pale lavender silk dress she wore. They were progressing slowly towards
the gate leading into Hyde Park; their conversation was somewhat
interrupted by a knot of passing Guardsmen and other fashionable
loungers, to be again resumed when they were beyond ear shot. They
continued their walk along the bank of the Serpentine, and could the
passer by have peered through the lady's veil, he would have found her
face suffused with blushes at different turns in the conversation, but
they were those of pleasure, for certainly the crimson flush of anger
found no place there. They crossed the Park and passed out at Stanhope
gate and turned in the direction of Berkly square.

"You have made me so happy, dear Emily, since you grant me permission to
speak to your aunt and brother on the subject nearest my heart," and the
Rev. Charles Denham pressed the little hand within his own, made his
bow, and walked in the direction of Harley Street, while Emily Barton
entered the house of her brother Horace.

There is an old saying, familiar to most of us as household words, which
tends to show that the course of true love never does run smooth. Now
with all due deference to the talented authority who promulgated this
startling announcement, we beg to differ with him on the subject. It may
be as he says, as a rule, but our belief is that there are exceptions to
this rule, as well as to others; for we say without fear of
contradiction, that the loves of the pretty Emily Barton and her very
devoted lover, the Rev. Charles Denham, glided smoothly and sweetly
along its unruffled course, until it eventuated in that fountain of
human happiness or misery, marriage. On the lady's side there was no
stern, selfish parent who would burden the young shoulders, and drive
from her path those inmost pleasures so natural to the young and
light-hearted, and cause her to lose her freshness and bloom, by