Having secured his bride, his whole being seemed concentrated on the economic arrangements of his new household. He was like a miser who has indulged a whim in buying a pretty tame bird, and begrudges his pet any but the cheapest cage and the commonest food. That Sir George's bird would rebel against its ugly prison and uninviting fare, never once occurred to him. On the contrary, he was always chuckling over Kitty's good luck, and congratulating himself for disinterestedly making her the mistress of his house and the partner of his fortunes. He dared not talk to Ella in this strain; but "out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh," and Ella, perforce, heard much that was unpalatable to her.

To his bride elect he was more communicative, and a person less good-natured than Miss Kitty Silver must have resented his prosaic, not to say indelicate way of putting things. For instance, his eye fell by chance one day on an advertisement in the Times newspaper, headed A Trousseau for Twenty Pounds, which he cut out and brought to Kitty in high glee. After all, a penniless wife was not so very expensive a luxury, if her wants could be kept within reasonable bounds, and a trousseau for twenty pounds was certainly reasonable!

"What is your opinion?" he asked of Kitty, as her eye ran over the advertisement.

"It would be as well to have samples," said Miss Kitty artfully, determined not to displease her lover, and not to have the trousseau for twenty pounds.

"That is an excellent idea. Ah! you will not be imposed upon, I see. If Ella were only like you! but don't say a word to her about this advertisement, for she would think me much too miserly and interfering. And what about your allowance in the future?"

"That is for you to determine," Kitty answered.

"Nonsense! What can a man know about the price of ladies' clothes? I only know that I have heard my poor mother say, she and her five sisters had to dress upon thirty pounds a year each; and they were of the very best blood in England."

Kitty cast down her eyes very meekly.

"If I had only myself to consider, I could dress upon almost any sum," she said: "but, as your wife, I must keep up a certain appearance."

"Oh! these women, these women!" sighed Sir George Bartelotte, "how they befool us with their handsome eyes and insinuating ways!" Then he waited for what Kitty should say, quaking with fear, and determined at any cost to hold his own.

"Pray understand that I wish to avoid meanness on the one hand as well as indiscretion on the other," he said, at last growing impatient. "Tell me in plain English what a 'certain appearance' means in L. S. D. ?”

Kitty still paused irresolute.

"Would a hundred pounds a year hit the mark, eh?” asked her lover, eagerly. "If a hundred pounds isn't liberal for a poor devil like myself, I don't know what is."

"O, Sir George!" Kitty said, smiling sweetly; "as if the beggar-maid did not accept whatever King Cophetua chose to bestow upon her, and be thankful!"

"But it is better to be business-like and know where we are. I always like to know where I am in money matters," said the bridegroom elect, eagerly. "Can you dress like a lady, and keep your temper on an allowance of a hundred pounds a year?" Kitty burst out laughing, and laying one little hand on Sir George's arm, looked up comically and caressingly into his face.

"I should make a point of being good-tempered," she answered, “but I can't answer for the other. You see, it takes twice as much stuff to make me a gown as it does most women -I am so tall, so unfortunately tall," she repeated, rearing her neck and surveying herself from head to foot with a very pardonable amount of satisfaction.

This little bit of coquetry so fascinated Sir George, that he committed himself to an ebullition of generosity on the spot. "On my soul," he said, "I can refuse you nothing. Well, then, let us say a hundred and fifty. That will do, won't it?"

And poor Kitty, whose ambitions had aimed much higher, felt compelled to say Yes, and look delighted. How often in the day was she obliged to say Yes, and look delighted, when her inmost heart was full of rebellion!

The matter of allowance being settled to Sir George's entire satisfaction, another no less important filled his mind. Since the fact of his engagement to Kitty had become an accepted one, she had assumed a sort of half-playful, half-serious, wifelike manner towards him, that he found inexpressibly bewitching. If only bewitching things did not interfere with one's purse! For instance, no sooner was Kitty put in the sort of authority over him which the position of affianced wife implies, than she began to scold and tease him about his shabby clothes. She attached that overweening importance to appearances which people of inferior or uncertain breeding are sure to do, and thought it an affair of exceeding importance whether or not Sir George wore a threadbare coat, or a hat that cost less than his neighbour's. Of course, it flattered her elderly lover mightily to be told that he looked well in such and such a dress, and ill in another; but what Kitty found becoming was sure to cost the most money, and love versus economy waged fierce war in the baronet's heart.

