She abdicated without a word or a struggle. »Go to
Mr. Moore; ask Mr. Moore,« was her answer when applied to for orders. Never was
wooer of wealthy bride so thoroughly absolved from the subaltern part; so
inevitably compelled to assume a paramount character.
    In all this, Miss Keeldar partly yielded to her disposition; but a remark
she made a year afterwards proved that she partly also acted on system. »Louis,«
she said, »would never have learned to rule, if she had not ceased to govern:
the incapacity of the sovereign had developed the powers of the premier.«
    It had been intended that Miss Helstone should act as bridesmaid at the
approaching nuptials; but Fortune had destined her another part.
    She came home in time to water her plants. She had performed this little
task. The last flower attended to was a rose-tree, which bloomed in a quiet
green nook at the back of the house. This plant had received the refreshing
shower: she was now resting a minute. Near the wall stood a fragment of
sculptured stone - a monkish relic; once, perhaps, the base of a cross: she
mounted it, that she might better command the view. She had still the
watering-pot in one hand; with the other, her pretty dress was held lightly
aside, to avoid trickling drops: she gazed over the wall, along some lonely
fields; beyond three dusk trees, rising side by side against the sky; beyond a
solitary thorn, at the head of a solitary lane far off: she surveyed the dusk
moors, where bonfires were kindling: the summer evening was warm; the bell-music
was joyous; the blue smoke of the fires looked soft; their red flame bright:
above them, in the sky whence the sun had vanished, twinkled a silver point -
the Star of Love.
    Caroline was not unhappy that evening; far otherwise: but as she gazed she
sighed, and as she sighed a hand circled her, and rested quietly on her waist.
Caroline thought she knew who had drawn near: she received the touch unstartled.
    »I am looking at Venus, mamma: see, she is beautiful. How white her lustre
is, compared with the deep red of the bonfires!«
    The answer was a closer caress; and Caroline turned, and looked, not into
Mrs. Pryor's matron face, but up at a dark manly visage. She dropped her
watering-pot, and stepped down from the pedestal.
    »I have been sitting with mamma an hour,«