It was not for them now to shine forth to the world with fine gala doings, and gay gaudy colours, as they had done when Gertrude had been married.
But still there was happiness--quiet, staid happiness--at the Cottage.

Mrs.Woodward could not but be happy to see Linda married to Harry Norman, her own favourite, him whom she had selected in her heart for her son-in-law from out of all the world.

And now, too, she was beginning to be conscious that Harry and Linda were better suited for each other than he and Gertrude would have been.

What would have been Linda's fate, how unendurable, had she been Alaric's wife, when Alaric fell?
How would she have borne such a fall?
What could she have done, poor lamb, towards mending the broken thread or binding the bruised limbs?
What balm could she have poured into such wounds as those which fate had inflicted on Gertrude and her household?
But at Normansgrove, with a steady old housekeeper at her back, and her husband always by to give her courage, Linda would find the very place for which she was suited.
And then Mrs.Woodward had another source of joy, of liveliest joy, in Katie's mending looks.

She was at the wedding, though hardly with her mother's approval.
As she got better her old spirit returned to her, and it became difficult to refuse her anything.