st look you would have given me."

"And I should have done so too; and then we might have been wrong. Is
it not well as it is, Arthur?"

And then he declared that it was very well; very well, indeed. Ah,
yes! how could it have been better with him? He thought too of his
past sorrows, his deep woes, his great disappointments; of that
bitter day at Oxford when the lists came down; of the half-broken
heart with which he had returned from Bowes; of the wretchedness
of that visit to West Putford. He thought of the sad hours he
had passed, seated idle and melancholy in the vicarage book-room,
meditating on his forlorn condition. He had so often wailed over his
own lot, droning out a dirge, a melancholy vae victis for himself! And
now, for the first time, he could change the note. Now, his song was
Io triumphe, as he walked along. He shouted out a joyful paean with
the voice of his heart. Had he taken the most double of all firsts,
what more could fate have given to him? or, at any rate, what better
could fate have done for him?

And to speak sooth, fate had certainly given to him quite as much as
he had deserved.

And then it was settled that they should be married early in the
ensuing June. "On the first," said Arthur. "No; the thirtieth," said
Adela, laughing. And then, as women always give more than they claim,
it was settled that they should be married on the eleventh. Let us
trust that the day may always be regarded as propitious.

CHAPTER XIV.

MR. BERTRAM'S DEATH.

Sir Henry Harcourt had certainly played his hand badly, considering
the number of trumps that he had held, and that he had turned up
an honour in becoming solicitor-general. He was not now in a happy
condition. He was living alone in his fine house in Eaton Square; he
was out of office; he was looked on with an evil eye by his former
friends, in that he had endeavoured to stick to office too long; he
was deeply in debt, and his once golden hopes with reference to Mr.
Bertram were becoming fainter and fainter every day. Nor was this
all. Not only did he himself fear that he should get but little of
the Hadley money, but his creditors had begun to have the same fears.
They had heard that he was not to be the heir, and were importunate
accordingly. It might be easy to stave them off till Mr. Bertram
should be under the ground; but then--what then? His professional
income might still be large, though not increasing as it should have
done. And w