of course, to Lord Luxmore’s son; but her disquiet was sufficiently apparent.

“It was I who brought your son to Compiegne—where he is a universal favourite, from his wit and liveliness. I know no one who is a more pleasant companion than Guy.”

Guy’s mother bowed—but coldly.

“I think, Mrs. Halifax, you are aware that the earl’s tastes and mine differ widely—have always differed. But he is an old man, and I am his only son. He likes to see me sometimes, and I go:—though, I must confess, I take little pleasure in the circle he has around him.”

“In which circle, as I understand, my son is constantly included?”

“Why not? It is a very brilliant circle. The whole court of Charles Dix can afford none more amusing. For the rest, what matters? One learns to take things as they seem, without peering below the surface. One wearies of impotent Quixotism against unconquerable evils.”

“That is not our creed at Beechwood,” said Mrs. Halifax, abruptly, as she ceased the conversation. But ever and anon it seemed to recur to her mind—ay, through all the mirth of the young people, all the graver pleasure which the father took in the happiness of his son Edwin; his good son, who had never given him a single care. He declared this settling of Edwin had been to him almost like the days when he himself used to come of evenings, hammer in hand, to put up shelves in the house, or nail the currant-bushes against the wall, doing everything con amore, and with the utmost care, knowing it would come under the quick observant eyes of Ursula March.

“That is, of Ursula Halifax—for I don’t think I let her see a single one of my wonderful doings until she was Ursula Halifax. Do you remember, Phineas, when you came to visit us the first time, and found us gardening?”

“And she had on a white gown and a straw hat with blue ribbons. What a young thing she looked!—hardly older than Mistress Maud here.”

John put his arm round his wife’s waist—not so slender as it had been, but comely and graceful still, repeating—with something of the musical cadence of his boyish readings of poetry—a line or two from the sweet old English song:

“And when with envy Time transported

Shall think to rob us of our joys,

You’ll in your girls again be courted,

And I’ll go wooing with my boys.”

Ursula laughed, and for the time being the shadow passed from her countenance. Her husband had happily not noticed it: and apparently, she did not wish to tell him her trouble. She let him spend a happy day, even grew happy herself in response to his care to make her so, by the resolute putting away of all painful present thoughts, and calling back of sweet and soothing memories belonging to this their old married home. John seemed determined that, if possible, the marriage that was to be should be as sacred and as hopeful as their own.

So full of it were we all, that not until the day after, when Lord Ravenel had left us,—longing apparently to be asked to stay for the wedding, but John did not ask him,—I remembered what he had said about Guy’s association with Lord Luxmore’s set. It was recalled to me by the mother’s anxious face, as she gave me a foreign letter to post.

“Post it yourself, will you, Phineas? I would not have it miscarry, or be late in its arrival, on any account.”

No, for I saw it was to her son, at Paris.

“It will be the last letter I shall need to write,” she added, again lingering over it, to be certain that all was correct—the address being somewhat illegible for that free, firm hand of hers. “My boy is coming home.”

“Guy coming home! To the marriage?”

“No; but immediately after. He is quite himself now. He longs to come home.”

“And his mother?”

His mother could not speak. Like light to her eyes, like life to her heart, was the thought of Guy’s coming home. All that week she looked ten years younger. With a step buoyant as any girl’s she went about the marriage preparations; together with other preparations, perhaps dearer still to the motherly heart, where, if any preference did lurk, it was for the one for whom—possibly from whom—she had suffered most, of all her children.

John, too, though the father’s joy was graver and not unmixed with some anxiety—anxiety which he always put aside in his wife’s presence—seemed eager to have his son at home.

“He is the eldest son,” he repeated more than once, when talking to me of his hope that Guy would now settle permanently at Beechwood. “After myself, the head of the family.”

After John! It was almost ridiculous to peer so far into the future as that.

Of all the happy faces I saw the day before the marriage, I think the happiest was Mrs. Halifax’s, as I met her coming out of Guy’s room, which ever since he left had been locked up, unoccupied. Now his mother threw open the door with a cheerful air.

“You may go in if you like, Uncle Phineas. Does it not look nice?”

It did indeed, with the fresh white curtains; the bed laid all in order; the book-shelves arranged, and even the fowling-piece and fishing-rod put in the right places.

The room looked very neat, I said, with an amused doubt as to how long it was to remain so.

“That is true, indeed. How he used to throw his things about! A sad untidy boy!” And his mother laughed; but I saw all her features were trembling with emotion.

“He will not be exactly a boy now. I wonder if we shall find him much changed.”

“Very likely. Brown, with a great beard; he said so in one of his letters. I shall hardly know my boy again.”—With a lighting-up of the eye that furnished a flat contradiction to the mother’s statement.

“Here are some of Mrs. Tod’s roses, I see.”

“She made me take them. She said Master Guy always used to stop and pick a bunch as he rode past. She hopes she shall see him ride past on Sunday next. Guy must pay her one of his very first visits; the good old soul!”

I hinted that Guy would have to pay visits half over the country, to judge by the number of invitations I had heard of.

“Yes. Everybody wants to steal my boy. Everybody has a welcome for him.—How bright old Watkins has polished that gun!—Sir Herbert says, Guy must come over to the shooting next week. He used to be exceedingly fond of going to the manor-house.”

I smiled to see the innocent smile of this good mother, who would have recoiled at the accusation of match-making. Yet I knew she was thinking of her great favourite, pretty Grace Oldtower; who was Grace Oldtower still, and had refused, gossip said, half the brilliant matches in the county, to the amazement and strong disapprobation of all her friends—excepting Mrs. H............