"Do you think I care for the landau or the page?" she cried. "If it were not for mamma's sake, I should detest that prim villa and all its arrangements. You see me so happy here, where there is no pretence of grandeur—"

"But I am bound to warn you that I shall not be able to provide Yorkshire teas at the commencement of our domestic career," I remarked, by way of parenthesis.

"Aunt Dorothy will send us hampers of poultry and cakes, sir, and for the rest of our time we can live upon bread and water."

On this I promised my betrothed a house in Cavendish or Portman-square, and a better-built landau than Mr. Sheldon's, in the remote future. With those dear eyes for my pole-stars, I felt myself strong enough to clamber up the slippery ascent to the woolsack. The best and purest ambition must surely be that which is only a synonym for love.

After we had sat talking in the gloaming to our hearts' content, aunt Dorothy appeared, followed by a sturdy handmaid with lighted candles, and a still sturdier handmaid with a ponderous tea-tray. The two made haste to spread a snow-white cloth, and to set forth the species of banquet which it is the fashion nowadays to call high tea. Anon came uncle Joseph, bringing with him some slight perfume from the piggeries, and he and aunt Dorothy were pleased to be pleasantly facetious and congratulatory in their conversation during the social meal which followed their advent.

After tea we played whist again, aunt Dorothy and I obtaining a succession of easy victories over Charlotte and uncle Joe. I felt myself hourly more and more completely at home in that simple domestic circle, and enjoyed the proud position of an accepted lover. My Arcadian friends troubled themselves in nowise as to the approval or disapproval of Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon, or with regard either to my prospects or my antecedents. They saw me devoted to my dear girl, they saw my dearest pleased by my devotion, and they loved her so well that they were ready to open their hearts without reserve to the man who adored her and was loved by her, let him be rich or poor, noble or base-born. As they would have given her the wax-doll of her desire ten or twelve years ago without question as to price or fitness of things, so they now gave her their kindly smiles and approval for the lover of her choice. "I know Phil Sheldon is a man who looks to the main chance," said uncle Joe, in the course of a discussion about his niece's future which dyed her cheeks with blushes in the present; "and I'll lay you'll find him rather a difficult customer to deal with, especially as poor Tom's will left all the money in Georgy's hands, which of course is tantamount to saying that Sheldon has got the disposal of it."