to the young
wife, who shrewdly guessed that her beauty would not help her much in the
struggle she had now to maintain. Adrian continuing to lecture on the
excelling virtues of wise cookery, a thought struck her: Where, where had
she tossed Mrs. Berry's book?

"So that's all about the home-people?" said Richard.

"All!" replied Adrian. "Or stay: you know Clare's going to be married?
Not? Your Aunt Helen"--

"Oh, bother my Aunt Helen! What do you think she had the impertinence to
write--but never mind! Is it to Ralph?"

"Your Aunt Helen, I was going to say, my dear boy, is an extraordinary
woman. It was from her originally that the Pilgrim first learnt to call
the female the practical animal. He studies us all, you know. The
Pilgrim's Scrip is the abstract portraiture of his surrounding relatives.
Well, your Aunt Helen"--

"Mrs. Doria Battledoria!" laughed Richard.

"--being foiled in a little pet scheme of her own--call it a System if
you like--of some ten or fifteen years' standing, with regard to Miss
Clare!"--

The fair Shuttlecockiana!"

"--instead of fretting like a man, and questioning Providence, and
turning herself and everybody else inside out, and seeing the world
upside down, what does the practical animal do? She wanted to marry her
to somebody she couldn't marry her to, so she resolved instantly to marry
her to somebody she could marry her to: and as old gentlemen enter into
these transactions with the practical animal the most readily, she fixed
upon an old gentleman; an unmarried old gentleman, a rich old gentleman,
and now a captive old gentleman. The ceremony takes place in about a week
from the present time. No doubt you will receive your invitation in a day
or two."

"And that cold, icy, wretched Clare has consented to marry an old man!"
groaned Richard. "I'll put a stop to that when I go to town."

Richard got up and strode about the room. Then he bethought him it was
time to go on board and make preparations.

"I'm off," he said. "Adrian, you'll take her. She goes in the Empress,
Mountfalcon's vessel. He starts us. A little schooner-yacht--such a
beauty! I'll have one like her some day. Good-bye, darling!" he whispered
to Lucy, and his hand and eyes lingered on her, and hers on him, seeking
to make up for the priceless kiss they were debarred from. But she
quickly looked away from him as he held her:--Adrian stood silent: his
brows were up, and his mouth dubiously contracted. He spok