part of the compact. He knew little of her outward history, nothing of her inner existence; and he would never know. She had written new chronicles over those dear pages of her old life inscribed with Perry's and Dr Norman's name-the first a poem, the second a scripture; and if at times a tear fell over the palimpsest, no prying eyes should see her weep.

How far off and distant the old life and the old loves seemed to her now! She had never before looked upon them as vanished beyond recall; but now, by her marriage, they had become so without a doubt. Well, the last would suffer no more at her hands; and the first had been embittered by the consciousness of wrong! And she should rest on her oars at last.

What must occupy her mind now was the duty she owed to Sir George, by whom rest, ease, and contentment-as she thought had come. She determined to make his life happier if she could, and to be to him in all things a true and loving wife. He came up to her, all smiles and good-humour, accompanied by the captain, who was desirous of paying his respects to Lady Bartelotte. Kitty found him a delightful person, and forgot all painful retrospection for a time in the sensation of her newly-acquired dignity.

Yes, it was certainly pleasant to be Lady Bartelotte. She thought she had chosen the right casket.

CHAPTER LXV.

THE BOHEMIAN WEDDING.

HAVING obtained Dr Norman's consent to his suit, Perry could not rest till he had mooted the subject of marriage. There was no sort of moderation in the young man's character; and the more easily did he obtain his inch, the more fractiously did he demand his ell. He was, as he said, growing a little tired of shams ;" and soap and water," Mrs Cornford would put in wickedly. Whereupon Perry declared that he liked soap and water well enough when not forced upon him, especially in cold weather.

"Well, well," rejoined Polly, "marry as soon as you can, if

you can't marry as soon as you like. But you know that the devil's in an empty purse, and I fear that's the condition of yours."

Perry hit on a scheme. He sold the picture which had been intended to awaken terrors in Kitty's guilty mind to a strolling-player-who exhibited it in the provinces as The Avenged Lover. He cleared out his studio of every marketable sketch and study he could well spare, and as much bric-ùbrac as he could bring his mind to part with. He sold his Spanish cloak, his Arab horse-trappings, his least valuable photographs and engravings. He borrowed a hundred pounds on his half-finished Academy picture. Then he seized Dr Norman by the button one Saturday evening and spoke out. He had a little money, he said, with which to furnish a house. Laura's requirements were as modest as his own. Surely Dr Norman could now say nothing against the marriage?

Dr Norman knew not how to resist the young man's pleading; and Perry, having forced in the thin end of the wedge, by a well-directed tap or two, secured it firmly.

He had seen the announcement of Kitty's marriage to Sir George Bartelotte in the newspaper, and if the iron did not enter into his soul, something very much akin to malice took possession of his heart. Poor Perry was by nature as harmless a being as Heaven had ever created; but would not an angel have resented Kitty's conduct? His first impulse, therefore, was a pure, unalloyed, childish feeling of spitefulness.

Kitty had trodden upon him as if he had been a worm. He would show her, forthwith, that there were poorer creatures than he in the world, and that others held in esteem the abject thing she despised. So, for once in his life he painted zealously; and the result was the completion of his Academy picture.

Before the paint was fairly dry, he sent out Mary Hann for a cab, and drove off with his picture to the Addison Road in triumph.

"If that does not bring the doctor round," he said to Polly Cornford, "nothing will;" and Polly said she thought it would bring the doctor round.

"Please forgive my untidy appearance," Perry said to Dr

Norman; "I was too anxious to have your opinion and Laura's of my picture, to think of anything else."

And the picture was advantageously placed in Laura's little drawing-room, and warm and hearty were the acclamations of his critics. It was a delightful picture; not perfect by any means, for Perry was as yet too impatient to do anything perfectly; but it was delightful in the sense of being informed with fresh, untired, passionate genius. Dr Norman's faith in Perry -which had been a little shaken of late by the undue earnestness the young man threw into the most trifling things-now rose.

"It is a good picture; and I congratulate you, Mr Perugino," he said; "with your gifts, you ought to rise to a very high position in your art."

"Such is my ambition, sir," Perry answered.

Then, finding himself alone with his future father-in-law, he added, with great gravity-"But a man is sure to lag behind others so long as he remains a bachelor."

And he replied to all Dr Norman's arguments with such winning sophisms, and Dr Norman remembered his own early marriage with so much tenderness, that at last his scruples gave way.

