? Love was indeed a mighty force, if it
could bring about such a change as this--the right sort of love--that is
to say, unselfish, ennobling, a love which has no thought for itself,
but lives in the happiness of another. As Arthur looked at his old
friend, and noted the softening of eye and lip, the new sweetness of
expression, there rose before his imagination another face, which for
many years had seemed to him the most beautiful in the world, but which
now appeared suddenly hard and loveless. He never realised the fact for
himself, but it was really in this moment of meeting with Esther in the
flush of her happiness that the last link was snapped in the chain which
had bound him to Rosalind Darcy.

The dream seemed to him to have lasted quite a long time, but in reality
the pause was but of a moment's duration, and had been abundantly filled
by Mellicent, who having spied Arthur's parcel was consumed with
curiosity to discover its contents.

"What's in the box?" she cried with the directness for which she was
celebrated, and Arthur picked up his parcel, and balanced it in his
hands with a roguish glance in the bride's direction.

"Something for Esther, for the bottom drawer."

"The bottom drawer! What _are_ you talking about?"

"Every engaged young woman has a bottom drawer! It's part of the
performance, and you can't be properly engaged without it. It's the
bottom drawer of the wardrobe generally, and all sorts of things live in
it--everything and anything that she can lay hands on, to put aside for
the new house. Fancy work, pictures, pottery, Christmas presents, and
bazaar gleanings--in they go, and when she has friends to tea they sit
in rows on the floor, and she undoes the wrapping, and they groan with
envy, and cry, `How sweet! How perfectly sweet! Won't it look sweet in
the drawing-room!'"

"You seem to know a great deal about it!"

"I do! I've heard about it scores of times, and of course I knew that
Esther would have a bottom drawer like the rest."

"You were mistaken then! Esther has nothing of the sort. I am to be
engaged such a short time, Arthur, that I have had no leisure to think
of such things. In any case, I don't think it is much in my line."

"Well, you needn't be so superior! If you haven't got a bottom drawer,
you have the next thing to it. Who went over the house the very day she
came home, grabbing all the things that belonged to her, and taking them
up to her room?"