to see the rapid cavalcade pass along the end
of the street. Mrs. Wisp had disappeared
amongst the throng, and perhaps, that gave
her husband courage to be inconsistent; for,
as the last carriage whirled by, he said:
"Let's go and peep at the church; a
wedding's a pretty sight!"

Valentine longed to do it, so he was easy
to be persuaded; and, leaving the shop to
take care of itself, they started off in all haste.
There was a great crowd about the church-door,
but Valentine was now so vehemently
agitated that he pushed his way in amongst
them. Having effected an entrance, he
worked himself into a position whence he
could see every member of the wedding-party
clearly. The ceremony was just commencing;
but, from first to last he heard never a word
of it, for the violent singing in his ears, and
the throbbing of every nerve and vein in his
body; his face was flushed; his eyes wild,
—he scarcely knew what he did; certainly,
he did not know how he looked, and what
notice he was attracting, or he would not
have been there. The last thing he saw with
the eyes of recognition, was Rosamund issuing
from the vestry on Sir Everard's arm. She
looked quite happy; bright and smiling under
her maiden coronal of flowers; but there was
a higher expression in her face as if her wild,
girlish spirits had made pause to reflect on
this culminating day of her life.

When the lad got home, he went up-stairs
holding by the banisters; there was a racking
pain in his head, a fever-heat burning all over
him. And when Mary summoned him to
dinner, though he came, not a single mouthful
could he swallow. Mary looked at him with
pitying dismay, and Tom Unwin with
surprise.

"What ails Val that he has lost his appetite?"
said he, regarding him anxiously. "I
hope you are not going to have this horrid
fever that is stirring in Burnham. Make him
some tea, and let him get to bed, Mary."

But Valentine would sit up in his painting-room
and paint—such phantasmagoria! such
wild, ridiculous faces, like the dreams of a
delirious person! In fact, the lad was
delirious, or tending fast that way. Mary came
up and sat with him when her household
tasks were finished, but he would not talk. A
long silent hour passed between them, and
then she, thinking to comfort him in the
usual way, began to speak of Rosamund. He
turned round and stared at her wildly for a
minute, and then burst into a sudden passion
of tears. Mary was terrified, but he flung
himself down on his knees with his head in
her lap and wept like a woman in spite of all
her consolations. Probably this fit of emotion
removed the pressure from the brain and
saved him from something worse, for when
his sobs ceased through simple exhaustion,
he was more like himself again; but for
weeks a slow fever hung about his frame,
wearing him to a shadow. There was even a
time when Mary thought he would die, but
the elasticity of youth triumphed and bore
him through,—a good deal wasted and worn,
but ultimately none the worse, mentally or
morally, for the pathetic end of his first love's
dream.

           CHAPTER THE SIXTH.

SEVEN years have elapsed since the
marriage of Sir Everard and Lady Maxwell, and
the end of them finds Valentine Unwin and
his sister located in a dingy set of rooms which
they have furnished themselves on the third
story of a house in Newman Street. There are
many other people under the same roof, all
more or less noisy, irregular, and slovenly;
it is a queer place for Mary, with her orderly
tastes and habits, to be in; but she would live
anywhere with Valentine, who says this is
the artists' quarter, and for that reason
prefers it to any other. The stairs are
covered, not with carpet, but with a narrow
strip of sheet-lead; the doorway is always
wide open, being in possession of perpetual
parties of juvenile street-brigands, and on the
ground-floor is a shop with a collection of
images, tazze, picture-frames and other such
commodities for which there does not appear
to be a very brisk sale. Young men singing
spasmodic chants up the stairs very late at
night, or rather very early in the morning,
used once greatly to alarm Mary, who had a
reasonable dread of fire and of tipsy candles
going to bed, but she took little heed of them
now—she was wearing into the new life with
that ease and perfectness which is the
peculiar attribute of self-denying women.

Tom Unwin had been taken from an
unappreciating world four years before, and
then the two children gathered together the
little he had to leave them and removed to
London.

It is a supererogatory piece of information to
say that they were poor—of course, they were
poor—but they were a happy pair
notwithstanding. Mary's stone-drawing kept the
wolf from the door; she knew every turn
and double of the science of domestic economy,
and practised them with the art of a
household Machiavel.

Valentine had his three meals a-day and
neat clothing; Mary—but then it did not
mutter how she was dressed—she was so
very plain. But, plain or not, Mary was a
great favourite with the young fellows who
came up the leaded staircase to her brother's
painting-room. She was full of wise and
witty talk, and good sense too; she
had given up being nervously shy, and
made tea for visitors, by chance, with a smiling
face, which lost half its ugliness during
the process. There was one enthusiast who
said she had handsome eyes, and that if she
were only a little fatter, she would be better
looking than half the women he knew.

Valentine had not done great things as yet;
he was young and obscure, but he was diligent,