l! I say, Tom, devil take
it, where can she be? It's forty minutes, as I live. We shall lose the
train, you know. She's never prevented coming, surely. I think she'd let
me hear, don't you? She could send Justine to me if she couldn't come by
any wretched chance. Good Heavens, Tom, what shall I do?"

"Wait, and don't worry," was Tom's laconic and common-sense advice;
about the most irritating probably to a lover's feelings that could
pretty well be imagined. Belle swore at him in stronger terms than he
generally exerted himself to use, but was pulled up in the middle of
them by the sight of Geraldine and Justine, followed by a boy bearing
his bride's dainty trunks.

On came Geraldine in a travelling-dress; Justine following after her,
with a brilliant smile, that showed all her white teeth, at "Monsieur
Torm," for whom she had a very tender friendship, consolidated by
certain half-sovereigns and French phrases whispered by Gower after his
dinners at Fern Chase.

Belle met Geraldine with all that tender _empressement_ which he knew
well how to put into his slightest actions; but the young lady seemed
already almost to have begun repenting her hasty step. She hung her head
down, she held a handkerchief to her bright eyes, and to Belle's
tenderest and most ecstatic whispers she only answered by a convulsive
pressure of the arm, into which he had drawn her left hand, and a
half-smothered sob from her heart's depths.

Belle thought it all natural enough under the circumstances. He knew
women always made a point of impressing upon you that they are making a
frightful sacrifice for your good when they condescend to accept you,
and he whispered what tender consolation occurred to him as best fitted
for the occasion, thanked her, of course, for all the rapture, &c. &c.,
assured her of his life-long devotion--you know the style--and lifted
her into the carriage, Geraldine only responding with broken sighs and
stifled sobs.

The boxes were soon beside Belle's valises, Justine soon beside Gower,
the postilion cracked his whip over his outsider, Perkins refolded his
arms, and the carriage rolled down the lane.

Gower was very well contented with his seat in the rumble. Justine was a
very dainty little Frenchwoman, with the smoothest hair and the whitest
teeth in the world, and she and "Monsieur Torm" were eminently good
friends, as I have told you, though to-day she was very coquettish and
wilful, and laughed _a propos de bot