Philip came back. Then we went out and enjoyed the holiday. Philip did not have many holidays; so, under any circumstances, one was welcome. Under present circumstances it was especially welcome, and very agreeable.

I confess I had not received a favourable impression of London in my only previous peregrination there: that on my first arrival from the railway terminus to Doughty Street. I had gone along the Euston Road first, and then through some streets and squares; the impressions I received then were entirely of dirty vulgarity or dull gentility. That they were correct, every one who traverses these regions will, I think, agree with me.

But now it was quite different. We walked through Regent Street, and along Piccadilly, and down St. James's Street, and Pall Mall, and across a bit of St. James's Park, and went through Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament. And we lunched at a

restaurant down there, where there was the politest waiter in the world, who seemed never to have met before a human being in whose welfare he took so deep an interest as he did in mine. So kindly did he serve me with lamb, and cordially offered me mint sauce, and affectionately recommend the peas and new potatoes, and so grieved to the soul was he when I would drink beer as Philip did, instead of any of the old and choice vintages whose excellent qualities he was so thoroughly acquainted with. No doubt he saw in me a tendency to biliary disorder, and dreaded the ill effects on my system of a beverage that could only be charged twopence the half-pint for.

The shops were beautiful, and I began to feel very anxious to spend some of the hundred pounds; only that it seemed wicked to break in upon a sum that, to a poor young couple such as we were, even with Thomson's

consent.

post and its emolument of three hundred and fifty pounds per annum, ought to be quite a little fortune of ready cash. But when I communicated some of these ideas to Philip, he said it was quite nonsense for me to have any hesitation about spending it; it was given to me to spend upon myself, and upon myself it should be spent, and in no other way, with his Thus encouraged, I did spend some of the hundred pounds, buying a pretty silk dress and most becoming bonnet. Only that Philip,-who had luckily received his month's salary that day, and had it in his pocket,had to pay for the things; the shop people absolutely refusing to have anything to do with the hundred pound note; and indeed their behaviour to us when I produced it was so odd that I was very glad when we got out of the shop.

"I think they thought we were swindlers," said Philip; and though I had never seen

swindlers, I really believed they did.

Then we drove back to Holloway as we had came from it to Regent Street, in a very clean hansom cab, with a very nice lively horse. I found it a very pleasant mode of conveyance. I had wanted to go in an omnibus, not because I thought that would be a pleasant mode of conveyance, but because I saw "3d." in large letters on the outside, and I felt sure the hansom cab with the nice horse would cost a great deal more than that; and I wanted to begin at once to experience the virtuous feeling of being economical. But Philip would not consent. quite enough of omnibuses said. And indeed I did.

"You will get

by-and-by," he

CHAPTER XI.

OUR WEDDING JOURNEY.

FOR Philip and I were married very shortly after this, and took the week's holiday at Brighton; and then, returning to London, subsided into a lodging in Albert Street, Regent's Park.

And here, properly, I suppose, I should end this narrative; for with this conclusion of the doubts and difficulties of lovers in matrimony, stories generally do end.

To be sure, some people's doubts and difficulties only begin here where others' end; but such was not the case with mine, therefore I have the less excuse for continuing; and yet I am going to continue a little longer.

I will not say anything further, however, about our week at Brighton, for that I consider would be utterly uninteresting to the general