rom the works of a younger and wilder bard, while the ladies
worked industriously at their prie-dieu chairs, or Berlin brioches, or
Shetland couvrepieds, as the case might be. The patroness of a fancy
fair would scarcely have smiled approvingly on the novel effects in
_crochet a tricoter_ produced by Miss Halliday during these pleasant
lectures.

"The rows will come wrong," she said piteously, "and Tennyson's poetry
is so very absorbing!"

Mr. Hawkehurst showed himself to be possessed of honourable, not to say
delicate, feelings in his new position. The gothic villa was his
paradise, and the gates had been freely opened to admit him whensoever
he chose to come. Georgy was just the sort of person from whom people
take ells after having asked for inches; and once having admitted Mr.
Hawkehurst as a privileged guest, she would have found it very
difficult to place any restriction upon the number of his visits.
Happily for this much-perplexed matron, Charlotte and her lover were
strictly honourable. Mr. Hawkehurst never made his appearance at the
villa more than once in the same week, though the "once a week or so"
asked for by Charlotte might have been stretched to a wider
significance.

When Valentine obtained orders for the theatre, he sent them by post,
scrupulously refraining from making them the excuse for a visit.

"That was all very well when I was a freebooter," he said to himself,
"only admitted on sufferance, and liable to have the door shut in my
face any morning. But I am trusted now, and I must prove myself worthy
of my future mother-in-law's confidence. Once a week! One seventh day
of unspeakable happiness--bliss without alloy! The six other days are
very long and dreary. But then they are only the lustreless setting in
which that jewel the seventh shines so gloriously. Now, if I were
Waller, what verses I would sing about my love! Alas, I am only a
commonplace young man, and can find no new words in which to tell the
old sweet story!"

If the orders for stalls and private boxes were not allowed to serve as
an excuse for visits, they at least necessitated the writing of
letters; and no human being, except a lover, would have been able to
understand why such long letters must needs be written about such a
very small business. The letters secured replies; and when the order
sent was for a box, Mr. Hawkehurst was generally invited to occupy a
seat in it. Ah, what did it matter on those happy nights how hac