Lavender returned to town more in love than ever; and soon the news of his engagement was spread abroad, he nothing loath. Most of his club-friends laughed, and prophesied it would come to nothing. How could a man in Lavender’s position marry anybody but an heiress? He could not afford to go and marry a fisherman’s daughter. Others came to the conclusion that artists and writers and all that sort of people were incomprehensible, and said “Poor beggar!” when they thought of the fashion in which Lavender had ruined his chances in life. His lady friends, however, were much more sympathetic. There was a dash of romance in the story; and would not the Highland girl be a curiosity a little while after she came to town! Was she like any of the pictures Mr. Lavender had hanging up in his rooms? Had he not even a sketch of her? An artist, and yet not have a portrait of the girl he had chosen to marry? Lavender had no portrait of Sheila to show. Some little photographs he had he kept for his own pocket-book, while in vain had he tried to get some sketch or picture that would convey to the world of his friends and acquaintances some notion of his future bride. They were left to draw on their imagination for some presentment of the coming princess. He told Mrs. Lavender, of course. She said little, but sent for Edward Ingram. Him she questioned in a cautious, close and yet apparently indifferent way, and then merely said that Frank was very impetuous, that it was a pity he had resolved on marrying out of his own sphere of life, but that she hoped the young lady from the Highlands would prove a good wife to him. “I hope he will prove a good husband to her,” said Ingram, with unusual sharpness. “Frank is very impetuous.” That was all Mrs. Lavender would say. By and by, as the spring grew on, and the time of the marriage was coming nearer, the important business of taking and furnishing a house for Sheila’s reception occupied the attention of the young man from morning till night. He had been somewhat disappointed at the cold fashion in which his aunt looked upon his choice, admitting everything he had to say in praise of Sheila, but never expressing any approval of his conduct, or hope about the future; but now she showed herself most amiably and generously disposed. She supplied the young man with abundant funds wherewith to furnish the house according to his own fancy. It was a small place, fronting a somewhat commonplace square in Notting Hill, but it was to be a miracle of artistic adornment inside. He tortured himself for days over rival shades and hues; he drew designs for the chairs; he himself painted a good deal of paneling; and, in short, gave up his whole time to making Sheila’s future home beautiful. His aunt regarded these preparations with little interest, but she certainly gave her nephew ample means to indulge the eccentricities of his fancy.