master.

But another half hour dragged heavily on; the bridegroom's carriage,
which was to take them across country to a quiet railway station,
already stood at the door, when another carriage was heard to drive up
to it.

"There they are!" cried Mrs. Ferguson; and the bride, who had been
sitting beside her on the sofa, passive, silent, all but motionless,
started a little.

"Oh, I'm so glad!" she said, in the first natural tone that had been heard
in her voice all day. "I did so want to see the children."

Dr. Grey went out of the room at once, and Mrs. Ferguson had the good
sense to follow, taking her husband with her. "For," as she said
afterward, "the first sight of three stepchildren, and she, poor dear, such
a mere girl, must be a very unpleasant thing." For her part, she was
thankful that when she married James Ferguson he was a bachelor, with
not a soul belonging to him except an old aunt. She wouldn't like to be
in poor Mrs. Grey's shoes--"dear me, no!"--with those two old ladies
who have lived at the Lodge ever since the first Mrs. Grey died. She
wondered how on earth Miss Oakley would manage them. And upon
James Ferguson's suggesting "in the same way as she managed every
body," his wife soundly berated him for saying such a silly thing,
though he had, with the usual acuteness of silent people, said a wiser
thing than he was aware of.

Meantime Christian was left alone, for the first time that day, and many
days; for solitude was a blessing not easy to get in the Ferguson's large,