“And who, again, are these two approaching along the sands with happy and contented faces--the gentleman erect, olive-skinned, and, since his wife has persuaded him to go clean-shaven, appearing ten years younger than when we last saw him; the lady dark and tall, with the first signs of matronly plumpness just appearing upon her _svelte_ form? They approach and hold out their hands to the happy Cabinet Minister with attitudes respectively of manly and ladylike congratulation, whilst little Robert and little Katya, uttering joyful cries of ‘Godmama’ and ‘Godpapa!’ dive into their pockets for chocolates and the other presents that they are accustomed to find there. “Who can these be? Our friend the reader will have already guessed. And so, with a moisture at the contemplation of so much happiness bedewing our eyes, we lay down the pen, pack up the marionettes into their box, ring down the curtain, and return to our happy homes, where the wives of our bosoms await us. That we may meet again, dear reader, is the humble and pious wish of your attached friend, the writer of these pages.” Thus, my dear ----, you would have me end this book, after I have taken an infinite trouble to end it otherwise. No doubt, also, you would have me record how Etta Hudson, as would be inevitably the case with such a character, eventually became converted to Roman Catholicism, and ended her days under the direction of a fanatical confessor in the practice of acts of the most severe piety and mortification, Jervis, the butler of Mr. Dudley Leicester, you would like to be told, remained a humble and attached dependent in the service of his master; whilst Saunders, Mr. Grimshaw’s man, thinking himself unable to cope with the duties of the large establishment in Berkeley Square which Mr. Grimshaw and Katya set up upon their marriage, now keeps a rose-clad hostelry on the road to Brighton. But we have forgotten Mr. Held! Under the gentle teaching of Pauline Leicester he became an aspirant for Orders in the Church of England, and is now, owing to the powerful influence of Mr. Dudley Leicester, chaplain to the British Embassy at St. Petersburg. But since, my dear ----, all these things appear to me to be sufficiently indicated in the book as I have written it, I must confess that these additions, inspired as they are by you--but how much better they would have been had you actually written them! these additions appear to me to be ugly, superfluous, and disagreeable.