considerations which led her to adopt the wise
course she had taken.

He was glad to have launched her upon a sea
where she could beat, and tack, and wear at
will, and leave him to go back to his own
thoughts.

"And so," said he, at last, "they are to be
married before Christmas?"

"Yes; that is the plan."

"And then she will return with him to India,
I take it."

She nodded.

"Poor girl! And has she not one friend in all
the world to tell her what a life is before her as
the wife of a third—no, but tenth-rate official—
in that dreary land of splendour and misery,
where nothing but immense wealth can serve
to gloss over the dull uniformity of existence,
and where the income of a year is often devoted
to dispel the ennui of a single day? India, with
poverty, is the direst of all penal settlements.
In the bush, in the wilds of New Zealand, in the
far-away islands of the Pacific, you have the free
air and healthful breezes of heaven. You can
bathe without having an alligator for your
companion, and lie down on the grass without a
cobra on your carotid; but, in India, life stands
always face to face with death, and death in
some hideous form."

"How you terrify me!" cried she, in a voice
of intense emotion.

"I don't want to terrify, I want to warn. If
it were ever my fate to have a marriageable
daughter, and some petty magistrate—some
small district judge in Bengal—asked her for a
wife, I'd say to my girl, 'Go and be a farm servant
in New Caledonia. Milk cows, rear lambs, wash,
scrub, toil for your daily bread in some land
where poverty is not deemed the "plague;"
but don't encounter life in a society where to
be poor is to be despicable—where narrow means
are a stigma of disgrace.'"

"Joseph says nothing of all this. He writes
like one well contented with his lot, and very
hopeful for the future."

"Hasn't your niece some ten or twelve
thousand pounds?"

"Fifteen."

"Well, he presses the investment on which he
asks a loan, just as any other roguish speculator
would, that's all."

"Oh, don't say that, Mr. Calvert. Joseph is
not a rogue."

"Men are rogues according to their
capacity. The clever fellows do not need roguery,
and achieve success just because they are
stronger and better than their neighbours; but
I don't want to talk of Loyd; every consideration
of the present case can be entertained without
him."

"How can that be, if he is to be her
husband?"

"Ah! If—if. My dear old friend, when
an if comes into any question, the wisest way is
not to debate it, for the simple reason that
applying our logic to what is merely imaginary
is very like putting a superstructure of masonry
over a house of cards. Besides, if we must talk
with a hypothesis, I'll put mine, 'Must she of
necessity marry this man, if he insist on it?'"

"Of course; and the more, that she loves
him."

"Loves him! Have I not told you that you
are mistaken there? He entrapped her at first
into a half admission of caring for him, and,
partly from a sense of honour, and partly from
obstinacy, she adheres to it. But she does so
just the way people cling to a religion, because
nobody has ever taken the trouble to convert
them to another faith."

"I wish you would not say these things to
me," cried she, with much emotion. "You have
a way of throwing doubts upon everything and
everybody, that always makes me miserable,
and I ask myself afterwards, Is there nothing to
be believed? Is no one to be trusted?"

"Not a great many, I'm sorry to say," sighed
he. "It's no bright testimony to the goodness
of the world, that the longer a man lives the
worse he thinks of it. I surely saw the flutter
of white muslin through the trees yonder. Oh
dear, how much softer my heart is than I knew
of! I feel a sort of choking in the throat as I
draw near this dear old place. Yes, there she is
—Florence herself. I remember her way of
waving a handkerchief. I'll answer it as I
used to do." And he stood up in the boat and
waved his handkerchief over his head with a
wide and circling motion. "Look! She sees it,
and she's away to the house at speed. How
she runs! She could not have mustered such
speed as that when I last saw her."

"She has gone to tell Milly, I'm certain."

He made no reply, but covered his face with
his hands, and sat silent and motionless.
Meanwhile the boat glided up to the landing-place,
and they disembarked.

"I thought the girls would have been here
to meet us," said Miss Grainger, with a pique
she could not repress; but Calvert walked along
at her side, and made no answer.

"I think you know your way here," said she
with a smile, as she motioned him towards the
drawing-room.

NEW WORK BY MR. DICKENS,
In Monthly Parts, uniform with the Original Editions of
"Pickwick," " Copperfleld," &c.
Now publishing, PART II., price 1s., of
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
IN TWENTY MONTHLY PARTS.
With Illustrations by MARCUS STONE.
London: CHAPMAN and HALL, 193, Piccadilly.