Had he kept his own counsel, all would have been well; but he was so anxious to approve himself generous in the eyes of the world, that his meanness became more apparent than ever. First he went to Mr Tyrrell for advice, then to Lady Gardiner, and so on, making the complete round of his acquaintance, till soon not a creature on board but knew what was passing in his mind.

"That dear girl," he said once to Lady Gardiner, "has the most astounding capacity of any woman I ever knew. Between ourselves, few young ladies would realise her position as she does; for no matter how charming and handsome a penniless girl may be, the man who marries her makes a sacrifice."

"Under some circumstances," said Lady Gardiner, smiling. She bore Kitty no grudge for having superseded her daughter Constance, and thought it a good opportunity to take down the baronet's vanity.

"Exactly," Sir George replied; "and, devoted as I am to dear Ella's friend, I can but feel that the sacrifice entailed upon me is enormous. Miss Silver has not a penny-absolutely not a penny!"

"O, Sir George! what is money in comparison to her many gifts and sweet temper?"

It was not to be expected of Lady Gardiner, the mother of fading unmarried daughters, to add-" her beauty."

"True; but the predicament in which I find myself is most trying to a man's judgment. How can I behave so as to prove my devotion to Kitty, and at the same time avoid parsimony and lavishness? Now, if you were to give my dear Kitty a little motherly advice, I should be more grateful than I can tell you."

"But it seems to me that she is too sensible to need any counsel of mine."

"She has certainly showed admirable discretion in dealing with the question of our domestic arrangements hitherto; but the misgiving crosses my mind whether she may not sometimes think me over-cautious in money matters. I am a poor man, Lady Gardiner—a very poor man; and it is my earnest wish to prevent Kitty from feeling any disappointment in the future. I wish you would enlighten her mind as to the possibility of baronets being poor as well as artists and authors, and the people she has lived among."

"I must think your poverty is a pet bugbear of your own, dear Sir George," Lady Gardiner answered, incredulously; "but I will pour any amount of doleful tales into Kitty's ears about out-of-elbow aristocracy, if you like."

"Indeed, you are wrong," cried George; then with an expression of alarm-"I am as poor as any church mouse going; and if it were not for Ella's sake-and another consideration equally weighty-ahem-I would never have permitted myself to dream of marrying again. Pray do not inoculate Kitty with such notions."

"Did I not promise to conjugate the verb-To want money -in all its moods and tenses for Miss Silver's benefit?” asked Lady Gardiner, saucily. "I'm not good at grammer, but I know that conjugation by heart."

And then she began-" To want money.

"Very active verb indeed-governing all cases of personal pronouns ; declined as much as possible :

I want money,

Thou wantest money,

He wants money."

Sir George interrupted her a little pettishly, thinking her conduct rather flippant.

"It would be more to the purpose if you could persuade Kitty that a lady's dress needn't cost more than a hundred pounds a year!" he said. "She has made me promise to allow her half as much again, but I am convinced that it is an extravagance!" Of course this story went the round of the ladies, and reached the ears of one or two of the men. The former mostly blamed Kitty, the latter pitied her. But Kitty did not as yet pity herself.

CHAPTER LIX.

66 THIS, MY SON, WAS LOST AND IS FOUND." "THERE is always one pill you cannot swallow," was a favourite proverb of Mrs Cornford's, and it applied to herself with full force throughout the long summer of suspense that followed her unlucky spring. For the fresh green leaves of the Kensington Gardens grew brown and sere, and the tide of fashionable life was slowly ebbing under the glare of a July sun, and the Fulham fields were covered with clouds of heat and dust; yet Perry gave no sign. Mrs Cornford had swallowed a great many bitter pills during the period of her lifetime with a tolerably good grace. She had been hardly used. by an indifferent husband, had been imposed upon by the shiftless and shameless of her kith and kin, and trodden under foot by such of them as were doing well in the world; she had experienced enough and to spare of the ills of poverty; but kindliness of heart and abundance of natural spirits had never once abandoned her. "He who can't kill a flea isn't worth a flea," she would say, in allusion to all minor troubles, and would console herself for great ones by a string of aphorisms, such as When I've the making of the world, says the shrimp to the shrimper, you shall be I and I'll be you; but till then, eat me, and obey the laws of nature.

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