“Another fruit,” thought Rose Dillon, “of the evil which attends unequal marriages.”

“But my triumph will come!” she repeated; “Ivers must carry all before him; and who knows what may follow?”

“Still unsatisfied!” thought Rose, as she wandered through the splendid rooms and inhaled the perfume of the most expensive exotics, and gazed upon beautiful pictures, and listened to the roll of carriages, and heard the kind fond voice of Helen’s devoted husband urging the physician, who made his daily calls, to pay his wife the greatest attention.  “Still unsatisfied!” she repeated; and then she thought of one of Edward’s homely but wise proverbs—­“All is not gold that glitters;” and she thought how quite as beautiful, and more varied by the rich variety of nature, was the prospect from the parlour-window of the farm-house, that was to be her own.  “And woodbine, roses, and mignonette breathe as sweet odours as exotics, and belong of right to the cottages of England.  Ah!” continued the right-minded girl, “better is a little and content therewith, than all the riches of wealth and art without it.  If her ambition had even a great object I could forgive her; but all this for the littleness of society.”  This train of thought led her back to the days of their girlhood, and she remembered how the same desire to outshine manifested itself in Helen’s childhood.  If Mr. Stokes had been there he could have told her of the pink gingham, with her grandmother’s injudicious remark thereupon—­“Be content with the pink gingham now, Helen—­the time will come when you shall have a better;” instead of—­“Be always content, Helen, with what befits your sphere of life.”

That day was an eventful one to Rose.  In the evening she was seated opposite the window, observing the lamplighter flying along with his ladder and his link through the increasing fog, and wondering why the dinner was delayed so much beyond the usual hour—­when the little old cranky gentleman, whose keen and clever observations had given Rose a very good idea of his head, and a very bad one of his heart, stood beside her.  In a few brief words he explained, that seeing she was different to London ladies, he had come to the determination of making her his wife.  He did not seem to apprehend any objection on her part to this arrangement; but having concluded the business in as few words as possible, stood, with his hands behind him, very much as if he expected the lady he addressed to express her gratitude, and suffer him to name the day.  Firmly and respectfully Rose declined the honour, declaring “she had no heart to give,” and adding a few civil words of thanks to the old gentleman, who would have evinced more sense had he proposed to adopt, not marry her.  Without a reply, the old gentleman left the room; but presently her cousin entered, and in terms of bitter scorn, inquired if she were mad enough to refuse such an offer—­one that would immediately take her