Perhaps this was said more to himself than to Justina. She understood nothing about estates and heirships, she to whom property was an unknown quantity. She only knew that life seemed changed to a delicious dream. The hard, work-a-day world, which had not been too kind to her, had melted away, and left her in paradise. Her hand trembled beneath the touch of her lover as he clasped it close upon his arm. They walked slowly through the silent shadowy street, so narrow that the moonlight hardly reached it, and went in by the shop door, which had been left ajar, in a friendly way, for their reception. 'What a time you've been, Judy!' cried Mr. Elgood, standing before the table, stirring a bowl of green stuff, with various cruets at his elbow. 'I've had to make the salad myself.—Sit down and make yourself at home, Penwyn.—Dempson, draw the cork of that bitter. The right thing now-a-days is to pour it into a jug. When I was a young man we couldn't have too much froth.' Mrs. Dempson had smartened her usual toilet with a bow or two, and a black lace veil, which she wore gracefully festooned about her head, to conceal the curl-papers in which she had indued her tresses for to-morrow's evening's performance. She would be too tired to curl her hair by the time they got rid of this foolish young man. The supper was even gayer than the luncheon on the racecourse. There was a large dish of cold corned beef, ready sliced, from the cook's shop; a cucumber, a couple of lobsters, and a bowl of salad, crisp and oily, upon which Mr. Elgood prided himself. 'There are not many things that this child can do,' he remarked, 'but he flatters himself he can dress a salad.' The ale, being infinitely better of its kind than the champagne provided by the 'Waterfowl,' proved more exhilarating. James Penwyn's spirits rose to their highest point. He invited everybody to Penwyn Manor; promised Miss Villeroy a season's hunting; Mr. Dempson any amount of sport. They would all go down to Cornwall together, and have a jolly time of it. Not a word did he say about his intended marriage—even though elated by beer, he felt a restraining delicacy which kept him silent on this one subject. Justina was the quietest of the party. She sat by her father's side, looking her prettiest, with eyes that joy had glorified, and a delicate bloom upon her cheeks. She neither ate nor drank, but listened to her lover's careless rattle, and felt more and more that life was like a dream. How handsome he was; how good; how brave; how brilliant! Her simplicity accepted the young man's undergraduate jocosity for wit of the purest water. She laughed her gay young laugh at his jokes. 'If you could laugh like that on the stage, Judy, you'd make as good a comedy actress as Mrs. Jordan,' said her father. 'As if any one could laugh naturally to a cue,' cried Justina.