ompassion. 'So glad! so delighted! But why, _why_ didn't you consult
_me_?'--this complicated expression might be rendered: 'I could have
saved you from this--I _was_ so pleased to hear of it!'

And yet, in the majority of cases, these unions are not found to turn
out so very badly after all, and the misguided couple seem really to
have gauged their own hearts and their possibilities of happiness
together more accurately than the most clear-sighted of their
acquaintances.

The announcement that Ella Hylton had accepted George Chapman provoked
the customary sensation and surprise in their respective sets, and
perhaps with rather more justification than usual.

Miss Hylton had undeniable beauty of a spiritual and rather _exalte_
type, and was generally understood to be highly cultivated. She had
spent a year at Somerville, though she had gone down without trying for
a place in either 'Mods.' or 'Greats,' thereby preserving, if not
increasing, her reputation for superiority. She had lived all her life
among cultured people; she was devoted to music and regularly attended
the Richter Concerts, though she could seldom be induced to play in
public; she had a feeling for art, though she neither painted nor drew;
a love of literature strong enough to deter her from all amateur efforts
in that direction. In art, music and literature she was impatient of
mediocrity; and, while she was as fond as most girls of the pleasures
which upper middle-class society can offer, she reverenced intellect,
and preferred the conversation of the plainest celebrity to the
platitudes of the mere dancing-man, no matter how handsome of feature
and perfect of step he might be.

George Chapman was certainly not a mere dancing-man, his waltzing being
rather conscientious than dreamlike, and he was only tolerably
good-looking. On the other hand, he was not celebrated in any way, and
even his mother and sisters had never considered him brilliant. He had
been educated at Rugby and Trinity, Cambridge, where he rowed a fairly
good oar, on principle, and took a middle second in the Moral Science
Tripos. Now he was in a solicitor's office, where he was receiving a
good salary, and was valued as a steady, sensible young fellow, who
could be thoroughly depended upon. He was fond of his profession, and
had acquired a considerable knowledge of its details; apart from it he
had no very decided tastes; he lived a quiet, regular life, and dined
out and went to da