ideas on so many things requires all the assistance he can get. You
should look out for money and connection."

"Sophia Furnival, for instance."

"No; she would not suit you. I perceive that now."

"So I supposed. Well, my dear fellow, we shall not come to
loggerheads about that. She is a very fine girl, and you are welcome
to the hatful of money--if you can get it."

"That's nonsense. I'm not thinking of Sophia Furnival any more than
you are. But if I did it would be a proper marriage. Now--" And then
he went on with some further very sage remarks about Miss Snow.

All this was said as Felix Graham was lying with his broken bones in
the comfortable room at Noningsby; and to tell the truth, when it was
so said his heart was not quite at ease about Mary Snow. Up to this
time, having long since made up his mind that Mary should be his
wife, he had never allowed his thoughts to be diverted from that
purpose. Nor did he so allow them now,--as long as he could prevent
them from wandering.

But, lying there at Noningsby, thinking of those sweet Christmas
evenings, how was it possible that they should not wander? His friend
had told him that he did not love Mary Snow; and then, when alone,
he asked himself whether in truth he did love her. He had pledged
himself to marry her, and he must carry out that pledge. But
nevertheless did he love her? And if not her, did he love any other?

Mary Snow knew very well what was to be her destiny, and indeed had
known it for the last two years. She was now nineteen years old,--and
Madeline Staveley was also nineteen; she was nineteen, and at twenty
she was to become a wife, as by agreement between Felix Graham and
Mr. Snow, the drunken engraver. They knew their destiny,--the future
husband and the future wife,--and each relied with perfect faith on
the good faith and affection of the other.

Graham, while he was thus being lectured by Staveley, had under
his pillow a letter from Mary. He wrote to her regularly--on every
Sunday, and on every Tuesday she answered him. Nothing could be more
becoming than the way she obeyed all his behests on such matters;
and it really did seem that in his case the moulded wife would turn
out to have been well moulded. When Staveley left him he again read
Mary's letter. Her letters were always of the same length, filling
completely the four sides of a sheet of note paper. They were
excellently well written; and as no one word in them was ever
alter