Neither of us can ever find another to fill the place that Grace has
occupied. Our lives cannot be lived over again; we cannot return to
childhood; feel as children; love as children; live as children; and grow
up together, as it might be, with one heart, with the same views, the same
wishes, the same opinions; I hope it is not presuming on too great a
resemblance to the departed angel, if I add, the same principles."

"No, Lucy; the past, for us, is gone for ever. Clawbonny will never again
be the Clawbonny it was."

There was a pause, during which I fancied Lucy was struggling to repress
some fresh burst of emotion.

"Yet, Miles," she presently resumed, "we could not ask to have her
recalled from that bliss which we have so much reason to believe she is
even now enjoying. In a short time Grace will be to you and me a lovely
and grateful image of goodness, and virtue, and affection; and we shall
have a saddened, perhaps, but a deep-felt pleasure in remembering how much
we enjoyed of her affection, and how closely she was united to us both
in life."

"That will be indeed a link between us two, Lucy, that I trust may
withstand _all_ the changes and withering selfishness of the world!"

"I hope it may, Miles," Lucy answered, in a low voice; and, as I fancied
at the moment, with an embarrassment that I did not fail to attribute to
the consciousness she felt of Andrew Drewett's claims on all such intimate
association of feeling. "We, who have known each other from children, can
scarcely want causes for continuing to esteem and to regard each other
with affection."