"I have told you all along," he said, that my portion."

"Oh, sir, as if I expected that "

child has no

"But you might reasonably have expected it, had things gone well with me. All, however, that lies in my power to do will I do most gladly. You and Laura will naturally begin housekeeping on a small scale ".

"I am sure we should be happy in a two-pair back in Seven Dials," Perry said, with fervour.

"I don't agree with you there. But I will allow Laura a hundred a year, and a little money to help to furnish a house, and you must do the rest."

Perry was in raptures.

"I trust, when you commit yourself to Laura's keeping, that she will take care of your health," the doctor added kindly. "I fear you have been shutting yourself up too much of late.

Perry confessed that he had been imprudent for the last

fortnight, but promised to be more careful in future, and made a secret vow to think twice before encountering Laura's father in broad daylight. The truth of the matter was that his present life was a feverish one. He led a dual existenceloving Laura with his better self, hating Kitty with his worst; and naturally the unhealthy moral diet disagreed with him. And -must it be confessed ?-our poor Perry differed sadly from ordinary heroes of fiction in the matter of sinews and muscular perfection. Gifted and graceful as he was, he possessed neither lofty stature, nor Herculean strength, nor muscles of iron; and as his habits were sedentary and unwholesome in the extreme, he did not acquire what Nature had failed to bestow. He returned to Polly in a state of exultation bordering on frenzy. Kitty couldn't marry me because I was a poor devil," he cried; "and I'm good enough for sweet Laura Norman, who has a hundred a year! Give me a slip of paper, Polly, and I'll write out the announcement of our wedding for the Times, for Lady Bartelotte to see."

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"The doctor is willing, then?" asked Polly.

"My dear Polly, Dr Norman is a brick-God bless him! And look ye, Polly, he's going to furnish a house for us, so I can pay you the fifty pounds you lent me ages ago-in the glacial period."

"Hoity-toity-toity-tum !" said Polly. "I'm sure the world must be coming to an end when you begin to pay your debts."

Perry had seated himself at the table, and began to write"At the parish church of Kensington, on the ―th inst., Perugino Neeve, Esquire"

"Son of the late Perugino Neeve, Esquire, H.M.W.P.," put in Mrs Cornford, "which means Walking Poster to Her Majesty's Theatre. Never be ashamed of thy father, or of his trade, Perugino."

"At the parish church of Kensington," repeated Perry, impatiently, "on the th inst., Perugino Neeve, Esq. Polly, if I had only a handle to my name!"

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Well, you have taken the degree of A.S.S., I'm sure-put that."

Perry went on very gravely-" What about the address ? "

"Put Montgomery Lodge, or The Cedars, or something equally fine," Polly said; "for if you live in a seven-roomed house now-a-days, it is sure to have a name fit for a mansion." "I'll leave out the address for the present, and go on'Perugino Neeve, Esq., to Laura, eldest daughter of Edward Norman, LL.D., F.R.S., &c., &c., of Shelley House, Kent, and Muir Cottage, Kensington.' What will Lady Bartelotte say to that, I wonder?"

"As if it mattered to you? You're mighty lucky to get such a wife and such a father-in-law, and shouldn't trouble your head any more about Kitty than if you had never seen her."

"That is true, Polly," Perry said, seriously, and straightway he threw the announcement of his marriage in the fire.

Meantime, Laura was preparing for her new home as joyfully and shyly as a young bird that is enticed away from the parental nest.

"I don't deserve you in the least," Perry said to her, "but I will work like a slave for you."

"As if I wanted you to do that!" Laura made answer, her blue eyes shining with happiness.

"But I shall do it; I mean to get rich for your sake, though I know we should be happy in the dingiest alley in the Isle of Dogs."

Thus Perry talked and Laura listened, assenting to everything, believing in everything; and for the first time Mr Perugino woke up to find himself an oracle!

He had once proposed to Dr Norman that they should spend the first year or two of their married life in Italy; but to this Dr Norman firmly objected. He would do everything, he said, to promote Perry's wishes by and by; it was surely not unreasonable that he should like to have his young daughter near him for a little while longer.

So a tiny house was selected, overlooking the gardens of old Campden House, which Laura and Prissy proceeded to furnish with the three hundred pounds Dr Norman had given for the purpose. For a time Perry was in his element painting cornices, hanging pictures and brackets, doing, in