ter that they walked out arm-in-arm down to the
carriage.

There were many carriages drawn up within the quadrangle of which the
Foreign Office forms a part, but the carriage which was to take the
bride and the bridegroom away was allowed a door to itself,--at any
rate till such time as they should have been taken away. An effort
had been made to keep the public out of the quadrangle; but as the
duties of the four Secretaries of State could not be suspended, and
as the great gates are supposed to make a public thoroughfare, this
could only be done to a certain extent. The crowd, no doubt, was
thicker out in Downing Street, but there were very many standing
within the square. Among these there was one, beautifully arrayed
in frock coat and yellow gloves, almost as though he himself was
prepared for his own wedding. When Lord Llwddythlw brought Lady
Amaldina out from the building and handed her into the carriage, and
when the husband and wife had seated themselves, the well-dressed
individual raised his hat from his head, and greeted them. "Long life
and happiness to the bride of Castle Hautboy!" said he at the top of
his voice. Lady Amaldina could not but see the man, and, recognizing
him, she bowed.

It was Crocker,--the irrepressible Crocker. He had been also in the
church. The narrator and he had managed to find standing room in a
back pew under one of the galleries. Now would he be able to say with
perfect truth that he had been at the wedding, and had received a
parting salute from the bride; whom he had known through so many
years of her infancy. He probably did believe that he was entitled to
count the future Duchess of Merioneth among his intimate friends.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CROCKER'S TALE.

A thing difficult to get is the thing mostly prized, not the thing
that is valuable. Two or three additional Kimberley mines found
somewhere among the otherwise uninteresting plains of South Africa
would bring down the price of diamonds amazingly. It could hardly
have been the beauty, or the wit, or the accomplishments of Clara
Demijohn which caused Mr. Tribbledale to triumph so loudly and with
so genuine an exultation, telling all Broad Street of his success,
when he had succeeded in winning the bride who had once promised
herself to Crocker. Were it not that she had all but slipped through
his fingers he would never surely have thought her to be worthy
of such a paean. Had she come to his first whistle he might