The highest sort of happiness has a peculiar faculty of recalling to our
minds that which has troubled them in the past, the truth being, that
extremes in this, as in other matters, will sometimes touch, which would
seem to suggest that sorrow and happiness--however varied in their
bloom--yet have a common root. Thus it was with Augusta now. As she
stood in the vestry there came to her mind a recollection of her dear
little sister, and of how she had prophesied happy greatness and success
for her. Now the happiness and the success were at hand, and there in the
aisle stood her own true love; but yet the recollection of that dear
face, and of the little mound that covered it, rested on them like a
shadow. It passed with a sigh, and in its place there came the memory of
poor Mr. Tombey, but for whom she would not have been standing there a
bride, and of his last words as he put her into the boat. He was food for
fishes now, poor fellow, and she was left alone with a great and happy
career opening out before her--a career in which her talents would have
free space to work. And yet how odd to think it: two or three score of
years and it would all be one, and she would be as Mr. Tombey was.
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