oor for goggling at Mr. Ramsay. The
two men drove rapidly out to Fairfield, talking all the way, and Mr.
Ramsay stared very hard at the Brown mansion and grounds, and got a
pretty welcome from Mabel that warmed his heart not a little. What he
said to Bijou in an interview that evening of four hours is no business
of ours.

It began after quite formal greetings with, "Do you know that you are
looking most awfully well, Miss Brown?" on his part.

"You didn't dream that I cared for you, did you?" said Bijou toward its
close, anxious to reassure herself upon a point that had made the last
two years a bitterness to her.

"Oh, yes, I did. I twigged that long ago," replied he. "That is why I
cut my stick so suddenly. I couldn't support a wife then, and I wasn't
goin' to be thought a fortune-hunter, you know." It must have been that
he was forgiven the sentimental blunder that is worse than a crime,--a
want of frankness,--or how else could they have been married in six
weeks and sailed for England? Mr. Alfred Brown, being in California, did
not witness this ceremony, but Mr. Ketchum did, and "a large and
fashionable company of the _elite_ of Kalsing" (_vide_ the local paper).
And did not Mr. Ketchum give the groom a pair of trotting-horses that
afterward attracted much attention in Hyde Park? and did not Mr. Brown
present the bride with a considerable fortune on her wedding-day, which
her husband insisted should be set apart for her exclusive use and
control?

"Haven't you got any other name than Bijou?" he said to her. "That is a
most absurd name. Bijou Ramsay. What will my people say?"

"I was baptized Ellen," said she, "but I have never been called that."

"Ellen? A nice, sensible name. I shall call you that," he replied, and
kept his word.

And so the immigrant, who thought he had left England forever, went
home in a little while and is living there now in inglorious ease and
somewhat enervating luxury, while Mr. Heathcote, who thought that he was
coming out for a short visit and couldn't possibly live out of England,
is already more than half an American, a successful, practical farmer,
and, it may be added, a happy man. "Heart's Content" has been
renaissanced, papered, tiled, _portiered_, utterly transformed, and is
thought quite a show-place now and much admired; but there are some
persons who liked it better when it was only an old-fashioned Virginian
home, before their mahogany majesties the old furniture, and