hands.

"I don't know. How should I? And if I did I shouldn't tell you. It
isn't a true story, of course." And she rose from her chair and walked
away into the moonlight.

"Do you mean to say," ejaculated the Violinist, who admired her
tremendously, "that she made that up in the imagination she carries
around under that pretty fluffy hair? I'd rather that it were
true--that she had picked it up somewhere."

As we began to prepare to go in, the Doctor looked down the path to
where the Divorcee was still standing. After a moment's hesitation he
took her lace scarf from the back of her chair, and strolled after
her. The Sculptor shrugged his shoulders with such a droll expression
that we all had to smile. Then we went indoors.

"Well," said the Doctor, as he joined her--she told me about it
afterwards--"was that the way it happened?"

"No, no," replied the Divorcee, petulantly. "That is not a bit the way
it happened. That is the way I wish it had happened. Oh, no. I was
brought up to believe in the proprietary rights in marriage, and I did
what I thought became a womanly woman. I asserted my rights, and made
a common or garden row."

The Doctor laughed, as she stamped her foot at him.

"Pardon--pardon," said he. "I was only going to say 'Thank God.' You
know I like it best that way."

"I wish I had not told the old story," she said pettishly. "It serves
me quite right. Now I suppose they've got all sorts of queer notions
in their heads."

"Nonsense," said the Doctor. "All authors, you know, run the risk of
getting mixed up in their romances--think of Charlotte Bronte."

"I'm not an author, and I am going to bed,--to repent of my folly,"
and she sailed into the house, leaving the Doctor gazing quizzically
after her. Before she was out of hearing, he called to her: "I say,
you haven't changed a bit since '92."

She heard but she did not answer.

VII

THE LAWYER'S STORY

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE WEDDING

THE TALE OF A BRIDE-ELECT

The next day we all hung about the garden, except the Youngster, who
disappeared on his wheel early in the day, and only came back, hot and
dusty, at tea-time. He waved a hand at us as he ran through the garden
crying: "I'll change, and be with you in a moment," and leapt up the
outside staircase that led to the gallery on which his room opened,
and disappeared.

I found an opportunity to go up the other staircase a little
later--the Youngster was an old pet of mine, and