d wait for her twice seven years, as Jacob waited, and toil for
her, as Jacob toiled,' answered Hammond, 'but I should like to call her
my own to-morrow, if it were possible.'

Nothing could be happier or gayer than the tea-drinking in Lady
Maulevrier's room on the following afternoon. Her ladyship having once
given way upon a point knew how to make her concession gracefully. She
extended her hand to Mr. Hammond as frankly as if he had been her own
particular choice.

'I cannot refuse my granddaughter to her brother's dearest friend,' she
said, 'but I think you are two most imprudent young people.'

'Providence takes care of imprudent lovers, just as it does of the birds
in their nests,' answered Hammond, smiling.

'Just as much and no more, I fear. Providence does not keep off the cat
or the tax-gatherer.'

'Birds must take care of their nests, and husbands must work for their
homes,' argued Hammond. 'Heaven gives sweet air and sunlight, and a
beautiful world to live in.'

'I think,' said Lady Maulevrier, looking at him critically, 'you are
just the kind of person who ought to emigrate. You have ideas that would
do for the Bush or the Yosemite Valley, but which are too primitive for
an over-crowded country.'

'No, Lady Maulevrier, I am not going to steal your granddaughter. When
she is my wife she shall live within call. I know she loves her native
land, and I don't think either of us would care to put an ocean between
us and rugged old Helvellyn.'

'Of course having made idiots of yourselves up there in the fog and the
storm you are going to worship the mountain for ever afterwards,' said
her ladyship laughing.

Never had she seemed gayer or brighter. Perhaps in her heart of hearts
she rejoiced at getting Mary engaged, even to so humble a suitor as
fortuneless John Hammond. Ever since the visit of the so-called Rajah
she had lived as Damocles lived, with the sword of destiny--the avenging
sword--hanging over her by the finest hair. Every time she heard
carriage wheels in the drive--every time the hall-door bell rang a
little louder than usual, her heart seemed to stop beating and her whole
being to hang suspended on a thread. If the thread were to snap, there
would come darkness and death. The blow that had paralysed one side of
her body must needs, if repeated, bring total extinction. She who
believed in no after life saw in her maimed and wasting arm the
beginning of death. She who recognised only the lif