your directions for to-morrow. Now for the day
after! The day after, is the seventh day since
we sent the letter to Zurich. On the seventh
day, decline to go out walking as before, from
dread of the annoyance of meeting me again.
Grumble about the smallness of the place;
complain of your health; wish you had never come
to Aldborough, and never made acquaintance
with the Bygraves; and when you have well
worried Mrs. Lecount with your discontent, ask
her on a sudden if she can't suggest a change
for the better. If you put that question to her
naturally, do you think she can be depended
on to answer it?"

"She won't want to be questioned at all,"
replied Mr. Noel Vanstone, irritably. " I have
only got to say I am tired of Aldborough; and,
if she believes me—which she won't; I'm quite
positive, Mr. Bygrave, she won't!—she will
have her suggestion ready before I can ask
for it."

"Ay! ay!" said the captain, eagerly. " There
is some place, then, that Mrs. Lecount wants to
go to, this autumn?"

"She wants to go there (hang her!) every
autumn."

"To go where?"

"To Admiral Bartram's—you don't know
him, do you?—at St. Crux-in-the-Marsh."

"Don't lose your patience, Mr. Vanstone!
What you are now telling me, is of the most
vital importance to the object we have in view.
"Who is Admiral Bartram?"

"An old friend of my father's. My father laid
him under obligations—my father lent him
money, when they were both young men. I am
like one of the family, at St. Crux; my room is
always kept ready for me. Not that there's any
family, at the admiral's, except his nephew,
George Bartram. George is my cousin; I'm
as intimate with George as my father was with
the admiral—and I've been sharper than my
father, for I haven't lent my friend any money.
Lecount always makes a show of liking George
—I believe to annoy me. She likes the admiral,
too: he flatters her vanity. He always invites
her to come with me to St. Crux. He lets her
have one of the best bedrooms; and treats her
as if she was a lady. She's as proud as Lucifer
—she likes being treated like a lady—and she
pesters me every autumn to go to St. Crux.
What's the matter? What are you taking out
your pocket-book for?"

"I want the admiral's address, Mr. Vanstone
—for a purpose which I will explain
immediately."

With those words Captain Wragge opened
his pocket-bock, and wrote down the address
from Mr. Noel Vanstone's dictation, as follows:
' Admiral Bartram, St. Crux-in-the-Marsh, near
Ossory, Essex."

"Good!" cried the captain, closing his pocket-
book again. " The only difficulty that stood in
our way, is now cleared out of it. Patience, Mr.
Vanstone—patience! Let us take up my
instructions again at the point where we dropped
them. Give me five minutes' more attention; and
you will see your way to your marriage, as plainly
as I see it. On the day after to-morrow, you
declare you are tired of Aldborough; and Mrs.
Lecount suggests St. Crux. You don't say yes
or no on the spot—you take the next day to
consider it—and you make up your mind the last
thing at night to go to St. Crux the first thing
in the morning. Are you in the habit of
superintending your own packing up? or do you
usually shift all the trouble of it on Mrs.
Lecount's shoulders?"

"Lecount has all the trouble, of course;
Lecount is paid for it! But I don't really go, do
I?"

"You go as fast as horses can take you to the
railway; without having held any previous
communication with this house, either personally or
by letter. You leave Mrs. Lecount behind to
pack up your curiosities, to settle with the
tradespeople, and to follow you to St. Crux the
next morning. The next morning is the tenth
morning. On the tenth morning she receives
the letter from Zurich; and if you only carry out
my instructions, Mr. Vanston—as sure as you
sit there, to Zurich she goes!"

Mr. Noel Vanstone's colour began to rise
again, as the captain's stratagem dawned on him
at last in its true light.

"And what am I to do at St. Crux?" he
inquired.

"Wait there till I call for you," replied the
captain. " As soon as Mrs. Lecount's back is
turned, I will go to the church here and give the
necessary notice of the marriage. The same day
or the next, I will travel to the address written
down in my pocket-book—pick you up at the
admiral's—and take you on to London with me
to get the license. With that document in our
possession, we shall be on our way back to
Aldborough, while Mrs. Lecount is on her way out
to Zurich—and before she starts on her return,
journey, you and my niece will be man and wife!
There are your future prospects for you. What
do you think of them?"

"What a head you have got!" cried Mr. Noel
Vanstone, in a sudden outburst of enthusiasm.
"You're the most extraordinary man I ever met
with. One would think you had done nothing all
your life but take people in."

Captain Wragge received that unconscious
tribute to his native genius, with the complacency
of a man who felt that he thoroughly deserved it.

"I have told you already, my dear sir," he
said, modestly, " that I never do things by
halves. Pardon me for reminding you that we
have no time for exchanging mutual civilities.
Are you quite sure about your instructions?
I dare not write them down, for fear of accidents.
Try the system of artificial memory—count your
instructions off, after me, on your thumb and
your four fingers. To-day, you tell Mrs. Lecount
I have tried to take you in with my relatives'
works of Art. To-morrow, you cut me on the