t to the ground with the shattered bowls and tea-cups.

"Will you be the Vizier's daughter, and refuse and laugh to scorn
Alnaschar, or will you be the Lady of Lyons, and love the penniless
Claude Melnotte? I will act that part if you like. I will love you my
best in return. I will do my all to make your humble life happy: for
humble it will be: at least the odds are against any other conclusion;
we shall live and die in a poor prosy humdrum way. There will be no
stars and epaulettes for the hero of our story. I shall write one or two
more stories, which will presently be forgotten. I shall be called to
the Bar, and try to get on in my profession: perhaps some day, if I am
very lucky, and work very hard (which is absurd), I may get a colonial
appointment, and you may be an Indian Judge's lady. Meanwhile. I shall
buy back the Pall Mall Gazette; the publishers are tired of it since the
death of poor Shandon, and will sell it for a small sum. Warrington
will be my right hand, and write it up to a respectable sale. I will
introduce you to Mr. Finucane the sub-editor, and I know who in the
end will be Mrs. Finucane,--a very nice gentle creature, who has lived
sweetly through a sad life and we will jog on, I say, and look out
for better times, and earn our living decently. You shall have the
opera-boxes, and superintend the fashionable intelligence, and
break your little heart in the poet's corner. Shall we live over the
offices?--there are four very good rooms, a kitchen, and a garret for
Laura, in Catherine Street in the Strand; or would you like a house
in the Waterloo Road?--it would be very pleasant, only there is that
halfpenny toll at the Bridge. The boys may go to King's College, mayn't
they? Does all this read to you like a joke?

"Ah, dear Blanche, it is no joke, and I am sober and telling the truth.
Our fine day-dreams are gone. Our carriage has whirled out of sight like
Cinderella's: our house in Belgravia has been whisked away into the air
by a malevolent Genius, and I am no more a member of Parliament than I
am a Bishop on his bench in the House of Lords, or a Duke with a garter
at his knee. You know pretty well what my property is, and your own
little fortune: we may have enough with those two to live in decent
comfort; to take a cab sometimes when we go out to see our friends, and
not to deny ourselves an omnibus when we are tired. But that is all: is
that enough for you, my little dainty lady? I doubt sometim