girl, not too light, not too prone to pleasure, not contenting
himself with bicycles, cricket matches, or billiards, and yet not wholly
given to serious matters as had been those among whom she had hitherto
passed her days. And he was one who could speak of his love with soft
winning words, neither roughly nor yet with too much of shame-faced
diffidence. And when he told her how he had sworn to himself after
seeing her that once,--that once when all before him in life was
enveloped in doubt and difficulty,--that he would come home and make her
his wife, she thought that the manly constancy of his heart was almost
divine. Of course she loved him with all her heart. He was in all
respects one made to be loved by a woman;--and then what else had she
ever had to love? When once it was arranged that he should be allowed to
speak to her, the thing was done. She did not at once tell him that it
was done. She took some few short halcyon weeks to dally with the vow
which her heart was ready to make; but those around her knew that the
vow had been inwardly made; and those who were anxious on her behalf
with a new anxiety, with a new responsibility, redoubled their inquiries
as to John Caldigate. How would Robert Bolton or Mrs. Robert excuse
themselves to that frightened miserable mother if at last it should turn
out that John Caldigate was not such as they had represented him to be?

But no one could pick a hole in him although many attempts to pick holes
were made. The question of his money was put quite at rest by the
transference of all his securities, balances, and documents to the
Boltons' bank, and the L60,000 for Polyeuka was accepted, so that there
was no longer any need that he should go again to the colony. This was
sweet news to Hester when she first heard it;--for it had come to pass
that it had been agreed that the marriage should be postponed till his
return, that having been the one concession made to Mrs. Bolton. There
had been many arguments about it;--but Hester at last told him that she
had promised so much to her mother and that she would of course keep her
promise. Then the arrangement took such a form that the journey was not
necessary,--or perhaps the objection to the journey became so strong in
Caldigate's mind that he determined to dispense with it at any price.
And thus, very greatly to the dismay of Mrs. Bolton, suddenly there came
to be no reason why they should not be married almost at once.

But the