nk ear that was within his reach.

"She means to be sarcastic," he said. "You've spoiled her, Guy. If I had
had time to deliberate, though, I don't think I should ever have come to
the post. I wonder how any one stands the training."

"I'll tell you what would have suited you exactly," Livingstone
remarked--"to have been one of those men in the Arabian Nights, who wake
and find themselves at a strange city's gate, 10,000 leagues from home,
to whom there comes up a venerable vizier, saying, 'My son, heaven has
blessed me with one daughter, a very pearl of beauty; many have sought
her in marriage, but in vain. Your appearance pleases me, and I would
have you for my son-in-law.'"

"Exactly," said Forrester. "I should not have minded turning out
somebody else's child eventually--(they all did that, didn't they?)--for
such a piece of luck as to be taken in and done for off-hand, without
the trouble of thinking about it."

Instead of looking vexed, Isabel laughed merrily, and her eyes glittered
as they rested on him, full of a proud, loving happiness.

"The best of it was," Charley went on, "she was in the most dreadful
state of alarm and excitement all the way to Dover, looking out at every
station, under the impression that she should see the bridegroom there,
'dangling his bonnet and plume' (though how he was to have got ahead of
us, unless he came by electric telegraph, does not appear). What sport
it would have been! I should have liked so to have seen the 'laggard in
love' once more."

"He was not quite _that_," Isabel interrupted, rather mischievously.

"Ah! I dare say you kept him up to the traces," her husband remarked,
languidly. "You have a talent that way. What 'passages,' as Varney
called them, there must have been, eh! Guy? We won't hear your
confession now, Puss. In pity to Mademoiselle Aglaee's eyes (which are
very fine), if not to your own (which are very useful), I think you had
better go to bed. That ferocious vetturino will have us up at unholy
hours, and is not to be mitigated."

We sat talking for a little while after Isabel left us; then Forrester
rose and strolled to the window. The flood of light that poured in when
he drew the curtain was quite startling, making the three beaked oil
lamps look smoky and dim.

"I shall smoke my last cigar _al fresco_," Charley said; "I suppose it's
the correct thing to do, with such a moon as that. Won't you come, Guy?
I must not tempt you out into the night