The wedding—Colonel Lockhart's and Countess Vera's—when it came off, was a very grand affair indeed. General Lockhart, than whom there was no more gallant or distinguished an officer in America, came over to England to attend the nuptials, and by his handsome appearance and widespread fame, added prestige to the grand occasion.

Sir Harry Clive gave away the bride, and little Dot, his daughter, was one of the bride's-maids. Lady Clive declared that she had never been so happy in her life as in the hour when Lady Vera was married to her darling brother.

People said afterward that they were the handsomest couple ever married in London. Colonel Lockhart was so grandly handsome, Lady Vera so dazzlingly fair. Her bridal dress was a marvel of richness and beauty.

Her trousseau was all that could be desired by a woman's heart. The bridal gifts were numerous and costly. The countess was so much admired, and her sad and romantic story had excited such interest and sympathy that her friends vied with each other in the beauty and richness of their gifts, as if desirous to add in every way to the pleasure of her bridal-hour.

Colonel Lockhart scarcely knew what to give his bride, her gifts were so varied and so costly, but he studied out a design of his own, and had the jeweler reproduce it. It was a beautiful locket, containing his own picture. The setting on the carved back was a perfect crimson rose, formed of magnificent rubies.

"In memory of the rose whose message failed that night when I went back to America," he said, with a smile, as he placed it in her hand.

She sighed and smiled as memory brought back that night with its hopes, and fears, and crowning failure. She remembered the song and the rose, and how both had failed to carry their story to his wounded heart. Then she opened the locket, and forgot all else in the sight of her husband's handsome, happy face beaming out upon her.

"Oh, how I thank you, Philip," she cried, rapturously. "It is beautiful."

"The picture or the locket?" he asks, laughing, yet inwardly deeply moved.

"Both," she answers, pressing the crimson flower of her lips upon the pictured face. "This shall always be my dearest jewel!"

Countess Vera's bridal tour was to the United States. Her husband was thoroughly patriotic, and desired to rid her mind of the prejudice she had taken against her native land, owing to the trials of her early youth.

They traveled leisurely and pleasantly all over their own native country, mixed in society, and viewed everything dispassionately, until the lovely countess owned that she had erred in disliking America and Americans.

"Yet I have nobly atoned for my early mistake by taking an American for my husband," she always declares, when Colonel Lockhart twits her with her early aversion.

One day they found themselves in the beautiful city of Washington, and Lady Vera expressed a wish to visit her mother's grave.

It was a lovely day in spring, sweet with the breath of early flowers, when they strolled through the whispering shades of Glenwood to seek the quiet grave where Mrs. Campbell's broken heart had found rest and peace. The turf was springing green and freshly above the low mound, and fragrant violets and tender daisies starred the ground. On the marble cross at the head of the grave was carved her name and age, and one passionate plaint from her husband's bleeding and remorseful heart:

"Poor mother, poor father!" Lady Vera weeps, her tears falling on the green grass for the sad fate of those two who had given her life.

When she lifts her head again she sees her husband standing by the opposite mound beneath the shadow of a tall, pretentious monument.

"Do you care to see this, my darling?" he asks her, very gently.

Silently she glides to his side, and circled by his fond, protecting arm, reads the brief inscription, not without something of a shudder creeping over her sensitive frame.

"VERA,
WIFE OF LESLIE NOBLE.
Aged Seventeen."

"It is such a falsehood I cannot bear to see it there," she says. "You must have the letters removed, Philip. I cannot bear to know that my name is carved upon a tombstone while I am so full of young, happy, bounding life."

"I think you are right, my darling," Colonel Lockhart answers, and he takes care to carry out her wish. The lying inscription is carefully erased from the white marble tablet.

"When I am really dead, Philip, I shall want some kind and loving words carved on the marble above my head," she says; "I shall want the world to know that I was loved and missed. How cold, how brief, how unloving was that inscription."

Then glancing into his face she sees it working with some deep emotion.

"Let us come away from this spot, Vera," he says, nervously. "I tremble to think that once you lay buried here beneath this springing turf. What if I had missed you from my life forever?"

"You would have married Miss Montgomery, doubtless," she answers, with a spice of mischief.

"Never," he answers, most emphatically, as he leads her away. "You were my fate, darling. If I had never met you I should never have loved nor married."

They remain in America several years. Lady Vera shrinks from returning home while the memory of her strange, romantic story is yet fresh in the public mind. But after awhile circumstances induce them to make England their home.

Colonel Lockhart having already left the army to please his wife, nothing remains but to set their faces toward England and Fairvale.

There is no fear that Raleigh Gilmore will ever inherit Fairvale now, for Countess Vera has two lovely children—a dark-eyed boy and blue-eyed girl—who are as beautiful, as healthy and brilliant as their parents' hearts could wish. Countess Vera calls them Lawrence and Edith, in loving memory of the dead.

[THE END.]