post:--

---- Club, Tuesday.

DEAREST ADELAIDE,

All right. If Chiltern can take me for a couple of nights,
I'll come down next week, and settle about the horses, and
will arrange everything.

Ever your own, with all my heart,

G. M.

"He will settle about his horses, and arrange everything," said
Adelaide, as she showed the letter to Lady Chiltern. "The horses
first, and everything afterwards. The everything, of course, includes
all my future happiness, the day of my marriage, whether to-morrow or
in ten years' time, and the place where we shall live."

"At any rate, he's coming."

"Yes;--but when? He says next week, but he does not name any day. Did
you ever hear or see anything so unsatisfactory?"

"I thought you would be glad to see him."

"So I should be,--if there was any sense in him. I shall be glad, and
shall kiss him."

"I dare say you will."

"And let him put his arm round my waist and be happy. He will be
happy because he will think of nothing beyond. But what is to be the
end of it?"

"He says that he will settle everything."

"But he will have thought of nothing. What must I settle? That is
the question. When he was told to go to his father, he went to his
father. When he failed there the work was done, and the trouble was
off his mind. I know him so well."

"If you think so ill of him why did you consent to get into his
boat?" said Lady Chiltern, seriously.

"I don't think ill of him. Why do you say that I think ill of him? I
think better of him than of anybody else in the world;--but I know
his fault, and, as it happens, it is a fault so very prejudicial to
my happiness. You ask me why I got into his boat. Why does any girl
get into a man's boat? Why did you get into Lord Chiltern's?"

"I promised to marry him when I was seven years old;--so he says."

"But you wouldn't have done it, if you hadn't had a sort of feeling
that you were born to be his wife. I haven't got into this man's boat
yet; but I never can be happy unless I do, simply because--"

"You love him."

"Yes;--just that. I have a feeling that I should like to be in his
boat, and I shouldn't like to be anywhere else. After you have come
to feel like that about a man I don't suppose it makes any difference
whether you think him perfect or imperfect. He's just my own,--at
least I hope so;--the one thing that I've got. If I wear a stuff
frock, I'm not going to despise it because it's not silk