kes two thousand a year;
and he shall call your one in; but he must live in Mayfair. Why, Rosie,
you would not be such a goose as to live in those places--they are quite
gone by."

"I shall do whatever you advise me, dear. Oh, what a comfort to have a
dear friend: and six months married, and knows things. How richly it is
trimmed! Why, it is nearly all trimmings."

"That is the fashion."

"Oh!"

And after that big word there was no more to be said.

These two ladies in their conversation gravitated towards dress, and
fell flat on it every half-minute. That great and elevating topic held
them by a silken cord, but it allowed them to flutter upwards into other
topics; and in those intervals, numerous though brief, the lady who had
been married six months found time to instruct the matrimonial novice
with great authority, and even a shade of pomposity. "My dear, the way
ladies and gentlemen get a house--in the first place, you don't go about
yourself like that, and you never go to the people themselves, or you
are sure to be taken in, but to a respectable house-agent."

"Yes, dear, that must be the best way, one would think."

"Of course it is; and you ask for a house in Mayfair, and he shows you
several, and recommends you the best, and sees you are not cheated."

"Thank you, love," said Rosa; "now I know what to do; I'll not forget a
word. And the train so beautifully shaped! Ah! it is only in London or
Paris they can make a dress flow behind like that," etc., etc.

Dr. Staines came back to dinner in good spirits; he had found a house in
Harewood Square; good entrance hall, where his gratuitous patients might
sit on benches; good dining-room where his superior patients might wait;
and good library, to be used as a consulting-room. Rent only eighty-five
pounds per annum.

But Rosa told him that would never do; a physician must be in the
fashionable part of the town.

"Eventually," said Christopher; "but surely at first starting--and you
know they say little boats should not go too far from shore."

Then Rosa repeated all her friend's arguments, and seemed so unhappy at
the idea of not living near her, that Staines, who had not yet said
the hard word "no" to her, gave in; consoling his prudence with the
reflection that, after all, Mr. Cole could put many a guinea in his
way, for Mr. Cole was middle-aged,--though his wife was young,--and had
really a very large practice.

So next day, the newly-wedded pair c