Horatio Paget had admired many women in the bright years of his youth, and had fancied himself desperately in love more than once in his life; but it is doubtful whether the mighty passion had ever really possessed the Captain's heart, which was naturally cold and sluggish, rarely fluttered by any emotion that was not engendered of selfishness. Horatio had set up an idol and had invented a religion for himself very early in life; and that idol was fashioned after his own image, and that religion had its beginning and end in his own pleasure. He might have been flattered and pleased by Miss Kepp's agitation; but he was ill and peevish; and having all his life been subject to a profound antipathy to feminine tearfulness, the girl's display of emotion annoyed him.

"Is it to be yes, or no, my dear?" he asked, with, some vexation in his tone.

Mary Anne looked up at him with tearful, frightened eyes.

"O, yes, sir, if I can be of any use to you, and nurse you when you are ill, and work for you till I work my fingers to the bone."

She clenched her hands spasmodically as she spoke. In imagination she was already toiling and striving for the god of her idolatry—the GENTLEMAN whose varnished boots had been to her as a glimpse of another and a fairer world than that represented by Tulliver's-terrace, Old Kent-road. But Captain Paget checked her enthusiasm by a gentle gesture of his attenuated hands.

"That will do, my dear," he murmured languidly; "I'm not very strong yet, and anything in the way of fuss is inexpressibly painful to me. Ah, my poor child," he exclaimed, pityingly, "if you could have seen a dinner at the Marquis of Hertford's, you would have understood how much can be achieved without fuss. But I am talking of things you don't understand. You will be my wife; and a very good, kind, obedient little wife, I have no doubt. That is all settled. As for working for me, my love, it would be about as much as these poor little hands could do to earn me a cigar a day—and I seldom smoke less than half a dozen cigars; so, you see, that is all so much affectionate nonsense. And now you may wake your mother, my dear; for I want to take a little nap, and I can't close my eyes while that good soul is snoring so intolerably; but not a word about our little arrangement, Mary Anne, till you and your mother are alone."