Gaston especially; and had it not been for Mabel, and the bond she
proved between us, we might have been divided for life thereafter.

My father's declining health alone threw a bleakness over that rosy time
of joy, and held in check the exuberance of my happy spirit, brimming
like sparkling wine above the vase that contained it. Sometimes, when I
met Evelyn's cold and gloomy eye, I felt myself rebuked for the
indulgence of my perfect happiness. "She knows that my father is more
ill than he seems!" I would conjecture--"Dr. Pemberton has told her what
he conceals from me. I am making festal garlands in readiness for my
father's grave, perhaps." Then with tears and entreaties I would
question her: "I _cannot_ be mistaken," I would say; "something is wrong
with you. Is it about my father? If not of him, what is it, Evelyn, that
makes your face like a stone mask of late--once all life and joy?"
"Miriam, I am not quite well," she would reply evasively, or say, "I am
meditating a step that will cost me dear. My uncle, the Earl of Pomfret,
the head of our house since my grandfather's death, you know, writes me
to visit him. It is this fatal necessity--for such for some reasons I
feel it--that oppresses me so heavily."

"Why a necessity, dear Evelyn, why go at all? You certainly can never
feel to any relative as you do to _my_ father and _yours_."

"Your father does not find me as important to his happiness as he once
did, Miriam. You have absorbed his whole affection of late; even Mabel,
once his darling and plaything, is put aside."

"He surrendered her to me again, Evelyn, when I returned; this is all,
believe me. He loves, he esteems you as much as ever; he consults you in
all his arrangements. He has made you the mistress of his house; your