y.
There is to be a little breakfast here afterwards, and
I am sure that Dan will be very happy to shake your hand.
I have asked him, and he says that as he is to be the
bridegroom he would be proud to have you as best man.

Your old sincere friend,

CLARA DEMIJOHN,--for the present.

The answer was as follows:--

DEAR CLARA,--

There's no malice in me. Since our little tiff I have been
thinking that, after all, I'm not the man for matrimony.
To sip the honey from many flowers is, perhaps, after
all my line of life. I should have been happy to be Dan
Tribbledale's bottle-holder, but that there is another
affair coming off which I must attend. Our Lady Amaldina
is to be married, and I must be there. Our families have
been connected, as you know, for a great many years, and
I could not forgive myself if I did not see her turned
off. No other consideration would have prevented me from
accepting your very kind invitation.

Your loving old friend,

SAM CROCKER.

There did come a pang of regret across Clara's heart, as she read
this as to the connection of the families. Of course Crocker was
lying. Of course it was an empty boast. But there was a savour of
aristocracy even in the capability of telling such a lie. Had she
made Crocker her husband she also would have been able to drag Castle
Hautboy into her daily conversations with Mrs. Duffer.

At the time of these weddings, the month of August, Aeolus had not
even yet come to a positive and actual decision as to Crocker's fate.
Crocker had been suspended;--by which act he had been temporarily
expelled from the office, so that his time was all his own to do
what he pleased with it. Whether when suspended he would receive his
salary, no one knew as a certainty. The presumption was that a man
suspended would be dismissed,--unless he could succeed in explaining
away or diminishing the sin of which he had been supposed to be
guilty. Aeolus himself could suspend, but it required an act on the
part of the senior officer to dismiss,--or even to deprive the sinner
of any part of his official emoluments. There had been no explanation
possible. No diminishing of the sin had been attempted. It was
acknowledged on all sides that Crocker had,--as Miss Demijohn
properly described it,--destroyed Her Majesty's Mail papers. In
order that unpardonable delay and idleness might not be traced home
to him, he had torn