in earnest. I shall take the first that comes after
I have quite made up my mind. You'll think it very horrible, but that
is really what I shall do. After all, a husband is very much like a
house or a horse. You don't take your house because it's the best
house in the world, but because just then you want a house. You go
and see a house, and if it's very nasty you don't take it. But if
you think it will suit pretty well, and if you are tired of looking
about for houses, you do take it. That's the way one buys one's
horses,--and one's husbands."

"And you have not made up your mind yet?"

"Not quite. Lady Baldock was a little more decent than usual just
before I left Baddingham. When I told her that I meant to have a pair
of ponies, she merely threw up her hands and grunted. She didn't
gnash her teeth, and curse and swear, and declare to me that I was a
child of perdition."

"What do you mean by cursing and swearing?"

"She told me once that if I bought a certain little dog, it would
lead to my being everlastingly--you know what. She isn't so squeamish
as I am, and said it out."

"What did you do?"

"I bought the little dog, and it bit my aunt's heel. I was very sorry
then, and gave the creature to Mary Rivers. He was such a beauty! I
hope the perdition has gone with him, for I don't like Mary Rivers
at all. I had to give the poor beasty to somebody, and Mary Rivers
happened to be there. I told her that Puck was connected with
Apollyon, but she didn't mind that. Puck was worth twenty guineas,
and I daresay she has sold him."

"Oswald may have an equal chance then among the other favourites?"
said Lady Laura, after another pause.

"There are no favourites, and I will not say that any man may have a
chance. Why do you press me about your brother in this way?"

"Because I am so anxious. Because it would save him. Because you are
the only woman for whom he has ever cared, and because he loves you
with all his heart; and because his father would be reconciled to him
to-morrow if he heard that you and he were engaged."

"Laura, my dear--"

"Well."

"You won't be angry if I speak out?"

"Certainly not. After what I have said, you have a right to speak
out."

"It seems to me that all your reasons are reasons why he should marry
me;--not reasons why I should marry him."

"Is not his love for you a reason?"

"No," said Violet, pausing,--and speaking the word in the lowest
possible whisper. "If he did not lo