uld have wished to marry
a widow, and especially a widow by whom he had already been jilted. Yes;
he thought that he could have forgiven her even that, if his own heart
had not changed; but he did not forget to tell himself again how lucky
it was for him that his heart was changed. What countess in the world,
let her have what park she might, and any imaginable number of thousands
a year, could be so sweet, so nice, so good, so fitting for him as his
own Florence Burton? Then he endeavored to reflect what happened when a
commoner married the widow of a peer. She was still called, he believed,
by her own title, unless she should choose to abandon it. Any such
arrangement was now out of the question; but he thought that he would
prefer that she should have been called Mrs. Clavering, if such a state
of things had come about. I do not know that he pictured to himself any
necessity--either on her part or on his, of abandoning anything else
that came to her from her late husband.

At half-past six, the time named by Theodore Burton, he found himself at
the door in Onslow Crescent, and was at once shown up into the
drawing-room. He knew that Mr. Burton had a family, and he had pictured
to himself an untidy, ugly house, with an untidy, motherly woman going
about with a baby in her arms. Such would naturally be the home of a man
who dusted his shoes with his pocket-handkerchief. But to his surprise
he found himself in as pretty a drawing-room as he remembered to have
seen; and seated on a sofa, was almost as pretty a woman as he
remembered. She was tall and slight, with large brown eyes and
well-defined eyebrows, with an oval face, and the sweetest, kindest
mouth that ever graced a woman. Her dark brown hair was quite plain,
having been brushed simply smooth across the forehead, and then
collected in a knot behind. Close beside her, on a low chair, sat a
little fair-haired girl, about seven years old, who was going through
some pretence at needlework; and kneeling on a higher chair, while she
sprawled over the drawing-room table, was another girl, some three years
younger, who was engaged with a puzzle-box.

"Mr. Clavering," said she, rising from her chair; "I am so glad to see
you, though I am almost angry with you for not coming to us sooner. I
have heard so much about you; of course you know that." Harry explained
that he had only been a few days in town, and declared that he was happy
to learn that he had been considered w