bet both my ears that the reason he was so bearish and hateful, was because some pretty girl had flirted with him outrageously.  He turned up his ugly nose especially at ’blue stockings’; said all literary women were ’hopeless pedants and slatterns,’ and quoted that abominable Horace Walpole’s account of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s ‘dirt and vivacity.’  I really thought Gordon would throw him overboard.  I wonder what he would say if he could see you darning Uncle Allan’s socks.  Oh, Edna, dearie!  I am sorry to find you looking so pale.”

All this was uttered interjectionally between vigorous hugs and warm, tender kisses, and as Gertrude threw her bonnet and wrappings on the lounge, she continued: 

“I wished for you just exactly ten thousand times while I was abroad, there were so many things that you could have described so beautifully.  Gordon, don’t Edna’s eyes remind you very much of that divine picture of the Madonna at Dresden?”

She looked round for an answer, but her husband had left the room, and, recollecting a parcel that had been stowed away in the pocket of the carriage, she ran out to get it.

Presently she reappeared at the door, with a goblet in her hand.

“Uncle Allan, who carries the keys now?”

“Edna.  What will you have, my dear?”

“I want some brandy.  Gordon looks very pale, and complains of not feeling well, so I intend to make him a mint-julep.  Ah, Edna!  These husbands are such troublesome creatures.”

She left the room jingling the bunch of keys, and a few moments after they heard her humming an air from “Rigoletto,” as she bent over the mint-bed, under the study window.

Mr. Hammond, who had observed all that passed, and saw the earnest distress clouding the orphan’s brow, said gravely: 

“She has not changed an iota; she never will be anything more than a beautiful, merry child, and is a mere pretty pet, not a companion in the true sense of the word.  She is not quick-witted, or she would discern a melancholy truth that might overshadow all her life.  Unless Gordon learns more self-control, he will ere long betray himself.  I expostulated with him before his marriage, but for once he threw my warning to the winds.  I am an old man, and have seen many phases of human nature, and watched the development of many characters; and I have found that these pique marriages are always mournful—­always disastrous.  In such instances I would with more pleasure officiate at the grave than at the altar.  Once Estelle and Agnes persuaded me that St. Elmo was about to wreck himself on this rock of ruin, and even his mother’s manner led me to believe that he would marry his cousin; but, thank God! he was wiser than I feared.”

“Mr. Hammond, are you sure that Gertrude loves Mr. Leigh?”

“Oh! yes, my dear!  Of that fact there can be no doubt.  Why do you question it?”

“She told me once that Mr. Murray had won her heart.”