acceptance from its place in the large safe, and lays it in
the smaller box beside his desk, devoted to more pressing and immediate
business. Two days later Cathcart picks his way across the slimy yard,
passes through the counting-house, and enters his friend's inner sanctum,
closing the door behind him.

He wears a jubilant air, and slaps the grave John on the back. "I've got
her, Jack," he cries. "It's been hard work, I can tell you: sounding
suspicious old dowagers, bribing confidential servants, fishing for
information among friends of the family. By Jove, I shall be able to
join the Duke's staff as spy-in-chief to His Majesty's entire forces
after this!"

"What is she like?" asks John, without stopping his writing.

"Like! My dear Jack, you'll fall over head and ears in love with her the
moment you see her. A little cold, perhaps, but that will just suit
you."

"Good family?" asks John, signing and folding the letter he has finished.

"So good that I was afraid at first it would be useless thinking of her.
But she's a sensible girl, no confounded nonsense about her, and the
family are poor as church mice. In fact--well, to tell the truth, we
have become most excellent friends, and she told me herself frankly that
she meant to marry a rich man, and didn't much care whom."

"That sounds hopeful," remarks the would-be bridegroom, with his peculiar
dry smile: "when shall I have the pleasure of seeing her?"

"I want you to come with me to-night to the Garden," replies the other;
"she will be in Lady Heatherington's box, and I will introduce you."

So that evening John Ingerfield goes to Covent Garden Theatre, with the
blood running a trifle quicker in his veins, but not much, than would be
the case were he going to the docks to purchase tallow--examines,
covertly, the proposed article from the opposite side of the house, and
approves her--is introduced to her, and, on closer inspection, approves
her still more--receives an invitation to visit--visits frequently, and
each time is more satisfied of the rarity, serviceableness, and quality
of the article.

If all John Ingerfield requires for a wife is a beautiful social machine,
surely here he has found his ideal. Anne Singleton, only daughter of
that persistently unfortunate but most charming of baronets, Sir Harry
Singleton (more charming, it is rumoured, outside his family circle than
within it), is a stately graceful, high-bred woman. Her portrait, b