"Dear girl, she is so good and simple-hearted. Do you know, Jack, I feel
as if I could never be sufficiently grateful to Providence for my
happiness in having won such an angel."

"Well, you certainly have reason to consider yourself a very lucky
fellow; but I doubt if any man ever deserved good fortune better than you
do, Gilbert. And now, good-bye. It's getting unconscionably late, and I
shall scarcely get back in time to change my clothes for dinner. We spend
all our evenings in pious devotion to billiards, with a rubber or two, or
a little lansquenet towards the small hours. Don't forget your engagement
to-morrow; good-bye."

They had a very pleasant evening at Heatherly. Sir David's guests at this
time consisted of a Major Foljambe, an elderly man who had seen a good
deal of service in India; a Mr. Harker, who had been in the church, and
had left it in disgust as alike unsuited to his tastes and capacity; Mr.
Windus Carr, a prosperous West-end solicitor, who had inherited a
first-rate practice from his father, and who devoted his talents to the
enjoyment of life, leaving his clients to the care of his partner, a
steady-going stout gentleman, with a bald head, and an inexhaustible
capacity for business; and last, but by no means least, John Saltram,
who possessed more influence over David Forster than any one else in the
world.




CHAPTER VI.