performed with an air of severe business sedateness, which
the Complete British Housewife might have assumed, and certainly would
not have rounded off and broken down in with a musical laugh, as Bella
did: she placed her husband in his chair, and placed herself upon her
stool.

'Now, sir! To begin at the beginning. What is your name?'

A question more decidedly rushing at the secret he was keeping from
her, could not have astounded him. But he kept his countenance and his
secret, and answered, 'John Rokesmith, my dear.'

'Good boy! Who gave you that name?'

With a returning suspicion that something might have betrayed him to
her, he answered, interrogatively, 'My godfathers and my godmothers,
dear love?'

'Pretty good!' said Bella. 'Not goodest good, because you hesitate about
it. However, as you know your Catechism fairly, so far, I'll let you off
the rest. Now, I am going to examine you out of my own head. John dear,
why did you go back, this evening, to the question you once asked me
before--would I like to be rich?'

Again, his secret! He looked down at her as she looked up at him, with
her hands folded on his knee, and it was as nearly told as ever secret
was.

Having no reply ready, he could do no better than embrace her.

'In short, dear John,' said Bella, 'this is the topic of my lecture: I
want nothing on earth, and I want you to believe it.'

'If that's all, the lecture may be considered over, for I do.'

'It's not all, John dear,' Bella hesitated. 'It's only Firstly. There's
a dreadful Secondly, and a dreadful Thirdly to come--as I used to say to
myself in sermon-time when I was a very small-sized sinner at church.'

'Let them come, my dearest.'

'Are you sure, John dear; are you absolutely certain in your innermost
heart of hearts--?'

'Which is not in my keeping,' he rejoined.

'No, John, but the key is.--Are you absolutely certain that down at the
bottom of that heart of hearts, which you have given to me as I
have given mine to you, there is no remembrance that I was once very
mercenary?'

'Why, if there were no remembrance in me of the time you speak of,' he
softly asked her with his lips to hers, 'could I love you quite as well
as I do; could I have in the Calendar of my life the brightest of its
days; could I whenever I look at your dear face, or hear your dear
voice, see and hear my noble champion? It can never have been that which
made you serious, darling?'

'No John, it wasn't