as you are, chick; but
the Lord knows what sort of man you would make. You take his advice and
let well alone."

Finding him in this genial frame of mind, I ventured to explain my
proposition to him and to enlist his support. He considered it with
attentive approval, and when I had finished turned to his daughter.

"What is your objection, chick?" he asked.

"It would give Doctor Berkeley such a fearful lot of work," she
answered.

"It would give him a fearful lot of pleasure," I said. "It would,
really."

"Then why not?" said Mr. Bellingham. "We don't mind being under an
obligation to the Doctor, do we?"

"Oh, it wasn't that!" she exclaimed hastily.

"Then take him at his word. He means it. It is a kind action and he'll
like doing it, I'm sure. That's all right, Doctor; she accepts, don't
you, chick?"

"Yes, if you say so, I do; and most thankfully."

She accompanied the acceptance with a gracious smile that was in itself
a large payment on account, and when we had made the necessary
arrangements, I hurried away in a state of the most perfect satisfaction
to finish my morning's work and order an early lunch.

When I called for her a couple of hours later I found her waiting in the
garden with the shabby handbag, of which I relieved her, and we set
forth together, watched jealously by Miss Oman, who had accompanied her
to the gate.

As I walked up the court with this wonderful maid by my side I could
hardly believe in my good fortune. By her presence and my own resulting
happiness the mean surroundings became glorified and the commonest
objects transfigured into things of beauty. What a delightful
thoroughfare, for instance, was Fetter Lane, with its quaint charm and
mediaeval grace! I snuffed the cabbage-laden atmosphere and seemed to
breathe the scent of the asphodel. Holborn was even as the Elysian
Fields; the omnibus that bore us westward was a chariot of glory; and
the people who swarmed verminously on the pavements bore the semblance
of the children of light.

Love is a foolish thing judged by workaday standards, and the thoughts
and actions of lovers foolish beyond measure. But the workaday standard
is the wrong one, after all; for the utilitarian mind does but busy
itself with the trivial and transitory interests of life, behind which
looms the great and everlasting reality of the love of man and woman.
There is more significance in a nightingale's song in the hush of a
summer night than in all