flights of steps on Stony Point where they had
unconsciously rested, and smiled down on me
and whispered, "Ah, Boonie, dear! that blessed
hope!" I almost started, for I fancied she must
be deluding herself with a dream of godpapa's
recovery, which we all knew at that time was
hopeless; but now, I feel that it was the hope
of soon following her "beloved" in death that
made the poor eyes smile. After godpapa died,
I do not think she ever used the words. The
hope had almost grown to certainty then.

Godpapa's life went out meekly and patiently
enough. He died with his poor lean hand
folded in the clasp of his true-hearted tenderly
loving wife. There was no "agony," as people
call it, in his departing. A little catching of
the breath, a little quivering of the limbs, were
all he had to endure. During the last hour or
two, Aunt Bella, sitting by his pillow fanning
away the faintness of death, was more than
once bidden to speak to the dying man, to see
if he yet recognised her voice. Was it a tearful
memory of the days of their old old courtship
that made her twice call him by his
Christian name, "Roger! Roger, dear!" by
which, uncoupled with the surname, she had
never been used to speak to him, even in my
father's remembrance? Did she fancy the name
could have for him, amid the shadows of the
death-haze, the same talismanic power that it had
retained for her? However that might be, poor
godpapa did hear it, and did know her too, and
feebly pressed her hand each time in answer.
Alas for the moment of supreme anguish, when
that flickering pressure died out, and with it the
troubled breathing, and Aunt Bella could lay
her head upon the pillow, and let out the hard
tearless sobs without thought of disturbing him
who had been all her thought. But she
indulged in no extravagant violence of grief,
and soon let old Madame, who had been a great
comfort to her throughout her trial, lead her
quietly away.

So Godpapa Vance was laid by a long train
of mourners, under the great twin elm-trees,
close to the church-path at the Cove. And there-
after Aunt Bella lived alone in Meadow-row:
Tackett and Keziah, Bet and Duke the pointer,
occupying their wonted places in the household.
Small change was there, either inside or outside
of the quiet house. All things went on after a
little while, as usual. The very study was duly
dusted, aired, and kept holy, as of yore, and I am
afraid that we children, selfish as we were, were
half glad poor godpapa was not there to awe us,
till we marked how silent and drooping dear
Aunt Bella was; how often the white lambs-wool
or the braiding silks lay untouched beside
her; and how her chirping little songs had quite
died out, though there was no one near her now
to take exception at their want of skill.

Still as the months passed on, this first great
numbness of the heart wore off, and she would
talk again at times, on the old themes too,
in the old cheerful voice which called young
children and dumb creatures about her, as the
sound of the pipe is said to call the merry little
lizards irresistibly to listen. Far from shunning
speech of her "beloved," or "that dear
angel," as she would call him now at times,
she seemed to find the greatest satisfaction in
referring to the circumstances which she thought
gave him the highest claim on her gratitude and
affection, that she might embalm her Saint's
memory in a precious casket, and so fall down and
worship it! What she loved best to speak of,
was her weary work-a-day life before she knew
him; his stupendous generosity in choosing her
for a wife; and the joy she had felt when first
she began to find that her presence in the dull
old London house had power to fence him off
from many a bitter querulous word and look of
his crabbed old mother.

I never loved to sit thus listening to dear
Aunt Bella half as well as after godpapa's
death; for I was older now, and could estimate
her true and tender nature at something like
its value. She seemed in my eyes, too, quite
handsome:—no, handsome is not the word, quite
lovely, though so very unlike any type of loveliness
that I had ever seen.

If the truth must be told—a truth which would
have stabbed dear Aunt Bella to the heart could
she have ever so remotely conceived it—Mrs.
Vance, the widow, was far more comely in her
simple black dress and prim close cap, from
under the border of which a few little iron-grey
rings of hair peeped out on her forehead, than
ever she had been as a wife. The gaudy
flowered chintzes and the gay taffeties were laid
aside for ever, and her great green fan and
her bright-coloured braiding silks were thence-
forward the only patches of colour about her, as
she sat day by day in the usual place, but turned
a little from the window now: wearing out the
hours in patient occupation, and waiting her
appointed time.

One day I brought her tidings of a wedding.
One of my cousins, a frank blue-eyed sunshiny
girl of nineteen, the darling of her home, was
going to marry a neighbouring squire's son: a
gay generous-tempered fair-faced stripling, who
had loved her ever since they were both out of
long clothes, and had told her so while they
were yet in pinafores. We were all in a pleasant
bustle about this marriage, especially I,
who was to be exalted to the signal honour of
acting as sixth bridesmaid on the occasion. So
I emptied all my budget to Aunt Bella, and it
was the first time I had seen her smile brightly
and kindle with anything like her own cheerful
spirit, since the great sorrow fell upon her. She
even fell to talking of bridal finery and of the
tall fly-cap and rich white lutestring sacque in
which she had helped to array some friend of
her young days—long, long turned to dust—
when she went to the altar with a dashing young
soldier, who was killed at the outbreak of the
American war.

Aunt Bella even undertook to give me an
idea of that bride's dignified head-dress, by the
help of a sheet of newspaper and a few pins, and
truly if the form of the original edifice at all
resembled that of the copy as fastened to the