for the little dear's sake you
can't marry."

With which Mr. Warden disrobed and went to bed.

Next evening, at half-past eight, Tom Maxwell made his appearance at
Mrs. Walters, only to find his _fides Achates_ there enthroned before
him, and basking in the sunshine of the lovely Fanny's smiles. How long
he had been there Tom couldn't guess; but he and Fanny and Mrs. Walters
were just settling it to go to the theatre the following night. There
was a bunch of roses, pink-and-white, his gift, Tom felt in his bones,
in Fanny's hand, and into which she plunged her pretty little nose every
five seconds. It was adding insult to injury, the manifest delight that
aggravating girl felt in his friend's society; and Tom ground his teeth
inwardly, and could have seen Paul Warden guillotined, there and then,
with all the pleasure in life.

That evening, and many other evenings which succeeded were but a
repetition of the first. An easy flow of delightful small talk, music,
singing, and reading aloud. Yes, Paul Warden read aloud, as if to goad
that unhappy Tom to open madness, in the most musical of masculine
voices, out of little blue-and-gold books, Tennyson, and Longfellow, and
Owen Meredith; and Fanny would sit in breathless earnestness, her color
coming and going, her breath fluttering, her eyes full of tears as often
as not, fixed on Paul's classic profile. Tom didn't burst out openly--he
made no scene; he only sat and glowered in malignant silence--and that
is saying everything for his power of self-control.

Two months passed; hot weather was coming, and Fanny begun to talk of
the heat and the dust of the town; of being home-sick, for the sight of
green fields, new milk, strawberry-patches, new-laid eggs, and pa and
ma. It had been a very delightful two months, no doubt; and she had
enjoyed Mr. Warden's society very much, and gone driving and walking
with him, and let him take her to the theatre, and the opera, and played
for him, and sung for him, and danced with him, and accepted his
bouquets, and new music, and blue-and-gold books; but, for all that, it
was evident she could leave him and go home, and still exist.

"It's all very nice," Miss Summers had said, tossing back her black
ringlets; "and I have enjoyed this spring ever so much, but still I'm
glad to get home again. One grows tired of balls, and parties, and the
theatre, you know, after awhile, Mr. Warden; and I am only a little
country-girl, and I shall be ju