jealous of his name than I am! But it's
best to be plainspoken about the matter
now, it may save some serious difficulties
hereafter. And how do you treat this
gentleman? Until I spoke to you some months
since, you ignored his presence; although
he was domesticated in your house, you
scarcely knew his personal appearance.
Since then you bow and give him an
occasional word, but you're not half so polite
to him as you are to the quadrille-bandsman
when he is in much request, or to the Bond-
street librarian when stalls for some particular
performance are scarce. I am different;
I am sick to death of 'us' and 'our set,'
and our insipid fade ways, and our frightful
conventionality and awful dulness! Our
men are even more odious than our women,
and that's saying a good deal; their
conversation varies between insolence and
inanity, and as they dare not talk the first to
me, they're compelled to fall back on the
second. When I meet this gentleman, I
find him perfectly well-bred, perfectly at
his ease, with a modest assurance which
is totally different from the billiard-table
swagger of the men of the day; perfectly
respectful, full of talk on interesting topics,
never for an instant pressing himself unduly
forward, or forgetting that he is, what he
is, a gentleman! I find a charm in his
society; I acknowledge it; I have never
sought to disguise it! The fact that he
saved my life, at the hazard of his own, does
not tend to depreciate him in my eyes!
And then, because I like him and have the
honesty to say so, I am bid to 'think of'
my relations, and 'have regard for
decency!' A little too much, upon my word!"

People used to admire Lady Caroline's
flashing eyes, but her sister-in-law had
never seen them flash so brilliantly before,
nor had her voice, even when singing its
best, ever rung so keenly clear. For once in
her life, Lady Hetherington was completely
put down and extinguished; she muttered
something about "not having meant
anything," as she made her way to the door, and
immediately afterwards she disappeared.

"That woman is quite too rude!" said
Lady Caroline to herself, ringing the bell
as soon as the door closed behind her sister-in-law.
"If she thinks to try her tempers
on me, she will find herself horribly
mistaken. One sufferer is quite enough in a
family, and poor West must have the entire
monopoly of my lady's airs! Now, Phillips,
please to go on brushing my hair!"

Meantime, the cause of all this commotion
and outbreak between these two ladies,
Walter Joyce, utterly unconscious of the
excitement he was creating, was pursuing the
even tenor of his way as calmly as the novel
circumstances of his position would admit.
Of course, with the chance of an entire
change in his life hanging over him—a
change involving marriage, residence in a
foreign country, and an occupation which
was almost entirely strange to him—it was
not possible for him 'to apply his mind
unreservedly to the work before him. Marian's
face would keep floating before him instead
of the lovely countenance of Eleanor de
Sackville, erst maid of honour to Queen
Elizabeth, who had this in common with
Marmion's friend, Lady Heron, that fame
"whispered light tales" of her. Instead of
Westhope, as it was in the old days, with
its fosse, drawbridge, portcullis, ramparts,
and all the mediævalisms which it was in
duty bound to have, Walter's fancy was
endeavouring to realise to itself the modern
city of Berlin, on the river Spree, while his
brain was busied in conjecturing the nature
of his forthcoming duties, and in wondering
whether he possessed the requisite
ability for executing them. Yes! he could
get through them, and not merely that, but
do them well, do anything well, with
Marian by his side. Brightened in every
possible way by the prospect before him,
better even in health and certainly in
spirits, he looked back with wonder on his
past few months' career; he could not
understand how he had been so calm, so
unexpectant, so unimpassioned. He could
not understand how the only real hopes
and fears of his life, those with which
Marian was connected, had fallen into a
kind of quiescent state, which he had borne
with and accepted. He could not understand
that now, when the hopes had been
aroused and sent springing within him, and
the fears had been banished, at least for a
while. For a while! for ever! the mere
existence of any fear was an injustice to
Marian! She had been true, and steadfast,
and good, and loving. She had proved it
nobly enough. The one weakness which
formed part of her character, an inability
to contend with poverty—a venial failing
enough, Walter Joyce thought, especially
in a girl who must have known, more
particularly in one notable instance, the sad
results of want of means—would never now
be tried. There would be no need for her
to struggle, no necessity for pinching and
screwing. Accustomed since his childhood
to live on the poorest pittance, Joyce looked
at the salary now offered to him as real