those pretty hands resting on one's arm-chair, or that sunny face shining
into one's study windows, one might be a very happy old fool--and that is
the most one can expect!"

COLONEL MORLEY (checking an anxious groan).--"I am afraid, my poor
friend, you are far gone already. No wonder Honoria Vipont fails to be
appreciated. But Lady Selina has a maxim--the truth of which my
experience attests--'the moment it comes to woman, the most sensible men
are the'--"

"Oldest fools!" put in Darrell. "If Mark Antony made such a goose of
himself for that painted harridan Cleopatra, what would he have done for
a blooming Juliet! Youth and high spirit! Alas! why are these to be
unsuitable companions for us, as we reach that climax in time and sorrow
--when to the one we are grown the most indulgent, and of the other have
the most need? Alban, that girl, if her heart were really won--her wild
nature wisely mastered, gently guided--would make a true, prudent,
loving, admirable wife--"

"Heavens!" cried Alban Morley.

"To such a husband," pursued Darrell, unheeding the ejaculation, "as--
Lionel Haughton. What say you?" "Lionel--oh, I have no objection at all
to that; but he's too young yet to think of marriage--a mere boy.
Besides, if you yourself marry, Lionel could scarcely aspire to a girl of
Miss Vyvyan's birth and fortune."

"Ho, not aspire! That boy at least shall not have to woo in vain from
the want of fortune. The day I marry--if ever that day come--I settle on
Lionel Haughton and his heirs five thousand a-year; and if, with gentle