aid Miss Crawford's and mine!"

Bertie's incredulous amazement was visible in every line of his answer
to Percival:

"Are you both cracked--you and Judith--or am I dreaming? I have read
your letters a score of times, and I think I understand them less than I
did. Here are sweet bells jangled out of tune with a vengeance, and
Heaven only knows what all the row is about: I don't.

"Do you suppose a man never made a runaway match before? And how could I
do otherwise than as I did? Was I to stop and consult all the old women
in the parish about it--ask Miss Crawford's blessing, and get my sister
to look out my train for me and pack my portmanteau? Can't you see that
I was obliged to deceive you a little?

"And what is amiss with the marriage itself? It is true that just now
Emmeline has the money and I have none, but do you suppose I am going to
remain in obscurity all my life? A few years hence you shall own that it
was not at all a bad match for her. Old Nash is nobody, though he is
clever enough in his own way. His father was a tailor, and made a good
lot of money so. By the way, he is certainly coming round (Mr. Nash, I
mean, not my grandfather-in-law the tailor: he is dead), and if he
doesn't object, why should anybody else?

"If I have done Miss Crawford any harm, I'm very sorry of course. Can't
I help her in some way?"

The reply to Judith's letter came in a feeble, girlish handwriting. It
began: "Herbert tells me you are angry with him because he deceived you
about our marriage," and it ended, "Your affectionate sister, EMMELINE
LISLE." The writer was evidently in the seventh heaven of bliss. Her
letter was an attempt at persuading Judith, but it was sprinkled all
over with fond allusions to Bertie--"My dear, dear husband," "my own
dearest," "darlingest Herbert," "my own love;" and in one place there
was an unnecessary little parenthesis: "He is such a _dear_, you know!"
It was silly enough to be maddening, but it was wonderfully happy, with
the writer's adoration of Bertie and her serene certainty that Bertie
adored her. Clearly, no shadow of doubt had crossed Emmeline's mind.
There was not such another man in all the world as Herbert Lisle, and
she was his ideal woman. Every other girl must envy her the prize she
had won. Even his sister was jealous and angry when she found that she
held only the second place in his affections. Emmeline, elated by her
proud position, reasoned sweetly with the unreasonable Ju