find him here," I muttered, as in solitary state I followed the porter, who was wheeling my luggage on a barrow, "and if he were to 'strike a sudden hand in mine, And ask a thousand things of home,' I should notno, 'I should not feel it to be strange'!"
Having given directions to have my luggage taken to my old lodgings, I strolled off alone, to pay a visit, before settling down in my own quarters, to my dear old friendsfor such I indeed felt them to be, though it was barely half a year since first we metthe Earl and his widowed daughter.
The shortest way, as I well remembered, was to cross through the churchyard. I pushed open the little wicket-gate and slowly took my way among the solemn memorials of the quiet dead, thinking of the many who had, during the past year, disappeared from the place, and had gone to 'join the majority.' A very few steps brought me in sight of the object of my search. Lady Muriel, dressed in the deepest mourning, her face hidden by a long crape veil, was kneeling before a little marble cross, round which she was fastening a wreath of flowers.
