mself,--"gone off with another man already?"
He felt himself to have been wounded in a tender part, and was
conscious of a feeling that he should like to injure the successful
lover,--blackball him at a club, or do him some other mortal
mischief. When, therefore, he received from the young lady the little
billet above given, he was much surprised. Could it be a hoax? It was
certainly the young lady's handwriting. Was he to be enticed once
again into Lombard Street, in order that the clerks might set upon
him in a body and maltreat him? Was he to be decoyed into Queen's
Gate, and made a sacrifice of by the united force of the housemaids?
Not understanding the celerity of the young lady, he could hardly
believe the billet.

When he received the note of which we have here spoken two months
had elapsed since he had seen Imogene and had declared to her his
intention of facing the difficulties of matrimony in conjunction with
herself as soon as she would be ready to undergo the ceremony with
him. The reader will remember that her brother, Mudbury Docimer, had
written to him with great severity, abusing both him and Imogene for
the folly of their intention. And Houston, as he thought of their
intention, thought to himself that perhaps they were foolish. The
poverty, and the cradles, and the cabbages, were in themselves evils.
But still he encouraged himself to think that there might be an evil
worse even than folly. After that scene with Imogene, in which she
had offered to sacrifice herself altogether, and to be bound to
him, even though they should never be married, on condition that he
should take to himself no other wife, he had quite resolved that it
behoved him not to be exceeded by her in generosity. He had stoutly
repudiated her offer, which he had called a damnable compact. And
then there had been a delightful scene between them, in which it had
been agreed that they should face the cradles and the cabbages with
bold faces. Since that he had never allowed himself to fluctuate in
his purpose. Had Sir Thomas come to him with Gertrude in one hand and
the much-desired L120,000 in the other, he would have repudiated the
lot of them. He declared to himself with stern resolution that he
had altogether washed his hands from dirt of that kind. Cabbages
and cradles for ever was the unpronounced cry of triumph with which
he buoyed up his courage. He set himself to work earnestly, if not
altogether steadfastly, to alter the whol