“Have you any objections to that, my dear?” asked Lady Holmhurst.

“Oh, no, I suppose not,” said Augusta mournfully; “I seem to be public property now.”

“Very well, then; excuse me for a moment,” said the learned Doctor.  “There is a photographer close by whom I have had occasion to employ officially.  I will write and see if he can come round.”

In a few minutes an answer came back from the photographer that he would be happy to wait upon Doctor Probate at three o’clock, up to which hour he was engaged.

“Well,” said the Doctor, “it is clear that I cannot let Miss Smithers out of the custody of the Court till the photograph is taken.  Let me see, I think that yours was my last appointment this morning.  Now, what do you say to the idea of something to eat?  We are not five minutes drive from Simpson’s, and I shall feel delighted if you will make a pleasure of a necessity.”

Lady Holmhurst, who was getting very hungry, said that she should be most pleased, and, accordingly, they all—­with the exception of Mr. John Short, who departed about some business, saying that he would return at three o’clock—­drove off in Lady Holmhurst’s carriage to the restaurant, where this delightful specimen of the genus Registrar stood them a most sumptuous champagne lunch, and made himself so agreeable, that both the ladies nearly fell in love with him, and even Eustace was constrained to admit to himself that good things can come out of the Divorce Court.  Finally, the doctor wound up the proceedings, which were of a most lively order, and included an account of Augusta’s adventures, with a toast.

“I hear from Lady Holmhurst,” he said, “that you two young people are going to take the preliminary step—­um—­towards a possible future appearance in that Court with which I had for many years the honor of being connected—­that is, that you are going to get married.  Now, matrimony is, according to my somewhat extended experience, an undertaking of a venturesome order, though cases occasionally come under one’s observation where the results have proved to be in every way satisfactory; and I must say that, if I may form an opinion from the facts as they are before me, I never knew an engagement entered into under more promising or more romantic auspices.  Here the young gentleman quarrels with his uncle in taking the part of the young lady, and thereby is disinherited of vast wealth.  Then the young lady, under the most terrible circumstances, takes steps of a nature that not one woman in five hundred would have done to restore to him that wealth.  Whether or no those steps will ultimately prove successful I do not know, and, if I did, like Herodotus, I should prefer not to say; but whether the wealth comes or goes, it is impossible but that a sense of mutual confidence and a mutual respect and admiration—­that is, if a more quiet thing, certainly, also, a more enduring thing, than mere ’love’—­must and will result from them.  Mr. Meeson, you are indeed a fortunate man.  In Miss Smithers you are going to marry beauty, courage, and genius, and if you will allow an older man of some experience to drop the official and give you a word of advice, it is this:  always try to deserve your good fortune, and remember that a man who, in his youth, finds such a woman, and is enabled by circumstances to marry her, is indeed—­