e situation. It did not take her long to arrive at the
conclusion that the proper thing for her to do was to marry Lanigan
Beam, and to do it without loss of time. Having come to this decision,
she immediately began to make arrangements to carry it into effect.

It was utterly vain and useless for Lanigan to attempt to get away from
her. She came upon him with a sweet assurance which he supposed had
vanished with her earlier years; she led him with ribbons which he
thought had faded and fallen into shreds long, long ago; she clapped
over his head a bag which he supposed had been worn out on old
Tippengray; and she secured him with fetters which he imagined had long
since been dropped, forgotten, and crumbled into dust. He did not go
away, and it was not long before it was generally understood in the
neighborhood that, at last, he and Calthea Rose were to be married.

Shortly after this fact had been made public, Lanigan and Walter Lodloe,
who had not seen each other for some days, were walking together on the
Lethbury road.

"Yes," said the former, "it is a little odd, but then odd things are all
the time happening. I don't know whether Calthea has taken me in by
virtue of my first engagement to her, or on some of the others. Or it
may be that it is merely a repeal of our last breaking off. Anyway, I
found she had never dreamed of anything but marrying me, and though I
thought I had a loose foot, I found I hadn't, and there's an end of it.
Besides, I will say for Calthea that her feelings are different from
what I supposed they were. She has mellowed up a good deal in the last
year or two, and I shall try to make things as easy for her as I can.

"But one thing is certain; I shall stick to my resolution not to tell
her that I have made money, and have reformed my old, loose ways of
living and doing business. All that I am going to keep as a sort of
saving fund that I can draw on when I feel like it, and let it alone
when I don't feel like it. We are going to travel,--she is wild on that
point,--and she expects to pay the piper. She can't do it, but I shall
let her think she's doing it. She takes me for a rattling scapegrace,
and I needn't put on the sober and respectable unless I choose to; and
when I do choose it will be a big card in my hand. By George! sir, I
know Calthea so well that I can twist her around my finger, and I am not
sure, if I had got the other one, that I could have done that. It's much
more likely