t would be your manner of proceeding under the following
circumstances:--

"Wife irritable. Wife hysteric. Wife homesick. Wife unreasonable and
provoking? Wife all at once."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"My Dearest Katrine,

"If I write at once I shall just catch you before you sail. When you
are here, when I see you face to face, and after the period of truce is
over, I shall tell you how I felt when that cable arrived yesterday, and
I realised that in less than three months we should meet in the flesh.
I have felt a new man since that hour, and Dorothea says I look it. She
had already written to Bedford (at my instigation) saying that you would
probably be coming by the _Bremen_, and giving him elaborate
instructions on your behalf. No fear that he won't carry them out!
Heavens! the luck some fellows have. What would I give for the
opportunity of `looking after you' through those long, lazy days, but
I'm not jealous, Katrine--don't imagine that! Whatever you may decide
in the future, you'll play fair to me in the present. I asked for my
chance, and you've given it by agreeing to come out, so for the time
being I hold the field. I trust you utterly, with a glad heart.

"This will be the last letter you get from me, unless perhaps a line at
Aden, and I can write no more to-day, dear. My heart is too full...

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

The new house had been found; a sunny, airy, sufficiently spacious
house, and the bride-elect having graciously expressed her approval, an
army of workmen were busy with the decorations. Grizel had come to pay
a flying visit to The Glen to superintend their efforts, explaining that
though she possessed sufficient strength of character to bear with
equanimity such trial as Providence might please to send, to live with a
wrong shade of paint passed the limits of her endurance.

"If it were even the tiniest degree wrong, I'd nag at Martin till his
life was a burden," she announced, smiling the while the slow,
imperturbable smile which gave so emphatic a contradiction to her words.

"But it wouldn't be my fault!" protested Martin, trying to show
sufficient distress at the threat to satisfy Grizel's sense of dignity,
but his thanks for the effort were a grimace, and an emphatic: "It will
_always_ be your fault!" which silenced him once for all.

Grizel indeed was in her most irresponsible mood, scandalising Katrine
by refusing to