"Why, isn't he handsome; couldn't you doat on him, and fall in love with him?" "But he's married." "You fearful Catharine! of course he's married; you do take things so seriously." "Well, I'm more in the dark than ever." "There you shall stick," replied Miss Arden, lightly shaking her curls and laughing. "Married!--yes, but they don't care for one another a straw." "Have they ever told you so?" "How very ridiculous! Cannot you see for yourself?" "I am not sure: it is very difficult to know whether people really love one another, and often equally difficult to know if they dislike one another." "What a philosopher you are! I'll tell you one thing, though: I believe he has just a little liking for me. Not for his life dare he show it. Oh, my goodness, wouldn't the fat be in the fire! Wouldn't there be a flare-up! What would the Ponsonbys do? Polite letter to papa announcing that my education was complete! That's what they did when Julia Jackson got in a mess. They couldn't have a scandal: so her education was complete, and home she went. Now the first time we are out for a walk and he passes us and bows, you watch." Miss Julia Arden went to sleep directly she went to bed, but Catharine, contrary to her usual custom, lay awake till she heard twelve o'clock strike from St. Mary, Abchurch. She started, and thought that she alone, perhaps, of all the people who lay within reach of those chimes had heard them. Why did she not go to sleep? She was unused to wakefulness, and its novelty surprised her with all sorts of vague terrors. She turned from side to side anxiously while midnight sounded, but she was young, and in ten minutes afterwards she was dreaming. She was mistaken in supposing that she was the only person awake in Abchurch that night. Mrs. Cardew heard the chimes, and over her their soothing melody had no power. When she and her husband left the Limes he broke out at once, with all the eagerness with which a man begins when he has been repeating to himself for some time every word of his grievance-- "I don't know how it is, Jane, but whenever I say anything I feel you are just the one person on whom it seems to make an impression. You have a trick of repetition, and you manage to turn everything into a platitude. If you cannot do better than that, you might be silent."