brought home to her the prospect of Chalk Farm. She wondered sometimes
that he should have derived so little illumination, during his period,
from the society at Cocker's. But one evening while their holiday
cloudlessly waned he gave her such a proof of his quality as might have
made her ashamed of her many suppressions. He brought out something
that, in all his overflow, he had been able to keep back till other
matters were disposed of. It was the announcement that he was at last
ready to marry--that he saw his way. A rise at Chalk Farm had been
offered him; he was to be taken into the business, bringing with him a
capital the estimation of which by other parties constituted the
handsomest recognition yet made of the head on his shoulders. Therefore
their waiting was over--it could be a question of a near date. They
would settle this date before going back, and he meanwhile had his eye on
a sweet little home. He would take her to see it on their first Sunday.




CHAPTER XIX


His having kept this great news for the last, having had such a card up
his sleeve and not floated it out in the current of his chatter and the
luxury of their leisure, was one of those incalculable strokes by which
he could still affect her; the kind of thing that reminded her of the
latent force that had ejected the drunken soldier--an example of the
profundity of which his promotion was the proof. She listened a while in
silence, on this occasion, to the wafted strains of the music; she took
it in as she had not quite done before that her future was now
constituted. Mr. Mudge was distinctly her fate; yet at this moment she