CHAPTER LXIX.

IN AND OUT.

“And Boniface Newt has failed,” said Mr. Bennet to his wife, in a low voice.

He was shading his eyes with his hand, and his wife was peacefully sewing beside him.

She made no reply, but her face became serious, then changed to an expression in which, from under his hands, for her husband’s eyes were not weak, her husband saw the faintest glimmering of triumph.  But Mrs. Bennet did not raise her eyes from her work.

“Lucia!” He spoke so earnestly that his wife involuntarily started.

“My dear,” she replied, looking at him with a tear in her eye, “it is only natural.”

Her husband said nothing, but shook his slippered foot, and his neck sunk a little lower in his limp, white cravat.  They were alone in the little parlor, with only the portrait on the wall for company, and only the roses in the glass upon the table, that were never wanting, and always showed a certain elegance of taste in arrangement and care which made the daughter of the house seem to be present though she might be away.

“What a beautiful night!” said Mr. Bennet at last, as his eyes lingered upon the window through which he saw the soft illumination of the full moonlight.

His wife looked for a moment with him, and answered, “Beautiful!”

“How lovely those roses are, and how sweet they smell!” he said, after another interval of silence, and as if there were a change in the pleasant dreams he was dreaming.

“Yes,” she replied, and looked at him and smiled, and, smiling, sewed on.

“Where is Ellen to-night?” he asked, after a little pause.

“She is walking in this beautiful moonlight.”

“All alone?” he inquired, with a smile.

“No! with Edward.”

“Ah! with Edward.”  And there was evidently another turn in the pleasant dream.

“And Gabriel—­where is Gabriel?” asked he, still shaking the slippered foot.

His wife smoothed her work, and said, with an air of tranquil happiness,

“I suppose he is walking too.”

“All alone?”

“No, with May.”

Involuntarily, as she said it, she laid her work in her lap, as if her mind would follow undisturbed the happy figures of her children.  She looked abstractedly at the window, as if she saw them both, the manly candor of her Gabriel, and the calm sweetness of May Newt—­the loyal heart of her blue-eyed Ellen clinging to Edward Wynne.  Down the windings of her reverie they went, roses in their cheeks and faith in their hearts.  Down and down, farther and farther, closer and closer, while the springing step grew staid, and the rose bloom slowly faded.  Farther and farther down her dream, and gray glistened in the brown hair and the black and gold, but the roses bloomed around them in younger cheeks, and the brown hair and the black and gold were as glossy and abundant upon those younger heads, and still their arms were twined and their eyes were linked, as if their hearts had grown together, each pair into one.  Farther and farther—­still with clustering younger faces—­still with ever softer light in the air falling upon the older forms, grown reverend, until—­until—­had they faded in that light, or was she only blinded by her tears?