e being,
that Valencia should meet Elsley first.

"She is so impulsive," thought the good little creature, always
plotting about her husband, "that she will rush upon me, and never see
him for the first five minutes; and Elsley is so sensitive--how can he
be otherwise, in his position, poor dear?" So she refrained herself,
like Joseph, and stood at the door till Valencia was half-way down the
garden-walk, having taken Elsley's somewhat shyly-offered arm; and
then she could refrain herself no longer, and the two women ran upon
each other, and kissed, and sobbed, and talked, till Lucia was out of
breath; but Valencia was not so easily silenced.

"My darling! and you are looking so much better than I expected; but
not quite yourself yet. That naughty baby is killing you, I am sure!
And Mr. Vavasour too, I shall begin to call him Elsley to-morrow, if
I like him as much as I do now--but he is looking quite thin--wearing
himself out with writing so many beautiful books,--that Wreck was
perfect! And where are the children?--I must rush upstairs and devour
them!--and what a delicious old garden! and clipt yews, too, so dark
and romantic, and such dear old-fashioned flowers!--Mr. Vavasour must
show me all over it, and over that hanging wood, too. What a duck of a
place!--And oh, my dear, I am quite out of breath!"

And so she swept in, with her arm round Lucia's waist; while Elsley
stood looking after her, well enough satisfied with her reception of
him, and only hoping that the stream of words would slaken after a
while.

"What a magnificent creature!" said he to himself. "Who could believe
that the three years would make such a change!"

And he was right. The tall lithe girl had bloomed into full glory' and
Valencia St. Just, though not delicately beautiful, was as splendid
an Irish damsel as man need look upon, with a grand masque, aquiline
features, luxuriant black hair, and--though it was the fag-end of the
London season--the unrivalled Irish complexion, as of the fair dame of
Kilkenny, whose

"Lips were like roses, her cheeks were the same,
Like a dish of fresh strawberries smother'd in crame."

Her figure was perhaps too tall, and somewhat too stout also; but its
size was relieved by the delicacy of those hands and feet of which
Miss Valencia was most pardonably proud, and by that indescribable
lissomeness and lazy grace which Irishwomen inherit, perhaps, with
their tinge of southern blood; and when, in half