ure in the world can do so,
at least I shall have these to help me."

"Hm, hm," replied the old lady to this, looking with rather an appeased
air at the young people. "It is all very well; but I should have
preferred Bluebeard."

And now Pen, to divert the conversation from a theme which was growing
painful to some parties present, bethought him of his interview with
Huxter in the morning, and of Fanny Bolton's affairs, which he had
forgotten under the immediate pressure and excitement of his own. And he
told the ladies how Huxter had elevated Fanny to the rank of wife,
and what terrors he was in respecting the arrival of his father. He
described the scene with considerable humour, taking care to dwell
especially upon that part of it which concerned Fanny's coquetry and
irrepressible desire of captivating mankind; his meaning being, "You
see, Laura, I was not so guilty in that little affair; it was the girl
who made love to me, and I who resisted. As I am no longer present, the
little siren practises her arts and fascinations upon others. Let that
transaction be forgotten in your mind, if you please; or visit me with a
very gentle punishment for my error."

Laura understood his meaning under the eagerness of his explanations.
"If you did any wrong, you repented, dear Pen," she said; "and you
know," she added, with meaning eyes and blushes, "that I have no right
to reproach you."

"Hm!" grumbled the old lady; "I should have preferred Bluebeard."

"The past is broken away. The morrow is before us. I will do my best to
make your morrow happy, dear Laura," Pen said. His heart was humbled by
the prospect of his happiness: it stood awestricken in the contemplation
of her sweet goodness and purity. He liked his wife better that she had
owned to that passing feeling for Warrington, and laid bare her generous
heart to him. And she--very likely she was thinking, "How strange it is
that I ever should have cared for another! I am vexed almost to think I
care for him so little, am so little sorry that he is gone away. Oh, in
these past two months how I have learned to love Arthur! I care about
nothing but Arthur: my waking and sleeping thoughts are about him; he is
never absent from me. And to think that he is to be mine, mine! and that
I am to marry him, and not to be his servant as I expected to be only
this morning; for I would have gone down on my knees to Blanche to beg
her to let me live with him. And now--Oh, it is too m