"
Mr. Verne was what is generally known as a "good-living man." He
made no parade of his profession, but he tried to live at peace with
his God and do right to each and every man. His religion was not put
on with his Sunday coat. He wore it into the counting-room as well,
and carried it to Chubb's Corner, aye to every business resort and
doled it out on every opportunity by acts of charity and Christian
benevolence.
But of the departure.
Mrs. Verne was in ecstacies of delight. Everything pleased her. She
superintended the manifold duties as if her whole soul was in the
work, and beaming with smiles, flitted from one room to another with
the playfulness of a child just setting out on its holiday season.
"I hope we shall have no scenes from Madge," said she to one of the
friends who graced the drawing-room the day previous to their
departure, "for anything I hate is a crowd gathered around with
faces all gotten up for a funeral."
Here Mrs. Verne shrugged her shoulders and assumed a look of
abhorrence.
Marguerite was leaving the conservatory as she overheard the remark,
and she pressed more firmly the sprays of heliotrope and azalea
which she held in her hand.
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