y scarlet coat I can be very proud
of it, and when I am once seated in my divan I shall find it of all
postures the easiest. Do you understand me?"

"I think so."

"Not a shade of any prejudice shall be left to darken my mind. There
shall be no feeling but that you are in truth his chosen wife. After
all neither can country, nor race, nor rank, nor wealth, make a good
woman. Education can do much. But nature must have done much also."

"Do not expect too much of me."

"I will so expect that all shall be taken for the best. You know, I
think, that I have liked you since I first saw you."

"I know that you have always been good to me."

"I have liked you from the first. That you are lovely perhaps
is no merit; though, to speak the truth, I am well pleased that
Silverbridge should have found so much beauty."

"That is all a matter of taste, I suppose," she said, laughing.

"But there is much that a young woman may do for herself which I
think you have done. A silly girl, though she had been a second
Helen, would hardly have satisfied me."

"Or perhaps him," said Isabel.

"Or him; and it is in that feeling that I find my chief
satisfaction,--that he should have had the sense to have liked such a
one as you better than others. Now I have said it. As not being one
of us I did at first object to his choice. As being what you are
yourself, I am altogether reconciled to it. Do not keep him long
waiting."

"I do not think he likes to be kept waiting for anything."

"I dare say not. I dare say not. And now there is one thing else."
Then the Duke unlocked a little drawer that was close to his hand,
and taking out a ring put it on her finger. It was a bar of diamonds,
perhaps a dozen of them, fixed in a little circlet of gold. "This
must never leave you," he said.

"It never shall,--having come from you."

"It was the first present that I gave to my wife, and it is the first
that I give to you. You may imagine how sacred it is to me. On no
other hand could it be worn without something which to me would be
akin to sacrilege. Now I must not keep you longer or Silverbridge
will be storming about the house. He of course will tell me when it
is to be; but do not you keep him long waiting." Then he kissed her
and led her up into the drawing-room. When he had spoken a word of
greeting to Mrs. Boncassen, he left them to their own devices.

After that they spent the best part of an hour in going over
the house; but even t