I cannot doubt; a more out and out
flesh-and-blood organization would suit you better. Your life is not
half spent; the dreary time is to come. Go back to Bellevue, and get you
a kind companion, and let children climb your knees, and surround your
hearth. You would be so much happier."

"Suggest one, then. Come, help me to a wife."

"No, no, I can make no matches; but you know Madame de St. Aube is a
widow now. You were always congenial."

"Yes, but"--with a shrug of his shoulders, worthy of a Frenchman--"_que
voulez vous?_ That woman has five children already, and a plantation
mortgaged to Maginnis!"

"Maginnis again! The very name sends a chill through my bones! No, that
will never do. Some maiden lady, then--some sage person of thirty-four
or five."

"I do not fancy such. I'll tell you what! I believe I will go back and
court Bertie on some of her play-acting rounds, and make a decent woman
of that little vagabond. Because she was disappointed once, is that a
reason? Great Heavens! this tongue of mine! Cut it out, Mrs. Wentworth,
and cast it to the seals in the bay. I came very near--"

"Betraying what I have long suspected, Major Favraud. Who _was_ that
man?"

"Don't ask me, my dear woman; I must not say another word, in honor. It
was a most unfortunate affair--a sheer misunderstanding. He loved her
all the time; I knew this, but you know her manner! He did not
understand her flippant way; her keen, unsparing, and bitter wit; her
devoted, passionate, proud, and breaking heart; and so there was a
coolness, and they parted; and what happened afterward nearly killed
her! So she left her home."[6]

"I must not ask you, I feel, for you say you cannot tell me more in
honor, but I think I know. The man, of all the earth, I would have
chosen for her. Oh, hard is woman's fate!"

To the very last I have reserved what lay nearest my heart of hearts.

Three children have been born to us in California, and have made our
home a paradise. The two elder are sons, named severally for my father
and theirs, Reginald and Wardour.

The last is a daughter, a second Mabel, beautiful as the first, and
strangely resembling her, though of a stronger frame and more vital
nature. She is the sunshine of the house, the idol of her father and
brothers, who _all_ are mine, as well as the fair child of seven
summers herself.

Mrs. Austin presides, in imagination, over our nursery, but, in reality,
is only its most honored occasional