Moreover, as he was not working at all the while, I looked
forward to a day when inspiration might set in, together with
satiety, when he too might yearn, as I did, to sit in peace beside a
hearth of his own.
Constance wrote to us occasionally, and I to her. Her letters to me
were the same as of old, full of love and sweetness; she nearly
always mentioned Gabriel, but not in such a way as to denote
preoccupation. My letters to her were not as they had been; I felt
this at the time. On rereading them just now I burned them
all,--there was no breath in them.
Mrs. Rayner had taken Fairview, the nearest house to Fletcher's
Hall, soon after my marriage, and set her cap at Uncle George with
so much persistence that he engaged himself to her the following
summer. So my sweet girl stayed on at Graysmill. Grandmamma's
letters, and Aunt Caroline's, were always full of her, of the
comfort her sunny presence brought them; my father-in-law and Jane
had the same tale to tell.
For many months I never even contemplated the possibility of
returning to England with my husband. There is no knowing how long
our wanderings might have been, but for my illness.
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