June, and great preparations were already in contemplation for his
twenty-third birthday in July at Verdayne Place. There was no mention of
Isabella except a paragraph at the end. Miss Waring was visiting friends
at Blackheath, he was informed. Ah, so far away it all seemed! But it
brought him back from heaven. The next was his father's writing. Laconic,
but to the point. This parent hoped he was not wasting his time--d--d
short in life! and that he was cured of his folly for the parson's girl,
and found other eyes shone bright. If he wanted more money he was
to say so.

Several were from his friends, banal and everyday. And one was from
Tremlett, his own groom, and this was full of Moonlighter and--Pike! That
gave him just a moment's feeling--Pike! Tremlett had "made so bold" as to
have some snapshots done by a friend, and he ventured to send one to his
master. The "very pictur'" of the dog, he said, and it was true. Ah! this
touched him, this little photograph of Pike.

"Dear little chap," he said to himself as he looked. "My dear little
chap."

And then an instantaneous desire to show it to his lady came over him, and
he went back to the sitting-room in haste.

There she was--the post had come for her too, it seemed, and she looked up
with an expression of concentrated fierceness from a missive she was
reading as he entered the room. Her marvellous self-control banished all
but love from her eyes after they had rested on him for an instant, but
his senses--so fine now--had remarked the first glance, just as his eye
had seen the heavy royal crown on the paper as she hastily folded it and
threw it carelessly aside.