t of Mr. Lashmar and Miss Bride.
I knew it was coming. They are admirably suited to each other. To-day
Mr. Lashmar gives his address at Hollingford, and I hope for good news
tomorrow--"

The reader hung suspended at this point. Miss Bride? Who was Miss
Bride? Oh, the lady whom he had seen once or twice with Lady Ogram; her
secretary, had he not heard? Why, then he was altogether wrong in his
conjecture about Lashmar and Miss Tomalin. He smiled at the error,
characteristic of such an acute observer of social life!

He had received a card of invitation to Lady Honeybourne's, but had by
no means thought of going down into Surrey to see an amateur open-air
performance of "As You Like It." After all, was it not a way of passing
an afternoon? And would not Miss Tomalin's running comment have a
piquancy all its own? She would have "got up" the play, would be
prepared with various readings, with philological and archaeological
illustrations. Dymchurch smiled again as he thought of it, and already
was half decided to go.

A copy of the _Hollingford Express_, posted, no doubt, by Lashmar,
informed him that the private meeting of Liberals at the Saracen's Head
had resulted in acceptance of his friend's candidature. There was a
long report of Lashmar's speech, which he read critically, and not
without envy. Whether he came to be elected or not, Lashmar was doing
something; he knew the joy of activity, of putting out his strength, of
moving others by the energy of his mind. This morning, his Highgate
lodgings seemed to Dymchurch, a very cave in the wilderness. The
comforts and the graceful things amid which he lived had bat all
meaning; unless, indeed, they symbolised a dilettante decadence of
which he ought to be heartily ashamed. He ran over the contents of the
provincial newspaper, and in every column found something that rebuked
him. These municipal proceedings, what zeal and capability they
implied! Was it not better, a thousand times, to be excited about the
scheme for paving "Burgess Lane" than to sit here amid books and
pictures, and do nothing at all but smoke one's favourite mixture? The
world hummed about him with industry, with triumphant effort; and he
alone of all men could put his hand to nothing.

His thought somehow turned upon Miss Tomalin. What was it that he found
so piquant in that half-educated, indifferently-bred girl? Might it not
be that she represented an order of Society with which he had no
acquainta