waltz or to polka together; but it was always with the distinct
understanding that they were doing what mammas would approve of, and family
solicitors of good conscience could ratify. No tyrannical sentimentality,
no uncontrollable gush of sympathy, no irresistible convictions about all
future happiness being dependent on one issue, overbore these natures, and
made them insensible to title, and rank, and station, and settlements.

In one word, Atlee, after due consideration, satisfied his mind that,
though a man might gain the affections of the doctor's daughter or the
squire's niece, and so establish him as an element of her happiness that
friends would overlook all differences of fortune, and try to make some
sort of compromise with Fate, all these were unsuited to the sphere in
which Lady Maude moved. It was, indeed, a realm where this coinage did not
circulate. To enable him to address her with any prospect of success, he
should be able to show--ay, and to show argumentatively--that she was, in
listening to him, about to do something eminently prudent and worldly-wise.
She must, in short, be in a position to show her friends and 'society' that
she had not committed herself to anything wilful or foolish--had not been
misled by a sentiment or betrayed by a sympathy; and that the well-bred
questioner who inquired, 'Why did she marry Atlee?' should be met by an
answer satisfactory and convincing.

In the various ways he canvassed the question and revolved it with himself,
there was one consideration which, if I were at all concerned for his
character for gallantry, I should be reluctant to reveal; but as I feel
little interest on this score, I am free to own was this. He remembered
that as Lady Maude was no longer in her first youth, there was reason to
suppose she might listen to addresses now which, some years ago, would have
met scant favour in her eyes.

In the matrimonial Lloyd's, if there were such a body, she would not have
figured A No. 1; and the risks of entering the conjugal state have probably
called for an extra premium. Atlee attached great importance to this fact;
but it was not the less a matter which demanded the greatest delicacy of
treatment. He must know it, and he must not know it. He must see that she
had been the belle of many seasons, and he must pretend to regard her as
fresh to the ways of life, and new to society. He trusted a good deal to
his tact to do this, for while insinuating to her the