n't mentioned the fact--that she is as beautiful
as she is charming, and that she sings wonderfully. She must be
something remarkable, I am sure, because Eliza Layard evidently detests
her, and says that she is trying to ensnare the affections of that
squire of dames, her brother Stephen, now temporarily homeless after
a visit to Jane Rose. What will you do when you have to get on without
her? I am afraid you must accustom yourself to the idea, unless she
would like to make a third in the honeymoon party. Joking apart, I am
exceedingly grateful to her for all the help she has given you, and,
dear, dear Morris, more delighted than I can tell you to learn that
after all your years of patient labour you believe success to be
absolutely within sight.

"My father, I am sorry to say, is no better; indeed, although the
doctors deny it, I believe he is worse, and I see no prospect of our
getting away from here at present. However, don't let that bother you,
and above all, don't think of coming out to this place which makes you
miserable, and where you can't work. What a queer menage you must be at
the Abbey now! You and the Star who has risen from the ocean--she ought
to have been called Venus--tete-a-tete, and the, I gather, rather feeble
and uninteresting old gentleman in bed upstairs. I should like to see
you when you didn't know. Why don't you invent a machine to enable
people at a distance to see as well as to hear each other? It would
be very popular and bring Society to utter wreck. Does the Northern
star--she is Danish, isn't she?--make good coffee, and how, oh! how does
she get on with the cook?"

Morris put down the letter and laughed aloud. Mary was as amusing as
ever, and he longed to see her again, especially as he was convinced
that she was really bored out there at Beaulieu, with Mr. Porson sick,
and his father very much occupied with his own affairs. In a moment he
made up his mind; he would go out and see her. Of course, he could ill
spare the time, but for the present the more pressing of his experiments
were completed, and he could write up his "data" there. Anyway, he would
put in a fortnight at Beaulieu, and, what is more, start to-morrow if it
could be arranged.

He went to the table and began a letter to Mary announcing that she
might expect to see him sometime on the day that it reached her. When he
had got so far as this he remembered that the dressing bell had already
rung some minutes, and ran up