“Yes, dear; but go and tell him.”

Dick went down, and said, “I’ve got no money to spare, till I get to the Cape; but Phoebe has got a box full of suits, and I made her promise to keep it out.  She will dress you like a prince, you may be sure.”

“Oh, that is it, is it?” said Reginald dryly.

Dick made no reply.

At nine o’clock they were on board the vessel; at ten she weighed anchor, and a steam-vessel drew her down the river about thirty miles, then cast off, and left her to the south-easterly breeze.  Up went sail after sail; she nodded her lofty head, and glided away for Africa.

Phoebe shed a few natural tears at leaving the shores of Old England; but they soon dried.  She was demurely happy, watching her prize, and asking herself had she really secured it, and all in a few hours?

They had a prosperous voyage:  were married at Cape Town, and went up the country, bag and baggage, looking out for a good bargain in land.  Reginald was mounted on an English horse, and allowed to zigzag about, and shoot, and play, while his wife and brother-in-law marched slowly with their cavalcade.

What with air, exercise, wholesome food, and smiles of welcome, and delicious petting, this egotist enjoyed himself finely.  He admitted as much.  Says he, one evening to his wife, who sat by him for the pleasure of seeing him feed, “It sounds absurd; but I never was so happy in all my life.”

At that, the celestial expression of her pastoral face, and the maternal gesture with which she drew her pet’s head to her queenly bosom, was a picture for celibacy to gnash the teeth at.

CHAPTER IX.

During this period, the most remarkable things that happened to Dr. and Mrs. Staines were really those which I have related as connecting them with Phoebe Dale and her brother; to which I will now add that Dr. Staines detailed Dick’s case in a remarkable paper, entitled “Oedema of the Glottis,” and showed how the patient had been brought back from the grave by tracheotomy and artificial respiration.  He received a high price for this article.

To tell the truth, he was careful not to admit that it was he who had opened the windpipe; so the credit of the whole operation was given to Mr. Jenkyn; and this gentleman was naturally pleased, and threw a good many consultation fees in Staines’s way.

The Lucases, to his great comfort—­for he had an instinctive aversion to Miss Lucas—­left London for Paris in August, and did not return all the year.

In February he reviewed his year’s work and twelve months’ residence in the Bijou.  The pecuniary result was, outgoings, nine hundred and fifty pounds; income, from fees, two hundred and eighty pounds; writing, ninety pounds.

He showed these figures to Mrs. Staines, and asked her if she could suggest any diminution of expenditure.  Could she do with less housekeeping money?