Her heavy eyes and pallid cheeks attracted notice indeed the following morning, but they were attributed to fatigue from the gay vigils of the preceding night, and gladly did the poor girl herself encourage the delusion, and obey her mother's playful command to lie down for a few hours, as a punishment for indulging an overplus of excitement.
Herbert's pleasure, too, the preceding day had been alloyed by anxiety; and perhaps his solicitude and his sister's sorrow proceeded from one and the same cause, which our readers will find at length, a few pages hence, when Arthur Myrvin becomes a prominent object in our history.
Pleasure, in a variety of festive shapes, but innocent in all, was for the next month the presiding genius of Oakwood and its vicinity.

Lord Malvern's family remained as guests at Oakwood during that time, and some few college friends of Percy and Herbert, but Mr.Hamilton's other friends departed for their respective homes the week following the marriage.
The young Earl and Countess of St.Eval meanwhile resided at their beautiful retreat of Castle Terryn, which the taste of the young Earl had rendered in every respect a residence suited to the rank and feelings of those who claimed it as their own.
Nothing now prevented our young friend Ellen from joining in the amusements that offered themselves, and she enjoyed them even more than she had expected, for she was accompanied by her brother, who had deservedly become an universal favourite, and Mrs.Hamilton had the pleasure, at length, of seeing not only health but happiness beaming apparently unclouded on the countenance of her niece.
Mr.Grahame, for the sake of Lilla, who was becoming dearer each day to both her parents, for her true character for the first time stood clearly forth, struggled with his gloom, and accompanied her where-over her wishes led; and her cheerful spirits, her unpretending manners, and constant and active affection, manifesting itself in a thousand different ways, to amuse the couch of her now really ailing mother, did much to palliate the disappointment and misery the conduct of his elder daughter had occasioned.
Herbert's secret was still inviolably kept; no one suspected that he loved, much less that he was betrothed.

Nearly two years had passed of that long period which must elapse ere Herbert could hope to make Mary his wife.

They had glided quickly, very quickly by, and so too might the remainder; but there was a dark, foreboding feeling pressing heavily upon Herbert's heart as he looked forward, that robbed anticipation of its charm, and rendered him even more pensive than from his boyhood had been his wont.

To strangers, even to his family, he was still the same; to his God alone he laid his spirit bare.
Six weeks after the marriage of Caroline, Oakwood and its neighbourhood was as quiet as it has been when we knew it in former years.
Lord Malvern's family stayed ten days at Castle Terryn, by the pressing invitation of the young couple, and then returned to their estate in Dorsetshire, leaving Lady Gertrude, however, for a few weeks' longer residence with her brother and his wife.