wyn and Elise took place.

In spite of her disappointment that Elise was not marrying a title,
Lady Durwent rose superbly to the occasion. She led the weeping and
the laughing with the utmost heartiness, and recalled her own wedding
so eloquently and vividly that those who didn't know about the
Ironmonger supposed she must have been the daughter of a marchioness at
least, and was probably related to royalty.

Just before the ceremony itself the youthful Wellington, who had
confounded science by a remarkable recovery from his ailment, was
confronted with the offer of half-a-crown if he acquitted himself well,
and threatened with corporal punishment if he didn't. With this double
stimulus, he pumped without cessation and with such heartiness that the
rector's words were at times hardly audible above the sound of air
escaping from the bellows--necessitating a punitive expedition on the
part of the sexton, and engendering in Wellington a permanent mistrust
in the justice of human affairs.

Late in the afternoon bride and groom left for London, on their way to
America.

When the train came in and they had entered their compartment, Selwyn,
with feelings that left him dumb, looked out at the little group who
had come to say farewell.

Lord Durwent stood with his unchangeable air of gentleness and
courtesy, but in his eyes there was the look of a man for whom life
holds only memories. Lady Durwent alternated dramatically between
advice and tears; and Mathews stood proudly beside his wife (whose hat
was of most marvellous size and colours), nodding his head sagaciously,
and uttering as much philosophy in five minutes as falls to the lot of
most men in a decade.

And so, with his wife's hand trembling on his arm, Austin Selwyn leaned
from the window and waved good-bye to the little English village.

III.

A year went by, and, with the passing of winter, Selwyn and Elise, in
their home at Long Island, watched the budding promise of another
spring.

Their home was by the sea, and in the presence of that great majestic
force they had lived as man and wife, taking up the broken threads of
life, and knitting them together for the future.

The task of resuming his literary work had been next to impossible for
Selwyn. He had tried to mould the destinies of nations--and they had
fallen back upon him, crushing him. His thoughts cried out for
utterance, but self-distrust robbed him of courage. Months went by,
and his